U.S. v. Ferreira

• Citation: 275 F.3d 1020
• Decision Date: 11 December 2001
• Docket Number: No. 00-14723,CARABALLO-MARTINEZ,00-14723
• Parties: (11th Cir. 2001) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JEAN CARLO FERREIRA, PEDRO RAFAEL, et al., Defendants-Appellants
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)

Page 1020

275 F.3d 1020 (11th Cir. 2001)

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JEAN CARLO FERREIRA, PEDRO RAFAEL CARABALLO-MARTINEZ, et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 00-14723

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

December 11, 2001

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida

Before HULL, MARCUS and FARRIS^*, Circuit Judges.

MARCUS, Circuit Judge:

In December 1999, Christina Aragao and her two children were abducted and held hostage for several days before being freed by police. For their roles in the kidnapping, appellants Jean Carlo Ferreira, Pedro Rafael Caraballo-Martinez, and Ewin Oscar Martinez were convicted of hostage taking and conspiracy to commit hostage taking in violation of the Hostage Taking Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1203, carjacking and conspiracy to commit carjacking in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 2119(2), and for using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). Each was sentenced to life in prison. In this appeal, they raise three significant challenges to their convictions and sentences -- that the Hostage Taking Act is unconstitutional because it discriminates impermissibly on the basis of alienage and that Congress lacked the power to enact it; that Congress likewise lacked the power to enact the firearms statute; and, finally, that the district court erred in applying a six-level enhancement pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2A4.1(b)(1) because a ransom note was never delivered. We are unpersuaded by those arguments and, accordingly, affirm.¹

I.

As they are relevant to the appeal, the following facts were established at trial and during the sentencing proceedings. On December 13, 1999, Christina Aragao and her two children, Alceu Aragao, Jr. ("Junior"), age nine, and Alexander Aragao, age one, were attacked by three men in a parking garage near their condominium home in Aventura, Florida. Mrs. Aragao was shocked repeatedly with stun guns. The electric shocks caused her to drop her baby to the floor of the garage. She screamed loudly and was struck in her face five or six times by one of the attackers. Junior attempted to flee but was shot in the head and neck with a stun gun and caught by another of the attackers. The Aragaos then were forced into one of the family's cars, a Lincoln Navigator SUV, to which the attackers had previously obtained keys, and driven to a house approximately fifteen minutes away.

Inside the house, the attackers tied Mrs. Aragao's hands and legs to a chair and placed her in a closet. They did the same to Junior and placed him in a different closet. The baby was kept in another room. The next day, Mrs. Aragao and Junior were removed from the closet and required to stay in shuttered rooms. Mrs. Arago was permitted to care for the baby, but because her arm was still numb from the electric shocks, she was unable to lift or change him. When their captors left the house, Mrs. Arago and Junior once again were tied to chairs and put into closets. At night, Junior was forced to sleep in his underwear in a bed with Martinez.

The Aragaos were held captive in the North Miami house for four and one-half days. During that time, Mrs. Aragao was required to use her cellular phone to make a series of calls to her husband, a successful businessman, requesting that he meet with Martinez. Each time, Martinez dictated what she was to say. When the phone calls did not result in a meeting, Martinez required Mrs. Aragao to type a letter that he dictated requesting a meeting with Mr. Aragao. The letter was mailed to Ipanema Enterprises, the company owned by Mr. Aragao.

By tracing one of the cellular phone calls, the FBI was able to locate the house at which the Aragaos were being held captive, and the family was rescued on the morning of December 18, 1999. Martinez and Caraballo-Martinez were arrested at that time. Among other evidence in the house, the police found a torn letter addressed to Mr. Aragao in a trash can. When reconstructed, the letter stated that if Mr. Aragao did not turn over all of his money, he and his family would be killed. An identical letter was found in a file on Martinez's laptop computer.

