Filed: Jun. 26, 2020
Latest Update: Jun. 26, 2020
Summary: Case: 19-10213 Date Filed: 06/26/2020 Page: 1 of 13 [PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT _ No. 19-10177 Non-Argument Calendar _ D.C. Docket No. 8:18-cr-00343-SDM-CPT-3 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff–Appellee, versus EULOGIO RAMIRO YOZA TIGUA, Defendant–Appellant. _ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida _ Case: 19-10213 Date Filed: 06/26/2020 Page: 2 of 13 _ No. 19-10213 Non-Argument Calendar _ D.C. Docket No. 8:
Summary: Case: 19-10213 Date Filed: 06/26/2020 Page: 1 of 13 [PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT _ No. 19-10177 Non-Argument Calendar _ D.C. Docket No. 8:18-cr-00343-SDM-CPT-3 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff–Appellee, versus EULOGIO RAMIRO YOZA TIGUA, Defendant–Appellant. _ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida _ Case: 19-10213 Date Filed: 06/26/2020 Page: 2 of 13 _ No. 19-10213 Non-Argument Calendar _ D.C. Docket No. 8:1..
More
Case: 19-10213 Date Filed: 06/26/2020 Page: 1 of 13
[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 19-10177
Non-Argument Calendar
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 8:18-cr-00343-SDM-CPT-3
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff–Appellee,
versus
EULOGIO RAMIRO YOZA TIGUA,
Defendant–Appellant.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
________________________
Case: 19-10213 Date Filed: 06/26/2020 Page: 2 of 13
________________________
No. 19-10213
Non-Argument Calendar
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 8:18-cr-00343-SDM-CPT-4
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff–Appellee,
versus
FREDDY OSWALDO TORRES CASTRO,
Defendant–Appellant.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
________________________
(June 26, 2020)
Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, JORDAN and NEWSOM, Circuit
Judges.
WILLIAM PRYOR, Circuit Judge:
The key issue in these separate appeals is whether defendants adjudicated
guilty before but sentenced after the effective date of the First Step Act of 2018
may qualify for relief under the amended statutory safety-valve provision. Pub. L.
No. 115-391, § 402(a), 132 Stat. 5194, 5221. Eulogio Ramiro Yoza Tigua and
Freddy Oswaldo Torres Castro appeal their mandatory minimum sentences of 120
2
Case: 19-10213 Date Filed: 06/26/2020 Page: 3 of 13
months of imprisonment imposed following their pleas of guilty to violating the
Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act. 46 U.S.C. §§ 70503(a), 70506(a), 70506(b);
21 U.S.C. § 960(b)(1)(B)(ii); 18 U.S.C. § 2. The First Step Act states that its
amendment of the statutory safety-valve provision “shall apply only to a conviction
entered on or after the date of [its] enactment” on December 21, 2018. First Step
Act § 402(b). Because Tigua and Castro had their “conviction[s] entered” when the
district court accepted their pleas of guilty before December 21, 2018, they are
ineligible for relief from the statutory mandatory-minimum sentence under the
amended statutory safety-valve provision. Castro also argues for a reduction of his
sentence for his minor role, but any error the district court might have committed
in denying the reduction is harmless. We affirm Tigua’s and Castro’s sentences.
I. BACKGROUND
Tigua and Castro served in a three-man crew on a go-fast boat transporting
multiple bales of cocaine. On July 13, 2018, the United States Coast Guard
intercepted the boat in international waters, about 267 miles west of the Galapagos
Islands. The crew members jettisoned their cargo, but after a helicopter dispatched
by the Coast Guard disabled the boat, officers recovered 846 kilograms of cocaine
from the water. Although an Ecuadorian flag was painted on the hull of the boat,
Ecuadorian officials refused to confirm or deny its registry.
3
Case: 19-10213 Date Filed: 06/26/2020 Page: 4 of 13
After indictment, both men pleaded guilty in separate proceedings. In
September 2018, Castro pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute and to possessing
with intent to distribute 5 kilograms or more of cocaine while aboard a vessel
subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. 46 U.S.C. §§ 70503(a), 70506(a),
70506(b); 18 U.S.C. § 2. The district court accepted Castro’s plea in October 2018.
That same month, Tigua agreed to plead guilty only to the conspiracy offense. 46
U.S.C. §§ 70503(a), 70506(b).
The presentence investigation reports stated that Tigua and Castro qualified
for a two-level reduction of their offense levels, see United States Sentencing
Guidelines Manual § 2D1.1(b)(18) (Nov. 2018) (cross-referencing U.S.S.G.
