U.S. v. Garcia-Carrasquillo

• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit
• Writing for the Court: Torruella
• Citation: U.S. v. Garcia-Carrasquillo, 483 F.3d 124 (1st Cir. 2007)
• Decision Date: 03 April 2007
• Docket Number: No. 05-1685.,No. 05-1684.,No. 05-1686.,05-1684.,05-1685.,05-1686.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Tomás GARCÍA-CARRASQUILLO, a/k/a Lele; José R. Claudio-García; and Reynaldo González-Rivera, Defendants, Appellants.

483 F.3d 124

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Tomás GARCÍA-CARRASQUILLO, a/k/a Lele; José R. Claudio-García; and Reynaldo González-Rivera, Defendants, Appellants.

No. 05-1684.

No. 05-1685.

No. 05-1686.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard February 7, 2007.

Decided April 3, 2007.

John Ward-Llambias, for appellant García-Carrasquillo.

José F. Quetglas-Jordán, with whom Quetglas Law Offices was on brief, for appellant Claudio-García.

Terrance J. McCarthy, for appellant González-Rivera.

Nelson Pérez-Sosa, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate Division, with whom Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez, United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellee.

Before TORRUELLA, LYNCH, and LIPEZ, Circuit Judges.

TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge.

Co-defendants-appellants Tomás García-Carrasquillo, Josée R. Claudio-García, and Reynaldo González-Rivera were convicted of multiple counts involving the possession of drugs and firearms. On appeal, García-Carrasquillo and Claudio-García challenge the sufficiency of the evidence against them, and González-Rivera challenges various aspects of his sentence. After careful consideration, we affirm García-Carrasquillo's and Claudio-García's convictions, but we vacate González-Rivera's sentence and remand for re-sentencing due to the inadequacy of the district court's explanation for selecting the sentence imposed.

I. Background

A. The Scene of the Crime

On May 9, 2003, at approximately 5:45 p.m., Agents Héctor Valentín and Nelson González-Rodríguez of the Puerto Rico Police Department's Special Arrests and Extraditions Division established surveillance of a residence in the Río Grande area of northeastern Puerto Rico, in relation to two local felony arrest warrants for García-Carrasquillo and a fugitive arrest warrant for Claudio-García.¹ The split-level house consisted of the main residence on the upper level, and a small ground-level apartment accessed by a door under a carport at the front of the house. The carport stood over a driveway that led to a gate and then out to the road in front of the house. The agents parked their unmarked car on the road approximately 100 meters up a hill from the house, where they could observe activity around the house with binoculars. From their vantage point, they could see a Ford Bronco parked under the carport at the front of the house. They could not see the door to the ground-level apartment located behind the Bronco, nor could they see a short staircase on the left side of the carport.² They could, however, see the staircase leading to the main entrance on the upper level of the house.

Around two hours later, a stolen Mazda Protegé³ pulled up and parked on the road in front of the house, outside a gate across the driveway. García-Carrasquillo and Claudio-García exited the vehicle and entered the carport, presumably to enter the ground-level apartment at the rear of the carport, though it is unclear whether the agents actually saw the men enter, or later exit, through the door to the apartment.⁴ Fifteen minutes later, García-Carrasquillo walked out from under the carport carrying an assault rifle, which he placed in the trunk of the Mazda Protegé. He then returned to the carport.

At this point, the agents notified their supervisor, Lieutenant Herminio Díaz, of the situation. Lieutenant Díaz mobilized the SWAT team and posted two agents, José Nevárez Ortiz and Richard Carrera, at the back of the house. As the SWAT team approached the house, José David Cruz-González, the owner of the house, who was somewhere outside the gate across the driveway in front of the house,⁵ ran through the gate toward the house shouting that the police were there. The three co-defendants in the case, García-Carrasquillo, Claudio-García, and González-Rivera, then ran out of the ground-level apartment and joined Cruz-González in fleeing towards the back of the house.

At the back of the house, the four men jumped over a fence and continued to run. Agent Nevárez shouted for the men to stop and told them they were under arrest. The fleeing men and the officers then exchanged gunfire; González-Rivera was shot in the leg. The men continued to run and exchange gunfire with the pursuing police until the four men fell into a large hole in the ground,⁶ where they were apprehended and arrested. The three co-defendants were each found with loaded firearms on their persons; however, no drugs or paraphernalia were found on any of the defendants at the time of their arrest.