At trial, Mrs. Aragao and Junior identified Martinez and Caraballo-Martinez as two of the three men who abducted them. Ferreira was not identified as the third abductor. Rather, he was the parking lot attendant at the Aragao's condominium complex and had provided the keys to the Aragao's Lincoln Navigator. Additionally, Junior testified that Ferreira had asked him about the family's plans for the evening of the abduction. Telephone records showed that during the time the Aragao's were held captive, a cellular phone registered to Ferreira made 22 calls to a cellular phone registered to Martinez and found in the North Miami house.²

A grand jury indicted Martinez, Caraballo-Martinez, and Ferreira for violating the Hostage Taking Act, carjacking, and using a firearm during a crime of violence. Martinez also was charged with knowingly possessing child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B). The child pornography count was severed, and the three appellants were tried jointly. The trial ended on June 2, 2000, and the jury found the appellants guilty on the remaining counts.

In the presentence investigation report (PSI), the offenses were grouped into three categories based on the three victims, and a base offense level of 24 was determined for the abduction. The PSI recommended enhancements on the grounds that the children were vulnerable victims, that Mrs. Aragao and Junior suffered serious, permanent, or life-threatening bodily injuries, that a dangerous weapon was used, and that the appellants obstructed justice by lying at trial. See U.S.S.G. §§ 2A4.1(b)(2), 2A4.1(b)(3), 3A1.1(b)(1), 3C1.1.³ Additionally, the PSI recommended a six-level enhancement for each appellant pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2A4.1(b)(1) because a ransom demand was made. The district judge adopted each of the recommendations,⁴ and sentenced each defendant to life imprisonment for Counts I and II, 60 months for Count III, and 300 months for Count IV, to be served concurrently, and a consecutive term of 60 months for Count V.

II.

We review de novo appellants' challenges to the Hostage Taking Act and to the firearms statute. See United States v. Gray, 260 F.3d 1267, 1271 (11th Cir. 2001) (citations omitted) (reviewing de novo a challenge to the constitutionality of a criminal statute). A challenge to the application of the sentencing guideline is a mixed question of law and fact. We review the district court's findings of fact for clear error and its application of the sentencing guidelines to those facts de novo. United States v. Jamieson, 202 F.3d 1293, 1295 (11th Cir. 2000). Moreover, "[i]nterpretation of the Sentencing Guidelines is similar to statutory interpretation and is subject to de novo review on appeal." United States v. Goolsby, 908 F.2d 861, 863 (11th Cir. 1990)(citations omitted).

A.

Each of the appellants was convicted of conspiracy to commit hostage taking and hostage taking in violation of the Hostage Taking Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1203. In relevant part, that provision states that:

(a) Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, seizes or detains and threatens to kill, to injure, or to continue to detain another person in order to compel a third person or a governmental organization to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the person detained, or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be punished by imprisonment for any term of years or for life and, if the death of any person results, shall be punished by death or life imprisonment.

(b)(1) It is not an offense under this section if the conduct required for the offense occurred outside the United States unless --

(A) the offender or the person seized or detained is a national of the United States;

(B) the offender is found in the United States; or

(C) the governmental organization sought to be compelled is the Government of the United States.

(2) It is not an offense under this section if the conduct required for the offense occurred inside the United States, each alleged offender and each person seized or detained are nationals of the United States, and each alleged offender is found in the United States, unless the governmental organization sought to be compelled is the Government of the United States.

18 U.S.C. § 1203.

Initially, appellants say that the Hostage Taking Act violates their Fifth Amendment right to equal protection by discriminating impermissibly on the basis of alienage. The government concedes that the Act "by its own terms applies only to aliens and, consequently, treats aliens differently than United States citizens," (Gov't Br. at 25),⁵ but disagrees that the classification is unconstitutional.

Appellants' argument is grounded on the erroneous foundation that congressional classifications based on alienage are subject to strict scrutiny. While it is true that strict scrutiny applies to state classifications of aliens, we have held expressly that congressional classifications based on alienage are subject to rational basis review. See Rodriguez v. United States, 169 F.3d 1342, 1347 (11th Cir. 1999); Tefel v. Reno, 180 F.3d 1286, 1298-99 (11th Cir. 1999); Yeung v. I.N.S., 76 F.3d 337, 339 (11th Cir. 1996). In other words, Congress can pass laws regulating the conduct of non-citizens within the United States, and those laws do not violate equal protection so long as they are rationally related to a legitimate government interest. The reasons behind the dichotomy between federal and state authority lie in Congress's "broad power over naturalization and immigration," which enables the Congress, not the states, to make rules applicable to...