§ 5C1.2(a)), but that they were not entitled to be sentenced below the statutory
mandatory-minimum sentence for first-time offenders whose crimes involved five
kilograms or more of a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of
cocaine, 21 U.S.C. § 960(b)(l)(B)(ii); 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f) (amended December 21,
2018). Neither Tigua nor Castro objected to the factual statements in the
presentence reports, but Tigua objected to the calculation of his offense level. He
argued that he was eligible for relief from the mandatory-minimum sentence under
the statutory safety valve notwithstanding precedent holding that the provision did
not apply to maritime drug traffickers.
4
Case: 19-10213 Date Filed: 06/26/2020 Page: 5 of 13
In January 2019, Tigua and Casto each argued in separate sentencing
hearings that he qualified for relief from the mandatory-minimum sentence, under
section 402 of the First Step Act, which extended the statutory safety valve to
maritime drug traffickers. First Step Act § 402(a). The government conceded that
Tigua was eligible for safety-valve relief and did not object to Castro’s request to
reduce his sentence.
The district court ruled that Tigua and Castro were ineligible for safety-valve
relief. The district court concluded that section 402 applies to a defendant who has
his “conviction entered” on or after the effective date of the First Step Act, which
refers to the date a defendant is adjudged guilty by a court or a jury, not to the date
judgment is entered after sentencing. The district court ruled that section 402 did
not apply to Tigua and Castro because the district court accepted their pleas of
guilty before the effective date of the Act.
The district court also denied Castro’s motion for a two-level reduction in
his offense level for serving a minor role. See U.S.S.G. § 3B1.2(b). Castro
admitted in his presentence report and the district court found that “three people
were put at sea with tens of millions of dollars of cocaine”; they shared
responsibility to navigate the vessel and made a collective decision to flee and
jettison the cargo; Castro “participated in the execution of . . . the ocean-going
voyage . . . [by] getting together his personal effects and planning and organizing
5
Case: 19-10213 Date Filed: 06/26/2020 Page: 6 of 13
that part of it”; and he had “seen to it the vessel was [fueled], etc.” Based on those
facts and Castro’s admission that he was promised $40,000 on delivery of the
cocaine, the district court ruled that Castro failed to establish he was less culpable
than an average participant.
The district court determined that Tigua had an adjusted total offense level
of 26 and a criminal history category of I, which yielded an advisory guideline
range of 63 to 78 months of imprisonment. The district court determined that
Castro had an adjusted total offense level of 31 and a criminal history category of
I, which yielded an advisory guideline range of 108 to 135 months of
imprisonment. The district court sentenced Tigua and Castro each to the statutory
mandatory-minimum sentence of 120 months of imprisonment.
II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW
We review de novo an issue of statutory interpretation. United States v.
Johnson, 375 F.3d 1300, 1301 (11th Cir. 2004). “When reviewing the denial of
safety-valve relief, we review for clear error a district court’s factual
determinations.”
Id. We also review for clear error the factual findings about a
defendant’s role in an offense. United States v. Rodriguez De Varon,
175 F.3d 930,
937 (11th Cir. 1999) (en banc).
6
Case: 19-10213 Date Filed: 06/26/2020 Page: 7 of 13
III. DISCUSSION
We divide our discussion in two parts. First, we address whether Tigua and
Castro are eligible for safety-valve relief under section 402(b) of the First Step Act.
Second, we address Castro’s request for a reduction for minor role.
A. Tigua and Castro Are Ineligible for Safety-Valve Relief Under the
First Step Act.
Section 402 of the First Step Act broadened the circumstances in which
defendants may receive a sentence below the otherwise statutory mandatory-
minimum sentence for their crimes. Before the Act, the safety-valve provision
allowed district courts to sentence a defendant in accordance with the range
recommended under the Sentencing Guidelines “without regard to” a statutory
mandatory-minimum penalty for specified offenses, 21 U.S.C. §§ 841, 844, 846,
960, 963. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f) (2012). Because section 3553(f) did not apply to
violations of the Maritime Drug Act, a first-time offender whose crime involved
five kilograms or more of a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of
cocaine was subject to a mandatory-minimum sentence of 120 months of
imprisonment. United States v. Castillo, 899 F.3d 1208, 1212 (11th Cir. 2018)
(citing 21 U.S.C. § 960(b)(1)(B) and 46 U.S.C. § 70506(a)), cert. denied, 139 S.
