United States v. Julio Rivera Rosales , 653 F. App'x 204 ( 2016 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 15-4555
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
JULIO CESAR RIVERA ROSALES, a/k/a Julio Cesar Rivera-
Rosales,
Defendant - Appellant.
No. 15-4556
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
JULIO CESAR RIVERA ROSALES,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Western
District of Virginia, at Roanoke. Glen E. Conrad, Chief
District Judge. (7:14-cr-00050-GEC-3; 7:15-cr-00013-GEC-1)
Submitted: June 23, 2016 Decided: June 28, 2016
Before MOTZ, KING, and WYNN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Robert L. Flax, ROBERT L. FLAX, P.C., Richmond, Virginia, for
Appellant. John P. Fishwick, Jr., United States Attorney,
Ashley B. Neese, Assistant United States Attorney, Ashwin
Shandilya, Third Year Law Student, Roanoke, Virginia, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:
In these consolidated cases, Julio Cesar Rivera Rosales
appeals the district court’s judgment sentencing him to 151
months in prison after he pled guilty to conspiracy to possess
with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of methamphetamine,
in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(b)(1)(A), 846 (2012), as well
as the consecutive 24-month sentence the district court ordered
upon revoking the supervised release term that was imposed for
Rosales’ previous illegal entry and narcotics convictions.
Rosales asserts that the district court impaired his right to
confront witnesses against him when it sentenced him on the drug
conspiracy conviction and revoked his supervised release, and
that the Government failed to prove by a preponderance of the
evidence the drug quantity attributable to him for his drug
conspiracy conviction. Finding no error, we affirm.
Rosales asserts that his Sixth Amendment right to confront
adverse witnesses was violated because the district court, in
fashioning an appropriate sentence, considered hearsay evidence
presented in Rosales’ presentence report and witness testimony.
This argument is meritless, however, because the Confrontation
Clause does not apply at sentencing. United States v. Powell,
650 F.3d 388, 393 (4th Cir. 2011).
Moreover, it is well established that a sentencing court
may consider “any relevant information before it, including
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uncorroborated hearsay, provided that the information has
sufficient indicia of reliability to support its accuracy.” Id.
at 392 (internal quotation marks omitted). A district court may
also “‘approximate the quantity of the controlled substance’”
attributable to the defendant using only “‘uncertain witness
estimates’” as long as it imposes a sentence “‘at the low end of
the range’” of such estimates. United States v. Crawford, 734
F.3d 339, 342 (4th Cir. 2013) (citing U.S. Sentencing Guidelines
Manual § 2D1.1 cmt. n.5; United States v. Bell, 667 F.3d 431,
441 (4th Cir. 2011)). Thus, “[f]or sentencing purposes, hearsay
alone can provide sufficiently reliable evidence of [drug]
quantity.” United States v. Uwaeme, 975 F.2d 1016, 1019 (4th
Cir. 1992). Importantly, although the court “can consider a
witness’s status as a drug user or [criminal] in assessing his
or her credibility, this Court has not found that these
attributes render a witness per se unreliable.” Crawford, 734
F.3d at 343. With these authorities in mind, we reject Rosales’
argument that the drug weight with which he was attributed was
not proven by a preponderance of the evidence. Indeed, the
record establishes that the district court relied on the
conservative drug amounts the probation officer attributed to
Rosales, which were consistent with witness accounts.
We also discern no violation of Rosales’ Confrontation
Rights as pertaining to the revocation of his previously imposed
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supervised release term. To the contrary, the record
establishes that the district court revoked Rosales’ supervised
release based on his guilty plea to the conspiracy count and his
outright admission to violating the terms of his supervised
release.
Based on the foregoing, we affirm the district court’s
judgments. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and
legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials
before this court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
AFFIRMED
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