Meanwhile, back at the house, the SWAT team, Lieutenant Díaz, and Agent Valentín searched the ground-level apartment, where they found a large amount of cocaine and cocaine base (crack cocaine), a small amount of marijuana, and assorted drug paraphernalia, including a stove for cooking crack cocaine and items used to break up cocaine rocks. The cocaine base was packaged in approximately 972 vials, which were placed in plastic bags labeled by drug distribution point. The Mazda Protegé was taken to the police station after the arrest; when the police opened the trunk, they found an AR-15 rifle along with the AK-47 that the agents had seen García-Carrasquillo put there during their surveillance. The police did not take any fingerprints from the drugs, paraphernalia, or firearms recovered from the apartment or the vehicle, nor from the firearms found on the defendants at the time of their arrest.

B. Legal Proceedings

On May 10, 2003, the defendants were taken before a local magistrate judge for a probable cause hearing. After the judge advised the defendants of their right to remain silent, García-Carrasquillo voluntarily disclosed that all of the drugs and firearms seized the previous day belonged to him.

On December 17, 2003, a grand jury returned a seven-count Superseding Indictment against the defendants.⁷ Counts One and Two charged that all three defendants, aiding and abetting each other knowingly possessed with the intent to distribute 96.87 grams of cocaine base and 299.96 grams of cocaine, respectively, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Count Three charged García-Carrasquillo with knowingly possessing certain firearms in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1). Count Four charged all three defendants with knowingly using, carrying, and discharging certain firearms in relation to a drug trafficking crime in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(iii), (C)(i). Counts Five and Six charged García-Carrasquillo and González-Rivera, respectively, with being a felon in possession of certain firearms in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Count Seven charged Claudio-García with being a fugitive in possession of certain firearms, also in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(2).

The defendants were tried over nine days in March and April of 2004. At the close of the government's case, the defendants moved for judgments of acquittal on the ground of insufficient evidence; the district court denied the motions. The court also denied the defendants' renewed motions for judgment of acquittal the following day. On April 22, 2004, a jury acquitted all three defendants of Count Four, and also acquitted González-Rivera of Count Six, but found the three defendants guilty on all other counts as charged.

On April 5 and 7, 2005, the district court sentenced the three defendants. Only González-Rivera challenges his sentence, and therefore his is the only sentence we will discuss in detail.⁸ González-Rivera's presentence report ("PSR") calculated an initial base offense level of 32 pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1, after converting the quantities of cocaine base and cocaine powder into an equivalent quantity of marijuana using the Drug Equivalency Table. The PSR also recommended a two-level enhancement for possession of a firearm in relation to a drug trafficking offense, U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(b)(1), and another two-level increase for "recklessly creat[ing] a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury to another person in the course of fleeing from a law enforcement officer," id. § 3C1.2. Utilizing González-Rivera's criminal history category of IV, the PSR calculated an advisory guideline range of 262 to 327 months imprisonment.

González-Rivera objected to the PSR on two grounds: (1) that the two recommended enhancements were inapplicable because the jury acquitted him of all firearms charges, and therefore application of the enhancements would violate his Sixth Amendment right under Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004) (requiring that facts used to increase a defendant's sentence beyond the statutory maximum set by state sentencing guidelines be found by a jury);⁹ and (2) that if the court applied the two-level increase for possession of a firearm, the sentencing guidelines prohibited imposition of the second two-level enhancement for obstruction of justice because the same conduct was the basis of both adjustments, see U.S.S.G. § 3C1.2 cmt. n. 1.

The government responded by arguing that Blakely did not apply to the federal sentencing guidelines. The probation officer also responded to the defendant's objections, arguing that even though González-Rivera had been acquitted of the firearms charges, the corresponding enhancement could still be applied pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3 because he aided and abetted others who were convicted of possessing firearms during the commission of the same offense. The probation officer also argued that the obstruction of justice enhancement applied because González-Rivera created a substantial risk of injury to others in the course of fleeing from the police, by acting with the other defendants who were in possession of firearms.

At González-Rivera's sentencing hearing, defense counsel first presented mitigating factors, including the terrible devastation suffered by González-Rivera when his brother, working in the United States, shot and killed his work supervisor; and...