United States v. Solis-Muela

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FEB 5 2002
TENTH CIRCUIT
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
No. 01-8033
v.
(D.C. No. 00-CR-114-01-D)
(D. Wyoming)
RAUL SOLIS-MUELA,
Defendant-Appellant.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before EBEL, KELLY and LUCERO, Circuit Judges.
Defendant-Appellant, Raul Solis-Muela, was indicted on July 20, 2000 for
being a previously deported illegal alien who was found in the United States
without first having obtained the consent of the Attorney General to apply for re-
admission in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326 (a)(2) and (b)(1). Solis-Muela entered
into a plea agreement with the government, and on October 30, 2000, he entered a
*
After examining appellant’s brief and the appellate record, this panel has
determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the
determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2) and 10th Cir. R.
34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This
Order and Judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of
the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. The court generally disfavors the
citation of orders and judgments; nevertheless, an order and judgment may be
cited under the terms and conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.
guilty plea pursuant to the terms of that agreement. In March 2001, he filed a
motion to withdraw his guilty plea so that he could pursue an application for
permanent legal resident status under 8 U.S.C. § 1255(i) and the 2000 Life Act
Amendments. The court denied that motion, and gave Solis-Muela an enhanced
sentence based on his prior aggravated felonies, which were not a part of his
indictment. 1
On appeal, Solis-Muela challenges the district court’s denial of his motion
to withdraw his guilty plea and claims that the failure to include his prior
aggravated felonies in his indictment runs afoul of Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530
U.S. 466 (2000). We reject these claims and affirm the district court’s decision.
We review a district court’s denial of a motion to withdraw a guilty plea for
abuse of discretion. United States v. Siedlik, 231 F.3d 744, 748 (10th Cir. 2000).
The burden is on the defendant to show a “fair and just reason” for the
withdrawal of his guilty plea. United States v. Black, 201 F.3d 1296, 1299 (10th
Cir. 2000). In this case, Solis-Muela does not assert that his guilty plea was
unknowing or involuntary, nor did he assert his actual innocence in his motion to
1
Solis-Muela was convicted of unlawfully disposing of stolen property in
1986, and deported from the United States shortly after serving his sentence. In
June, 1999, he was arrested for being found in the United States after previously
being deported in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326, convicted of that offense, and
deported again in April, 2000.
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withdraw his plea. 2 Instead, he urged the court to allow the withdrawal of his
guilty plea because he believed that he was eligible for an adjustment of status to
that of a permanent legal resident pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1255 (i) and Pub. L. No.
106-554, §§ 1502-04, 114 Stat. 2763, 2763A-324 (Dec. 21, 2000) (“Life Act
Amendments”). The Life Act Amendments extended the time during which an
alien physically but unlawfully present in the United States could seek an
adjustment of status, pushing back the application deadline from January 14, 1998
until April 30, 2001. This Amendment, however, did not become effective until
December 21, 2000, and it did not contain any retroactive provisions. Thus, at the
time Solis-Muela entered his guilty plea, the deadline had not been extended and
he could not have made an application to have his status adjusted under 8 U.S.C.
§ 1255(i).
In addition to the fact that the Amendment had not yet been enacted at the
time of Solis-Muela’s guilty plea, it is unlikely that he would have been eligible
for a status adjustment even if he had made a timely application. In order to
receive the discretionary status adjustment under § 1255(i), an alien must be
2
These are some of the factors that a district court should consider in
determining whether to grant a motion to withdraw. See United States v. Kramer,
168 F.3d 1196, 1202 (10th Cir. 1999). The others are: (1) whether the government
will be prejudiced if the motion is granted; (2) whether the defendant has delayed
in filing the motion; (3) inconvenience to the court if the motion is granted; (4)
the quality of the defendant’s assistance of counsel; and (5) whether the granting
of the motion would cause a waste of judicial resources. Id.
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“eligible to receive an immigrant visa and [be] admissible to the United States for
permanent residence.” § 1255(i)(2)(A) (emphasis added). An alien who has been
ordered removed from the United States, as Solis-Muela has, makes an alien
inadmissible under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(9)(A)(ii). Therefore, as the district court
found, his chances of receiving a status adjustment, even with a timely
application, were dim at best.
Because Solis-Muela has not shown that the district court unfairly or
unjustly denied his motion to withdraw his guilty plea, we find no abuse of
discretion by the court in doing so.
We review de novo Solis-Muela’s second claim, that his enhanced sentence
ran afoul of Apprendi because the indictment did not include his prior aggravated
felony. We find this claim foreclosed by Almendarez-Torres v. United States,
523 U.S. 224 (1998), and Tenth Circuit precedent. In Almendarez-Torres, a
factually similar case dealing with a conviction under §1326 where the indictment
did not state a prior aggravated felony, the Court held that prior felony
convictions were sentence enhancements, not elements of an offense. Id. at 235.
Further, the Court in Apprendi specifically carved out an exception for prior
felony convictions from its general rule that any elements of a crime must be
charged and proven beyond a reasonable doubt. 530 U.S. at 590 (“[O] ther than
the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime
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beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved
beyond a reasonable doubt.”). This court has previously recognized the authority
of these two opinions with respect to enhanced sentences resulting from prior
felony convictions. See United States v. Dorris, 236 F.3d 582, 587-88 (10th Cir.
2000). Thus, we find Solis-Muela’s argument regarding his enhanced sentence
unavailing and conclude that his sentence was not unlawfully enhanced.
For the aforementioned reasons, we AFFIRM the decision of the district
court.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
David M. Ebel
Circuit Judge
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