United States v. Joe Santillan ( 2019 )


Menu:
  •               United States Court of Appeals
    For the Eighth Circuit
    ___________________________
    No. 18-3182
    ___________________________
    United States of America
    lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellee
    v.
    Joe Ramon Santillan
    lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellant
    ____________
    Appeal from United States District Court
    for the Northern District of Iowa - Ft. Dodge
    ____________
    Submitted: September 27, 2019
    Filed: December 9, 2019
    ____________
    Before GRUENDER, BENTON, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.
    ____________
    SHEPHERD, Circuit Judge.
    Joe Ramon Santillan appeals the district court’s1 denial of his motion to strike
    the government’s 21 U.S.C. § 851 notice of sentencing enhancement alleged in the
    indictment. Having jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.
    I.
    On November 30, 2017, a grand jury indicted Santillan on four counts,
    including one count of conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of a mixture or
    substance containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine which contained 50
    grams or more of actual methamphetamine in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1),
    (b)(1)(A), and 846 (Count 1). The indictment included a notice of sentencing
    enhancement, as required by 21 U.S.C. § 851, in Count 1. Santillan’s 2008 California
    felony drug conviction for possession of marijuana for sale in violation of Cal. Health
    & Safety Code § 11359 established the basis for the sentencing enhancement pursuant
    to 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A).
    In 2016, California voters enacted Proposition 64, which amended § 11359 by
    reclassifying possession of marijuana for sale as a misdemeanor for all purposes,
    punishable by not more than six months imprisonment. 2016 Cal. Legis. Serv. Prop.
    64. On November 27, 2017, after his arrest but prior to being indicted, Santillan filed
    a petition for redesignation of his California felony drug conviction pursuant to
    Proposition 64. The Superior Court of California in Los Angeles County
    redesignated Santillan’s offense to a misdemeanor in December 2017. Based on the
    redesignation, Santillan moved to strike the § 851 notice in the indictment, arguing
    that the California conviction did not qualify as a felony drug offense for purposes
    of the sentencing enhancement. The district court denied Santillan’s motion, and
    1
    The Honorable Linda R. Reade, United States District Judge for the Northern
    District of Iowa.
    -2-
    Santillan pled guilty to Counts 1 and 4,2 preserving the right to appeal the denial of
    the motion to strike. The district court sentenced Santillan to 300 months
    imprisonment.
    II.
    Santillan argues that his California conviction does not qualify as a prior
    conviction for a “felony drug offense” as required for an enhanced sentence pursuant
    to 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A) (2010). “We review the district court’s decision on the
    prior drug conviction enhancement de novo because it is a matter of statutory
    interpretation.” United States v. Funchess, 
    422 F.3d 698
    , 703 (8th Cir. 2005). “[T]he
    question of what constitutes a ‘prior conviction’ for purposes of § 841(b)(1)(A) is a
    matter of federal, not state, law. . . .” United States v. Craddock, 
    593 F.3d 699
    , 701
    (8th Cir. 2010) (per curiam). For the purposes of § 841, felony drug offense is
    defined as “an offense that is punishable by imprisonment for more than one
    year. . . .” 21 U.S.C. § 802(44). The version of § 841 in effect at the time of
    Santillan’s indictment and conviction provided that any person who commits a
    violation of § 841 “after a prior conviction for a felony drug offense has become
    final . . . shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment which may not be less than 20
    years. . . .” 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A). Without a prior felony conviction,
    Santillan’s mandatory minimum sentence would have been 10 years. 
    Id. Santillan argues
    that his California conviction is not a “felony drug offense”
    because it was redesignated as a misdemeanor. When Santillan was convicted in
    2008, California classified possession of marijuana for sale as a felony. Cal. Health
    & Safety Code § 11359 (1977); Cal. Penal Code § 17 (1998). Because Proposition
    64 reclassified the offense in 2016 and Santillan’s conviction was redesignated as a
    2
    Count 4 of the indictment charged possession of firearms in furtherance of a
    drug trafficking crime in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A).
    -3-
    misdemeanor prior to sentencing, Santillan argues that his California conviction could
    not serve as the basis for the § 841 sentencing enhancement. Because we find
    persuasive the reasoning of the Ninth Circuit’s decision in United States v. Diaz, 
    838 F.3d 968
    (9th Cir. 2016), we disagree.
    In Diaz, the Ninth Circuit held that Proposition 47, which similarly reclassified
    certain felony convictions as misdemeanors, did “not change the historical fact that
    [the defendant] violated § 841 ‘after two or more prior convictions for a felony drug
    offense [had] become final.’” 
    Id. at 971
    (second alteration in original) (quoting 21
    U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A)). The court explained that the inquiry into whether a § 841
    enhancement applies is “backward-looking[,]” requiring only that the prior conviction
    be “final.” 
    Id. at 973.
    Thus, “‘[t]he question posed by § 841(b)(1)(A) is whether the
    defendant was previously convicted, not the particulars of how state law later might
    have’ permitted relief from the defendant’s state conviction.” 
    Id. at 973-74
    (quoting
    United States v. Dyke, 
    718 F.3d 1282
    , 1293 (10th Cir. 2013)); accord United States
    v. McGee, 760 F. App’x 610, 614-16 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 
    140 S. Ct. 218
    (2019);
    United States v. Sanders, 
    909 F.3d 895
    , 899-904 (7th Cir. 2018), cert. denied, 139 S.
    Ct. 2661 (2019); and United States v. London, 747 F. App’x 80, 84-85 (3d Cir. 2018).
    This Court applies the same “historical fact” approach to sentencing
    enhancements under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A): a prior conviction qualifies as a
    “felony drug offense” if it was punishable as a felony at the time of conviction. E.g.,
    United States v. Williams, 
    616 F.3d 760
    , 766 n.3 (8th Cir. 2010) (noting that initial
    plea to offense meeting the definition of felony under federal law satisfies
    enhancement even if state law later changes conviction to misdemeanor); Hirman v.
    United States, 
    613 F.3d 773
    , 776-77 (8th Cir. 2010) (affirming application of career
    offender enhancement even though state law reclassified defendant’s predicate felony
    convictions as misdemeanors); and United States v. Burdock, 355 F. App’x 81, 82-83
    (8th Cir. 2009) (per curiam) (applying offense’s punishment at time of original
    conviction, instead of that under current law, to determine whether offense qualifies
    -4-
    as felony drug offense). Here, Santillan was convicted of possession of marijuana for
    sale in the Superior Court for Lancaster County, California in 2008, which was a
    felony under California law at that time. Thus, his California conviction qualifies as
    a “felony drug offense” notwithstanding the fact it was later redesignated as a
    misdemeanor.
    Santillan also argues that because Proposition 64 reclassified possession of
    marijuana for sale in 2016, he did not have a “final” conviction for a felony drug
    offense when he committed the federal drug offense in 2017. However, the fact that
    California amended the statute of conviction in 2016 “does not alter the historical fact
    of the [prior state] conviction becoming final—which is what § 841 requires.” 
    Diaz, 838 F.3d at 974
    (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). Because
    Santillan was convicted of a felony and sentenced under California law in 2008, his
    California conviction was “final” at the time of his federal drug offense in 2017. To
    the extent Santillan raises other arguments as to why the California conviction may
    not serve as a predicate offense, those arguments are foreclosed by our reliance on
    Diaz.
    For the foregoing reasons, we affirm.
    ______________________________
    -5-