Ct. 796 (2019). The First Step Act amended section 3553(f) to apply to more
criminal offenses, including “section[s] 70503 or 70506 of title 46,” which punish
defendants who conspire to distribute and who possess with intent to distribute
7
Case: 19-10213 Date Filed: 06/26/2020 Page: 8 of 13
controlled substances while on board a vessel subject to the jurisdiction of the
United States. First Step Act § 402(a).
By its terms, the amendment to section 3553(f) “appl[ies] only to a
conviction entered on or after the date of enactment of [the First Step] Act.” Id.
§ 402(b). We have yet to interpret the meaning of “conviction entered” in section
402 in a published opinion. In United States v. Cabezas-Montano, the defendants
conceded that they were ineligible for safety-valve relief when “convicted in 2017”
of maritime drug trafficking.
949 F.3d 567, 604 & n.36 (11th Cir. 2020).
Because the Act does not define the phrase “conviction entered,” we begin
with its ordinary meaning. See Taniguchi v. Kan Pac. Saipan, Ltd., 566 U.S. 560,
566 (2012). “As in all cases involving statutory construction, our starting point
must be the language employed by Congress, and we assume that the legislative
purpose is expressed by the ordinary meaning of the words used.” United States v.
Fisher,
289 F.3d 1329, 1338 (11th Cir. 2002) (quoting Am. Tobacco Co. v.
Patterson,
456 U.S. 63, 68 (1982)); see also Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner,
Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts § 2, at 56 (2012) (“[T]he purpose
must be derived from the text . . . .”).
Tigua and Castro argue that the term “conviction” in section 402(b) means
“judgment of conviction,” which is a legal term of art that includes “the plea, the
verdict or findings, the adjudication, and the sentence.” Judgment of Conviction,
8
Case: 19-10213 Date Filed: 06/26/2020 Page: 9 of 13
Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019) (emphasis added); see also Fed. R. Crim.
P. 32(k)(1) (stating that “the court must set forth the plea, the jury verdict or the
court’s findings, the adjudication, and the sentence” in the “judgment of
conviction”). Because the district court had not sentenced them before December
21, 2018, Tigua and Castro contend that they are entitled to safety-valve relief. We
disagree.
We understand the term “conviction” in section 402 to convey its ordinary
meaning. See Scalia & Garner, Reading Law § 6, at 69 (“Words are to be
understood in their ordinary, everyday meanings . . . .”). Conviction means “the
judgment of a jury or judge that a person is guilty of a crime as charged.”
Conviction, American Heritage Dictionary (5th ed. 2015); accord Conviction,
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1993) (“[T]he act of proving,
finding, or adjudging a person guilty of an offense or crime.”). The legal meaning
of conviction is the same. See Conviction, Black’s Law Dictionary, supra (“The act
or process of judicially finding someone guilty of a crime . . . .”). In this context,
the term “conviction” conveys its ordinary meaning as distinct from the term
“sentence.” And to date, all other courts that have interpreted section 402 have
reached the same conclusion. See, e.g., United States v. White,
413 F. Supp. 3d 15,
40 (D.D.C. 2019); United States v. Havens,
374 F. Supp. 3d 628, 634 (E.D. Ky.
2019).
9
Case: 19-10213 Date Filed: 06/26/2020 Page: 10 of 13
The provisions surrounding section 402 support our reading. See Scalia &
Garner, Reading Law § 24, at 167 (“The text must be construed as a whole.”); id.
§ 39, at 252 (“Statutes in pari materia are to be interpreted together, as though they
were one law.”). Section 401 of the First Step Act, which amends the requirements
to enhance sentences for repeat offenders with prior convictions for felony drug
offenses, applies “to any offense that was committed before the date of enactment
of this Act, if a sentence for the offense ha[d] not been imposed as of such date of
enactment.” § 401(c). Likewise, section 403, which amends the sentencing
provisions for armed career criminals, applies if the defendant’s “sentence for the
offense has not been imposed” by the effective date of the Act.
Id. § 403(b). “[W]e
must presume that Congress said what it meant and meant what it said” in the Act,
United States v. Steele,
147 F.3d 1316, 1318 (11th Cir.1998) (en banc), and “use[d]
different language in similar sections . . . [to convey] different meanings,” Iraola &
CIA, SA v. Kimberly–Clark Corp.,
232 F.3d 854, 859 (11th Cir. 2000); see also
Scalia & Garner, Reading Law § 25, at 170 (“[W]here [a] document has used one
term in one place, and a materially different term in another, the presumption is
that the different term denotes a different idea.”). So the use of “conviction” in
section 402 and “sentence” in surrounding provisions—sections 401 and 403—
necessarily means that “conviction entered” does not refer to the date of
sentencing.
