United States v. Barrientos

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
_______________________
No. 00-40590
Civil Docket # C-99-CR-305-1
_______________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
FILIBERTO BARRIENTOS,
Defendant-Appellant.
_________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Texas
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June 11, 2001
Before KING, Chief Judge, REAVLEY and JONES, Circuit Judges.
EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge:*
Appellant Barrientos was arrested at the Texas-Mexican
border after an inspection revealed that he was carrying 2.9
kilograms of illegal drugs in his truck. The indictment stated
that he possessed approximately 3 kilograms of cocaine in violation
of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 841(b)(1)(B). Barrientos agreed to
plead guilty. Subsequently, a laboratory analysis revealed that
*
Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the Court has determined that this
opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited
circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4.
the drugs were cocaine base and not cocaine. This fact increased
his sentencing range. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A). As a result,
his rearraignment was continued to give him additional time to
consider the guilty plea. Barrientos pled guilty one month later.
He now challenges the indictment, the factual basis of his guilty
plea, and his sentence. Finding no error, we affirm.
Although Barrientos did not challenge the sufficiency of
the indictment in the trial court, the potential failure of an
indictment to charge an offense constitutes a jurisdictional defect
that may be raised by a defendant at any time. United States v.
Cabrera-Teran, 168 F.3d 141, 143 (5th Cir. 1999). When the
defendant objects to the indictment for the first time on appeal,
and he fails to demonstrate prejudice, this court will read the
indictment liberally and sustain its sufficiency unless it is so
defective that by any reasonable construction, it fails to charge
the offense for which the defendant was convicted. United States
v. Wilson, 884 F.2d 174, 179 (5th Cir. 1989).
Barrientos contends that since the indictment failed to
allege his illegal possession of cocaine base, rather than simple
cocaine, a material element of the offense is missing, and the
conviction should be reversed. This contention is incorrect. For
purposes of defining an offense, the federal illegal possession
statute draws no distinction between cocaine and cocaine base, 21
U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). The distinction among types of drugs is
2
statutorily relevant only for sentencing purposes, as the penalty
provisions, contained in separate statutory subsections,
demonstrate. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(and subsections thereof). As
this court noted in United States v. Doggett, 230 F.3d 160, 166
(5th Cir. 2000), the Supreme Court has not overruled its decision
in Edwards, which held that the judge and not the jury determines
the type and amount of controlled substances involved in a
violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). See id.(citing Edwards v.
United States, 523 U.S. 511, 118 S.Ct. 1475 (1998)). Thus, the
indictment sufficiently charged Barrientos with the offense of
possession of illegal drugs.
Insofar as the prescribed sentences for possession of
cocaine and cocaine base are different under the statute, however,
a question of the indictment’s Apprendi1 sufficiency might have
existed if the sentence imposed on Barrientos exceeded the
statutory maximum for the offense of simple drug possession. But
it did not. The maximum term of imprisonment for the offense
charged against appellant, a violation of § 841(b)(1)(B), is 40
years, with a 5-year minimum and a minimum 4-year term of
supervised release. Barrientos’s term of 135 months imprisonment
and 5 years supervised release was well within this statutory
maximum range. The Fifth Circuit’s established case law precludes
1
Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (2000).
3
any Apprendi violation. See United States v. Meshack, 225 F.3d 556(2000).
It should also be noted that Barrientos has not
established prejudice from the error in the indictment. He was
advised weeks before he pled guilty that the form of cocaine
involved was cocaine base. The difference that would make in his
statutory range of punishment was well-known to him before he pled
guilty. His sentence of 135 months imprisonment was well within
the maximum sentence available for this conviction of cocaine
possession. For all these reasons, an interpretation of the
indictment with maximum liberality demonstrates its sufficiency to
charge Barrientos with the crime that he pled guilty to
committing.2
Barrientos additionally contends that the factual basis
of his guilty plea was insufficient and that there was a
“constructive amendment” of the indictment because the factual
basis for the plea centered on the cocaine base rather than the
charged substance, simple cocaine. Barrientos’s argument
substantially overlaps with his sufficiency of the indictment claim
discussed above. Because constructive amendment inquiries
2
Just as there is no Apprendi error in the sufficiency of the
indictment as to Barrientos’s term of imprisonment, because that term was well
within the statutory maximum with which he was charged, likewise we perceive no
infirmity in his 5-year term of supervised release. That term is also within the
indicted statutory range.
4
typically are conducted in the context of jury trials and guilty
verdicts, not guilty pleas,3 the sufficiency of the indictment
analysis is the appropriate framework within which to analyze his
claim.
Based on the foregoing discussion, the judgment of
conviction and sentence imposed upon Barrientos are AFFIRMED.
AFFIRMED.
3
See United States v. Robles-Vertiz, 155 F.3d 725, 727 (5th Cir.
1998)(“A constructive amendment occurs when the government changes its theory
during trial so as to urge the jury to convict on a basis broader than that
charged in the indictment, or when the government is allowed to prove ‘an
essential element of the crime on an alternative basis permitted by the statute
but not charged in the indictment.’”)(quoting United States. v. Salvatore, 110
F.3d 1131, 1145 (5th Cir. 1997)); United States v. Mikolajczyk, 137 F.3d 237, 243
(5th Cir. 1998)(“If the amendment contained an accurate description of the crime,
and that crime was prosecuted at trial, there is no constructive amendment.”);
United States v. Doucet, 994 F.2d 169, 172 (5th Cir. 1993)(stating that a
constructive amendment “occurs when the jury is permitted to convict the
defendant upon a factual basis that effectively modifies an essential element of
the offense charged”); United States v. Moree, 897 F.2d 1329, 1334 (5th Cir.
1990)(“[A] constructive amendment of the indictment is reversible error when ‘the
jury is permitted to convict the defendant upon a factual basis that effectively
modifies an essential element of the offense charged.’”)(quoting United States
v. Adams, 778 F.3d 1117, 1123 (5th Cir. 1985)). See also 4 W. LaFave, J. Israel,
& N. King Criminal Procedure § 19.6 (2d. Ed)(discussing constructive amendments
only in the context of jury trials); 1 C. Wright, A. Miller, Federal Practice and
Procedure § 127 (same).
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