U.S. v. Navarro, 99-3884
| Decision Date | 09 May 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 99-3884,99-3884 |
| Citation | 218 F.3d 895 |
| Parties | (8th Cir. 2000) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, APPELLEE, v. JESUS NAVARRO, APPELLANT. NI Submitted: |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa.
Before Richard S. Arnold and Heaney, Circuit Judges, and Magnuson,1 District Judge.
The defendant appeals the District Court's2 denial of his motion to depart downward from the Sentencing Guidelines. He argues that the decision not to depart subjected him to harsher punishment simply because of his alienage, and that his case is reviewable on appeal because (1) the Court based its denial of departure on a clearly erroneous factual finding; and (2) because the Court's decision has an unconstitutional effect. We disagree and dismiss this appeal.
The defendant is a citizen of Mexico who entered the United States illegally in 1988 and has lived in Arizona since that time. From 1996 to 1998, the defendant was engaged in a drug-related conspiracy and was responsible for selling approximately 74 kilograms of marijuana in Iowa. A grand jury indicted the defendant with four other people in a four-count indictment. The defendant was named in two of the four counts - conspiracy to commit money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h), and conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. The defendant was arraigned on the indictment, and he entered guilty pleas to both counts in which he was named.
At sentencing, the parties agreed that the defendant's offense level was 25, that the criminal history category was 1, and that the Guidelines sentencing range was 57-71 months imprisonment. The Court imposed a 57-month sentence, the bottom of the Guidelines range, followed by three years of supervised release.
The defendant sought a downward departure based on his status as an alien subject to deportation, a status that made him ineligible to be incarcerated in a minimum security prison or serve the final portion of his sentence in a community corrections center. He argued that such ineligibility subjected him to harsher conditions of confinement solely because of his status as a deportable alien, a circumstance which, he says, would justify an offset in his sentence. The defendant maintained that the detriment of deportation outweighed any benefit he might derive from avoiding the supervised-release portion of his sentence after he is deported. He also argued that he would not be able to have his sentence reduced for successful completion of a drug-awareness program, that deportation would not permit him to reside in the United States with his family, and that his family would be required to relocate.
The District Court found that the defendant was a deportable alien who was ineligible for confinement in a minimum-security prison or in community confinement during the last ten per cent. of his sentence. The Court considered the benefits and detriments of the defendant's case and found that there was some benefit to being a deportable alien, because the defendant would not have to serve the supervised-release portion of his sentence after deportation. The Court concluded that the defendant's case did not fall outside the heartland of the Sentencing Guidelines and denied the defendant's motion for a departure. The Court took this action after stating that it had the legal authority to depart. It simply chose not to use this authority.
The defendant appeals the District Court's decision not to depart downward from the Sentencing Guidelines, arguing that the Court should have granted a departure to offset what he characterizes as the alienage-based increased severity of his sentence. The defendant maintains that the District Court's denial of his departure motion is reviewable for two reasons. First, he argues that the Court's decision not to depart was based on the erroneous factual finding that he would derive sufficient benefit from not having to serve the supervised-release portion of his sentence after deportation to outweigh the more onerous conditions of confinement. He contends that this finding is clearly erroneous because deportation does not terminate supervised release, which remains in force until discharged. Instead, deportation results in a more restrictive condition of supervision, rather than a benefit, because his possible return to the United States after deportation would require him to report to a probation officer and would subject him to arrest and a felony charge. Second, he argues that the District Court's...
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