10
Case: 19-10213 Date Filed: 06/26/2020 Page: 11 of 13
Tigua, Castro, and the government argue that Deal v. United States, 508
U.S. 129 (1993), supports their argument that “conviction entered” is synonymous
with “judgment of conviction,” but we disagree. In Deal, the Supreme Court
interpreted the phrase “second or subsequent conviction” in the Armed Career
Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. §
924(c)(1). 508 U.S. at 131. It stated that “conviction”
could refer to either the “adjudication of guilt” or the “judgment of conviction,”
id.
at 131–32, but when read in context, the word had to bear the first meaning or else
“the provision would be incoherent, prescribing that a sentence which has already
been imposed (the defendant’s second or subsequent ‘conviction’) shall be 5 or 20
years longer than it was.”
Id. at 132–33. As in Deal, were we to interpret
“conviction” in section 402 to mean “judgment of conviction,” then a defendant
would not qualify for safety valve relief until after the district court imposed the
mandatory-minimum sentence. To give the defendant the relief provided in section
402, the district court would have to vacate or otherwise modify the sentence,
which is the same kind of counterintuitive result that the Supreme Court rejected in
Deal. For maritime drug traffickers to obtain safety-valve relief under section 402,
“conviction entered” must mean “adjudication of guilt.”
Tigua, Castro, and the government also urge us to interpret “conviction
entered” consistent with the purpose of eliminating sentencing disparities as the
Supreme Court did in Dorsey v. United States, 567 U.S. 260 (2012), but the text of
11
Case: 19-10213 Date Filed: 06/26/2020 Page: 12 of 13
the Act forecloses that reading. In Dorsey, the Supreme Court considered whether
the reduced statutory penalties provided in the Fair Sentencing Act applied to
defendants who had committed their crimes before and were sentenced after its
effective date. 567 U.S. at 264. Because the text of the Act did not address the
issue, the Court concluded that Congress must have intended the Act to apply to
defendants who had not yet been sentenced based on several policy considerations,
including the goals of reducing statutory penalties and eliminating sentencing
disparities.
Id. at 273–81. In contrast with the Fair Sentencing Act, the First Step
Act makes clear which offenders qualify. And although we acknowledge that it
will result in sentencing disparities, the text states that only an offender who has
his “conviction entered on or after the date of enactment of this Act” is eligible to
receive a sentence below the statutory mandatory minimum penalty. First Step Act
§ 402(b).
The district court did not err in determining that Tigua and Castro were
ineligible for safety-valve relief under the First Step Act. The district court
accepted Tigua’s and Castro’s pleas of guilty and adjudicated them guilty of
maritime drug trafficking offenses in October 2018. Because Tigua and Castro had
their “conviction[s] entered” before section 402 was enacted in December 2018,
the statutory safety valve did not apply to their offenses and they were subject to
mandatory-minimum sentences of 120 months of imprisonment. See Castillo,
12
Case: 19-10213 Date Filed: 06/26/2020 Page: 13 of 13
899 F.3d at 1212. That the government would prefer that Tigua and Castro benefit
from the Act does not affect our decision. See United States v. Linville,
228 F.3d
1330, 1331 n.2 (11th Cir. 2000). We must apply the Act as written.
B. Any Error in Denying Castro a Reduction for Minor Role Is Harmless.
Even if we were to assume that the district court erred by denying Castro a
reduction for a minor role, the error would be harmless. Had Castro been entitled
to a two-level reduction for being a minor participant in the criminal activity,
U.S.S.G. § 3B1.2(b), it would have resulted in a total offense level of 29 and an
advisory guideline range of 87 to 107 months of imprisonment. But the district
court could not impose a sentence “below the statutory mandatory minimum unless
the government filed a substantial assistance motion pursuant to 18 U.S.C.
§ 3553(e) and U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1 or [Castro] f[ell] within the safety-valve of 18
U.S.C. § 3553(f),” United States v. Castaing–Sosa, 530 F.3d 1358, 1360 (11th Cir.
2008), and neither of those exceptions applied to Castro. The denial of a reduction
for a minor role had no effect on Castro’s sentence.
IV. CONCLUSION
We AFFIRM Tigua’s and Castro’s sentences.
13
