U.S. v. Santoyo
| Decision Date | 18 August 1998 |
| Docket Number | No. 97-2096,97-2096 |
| Citation | 146 F.3d 519 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Rudolfo SANTOYO, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Bennett E. Kaplan (argued), Scott R. Lassar, Office of the United States Attorney, Criminal Division, Chicago, IL, Eddie A. Stephens, Office of the United States Attorney, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
John T. Moran, Jr. (argued), Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellant.
Before FLAUM, ROVNER, and DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judges.
Rudolfo Santoyo pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to possess cocaine with the intent to distribute in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. In a post-indictment interview, Santoyo provided information that helped to convince the Government not to go forward with a prosecution against co-defendant Juan Urcino. At Santoyo's sentencing hearing, however, the Government did not bring a departure motion pursuant to USSG § 5K1.1 because the Government did not believe that Santoyo's interview constituted "substantial assistance" within the meaning of that Guideline. 1 Santoyo moved for a departure on this basis anyway, but the district court stated that it had no authority to entertain such a motion unless it came from the Government. The district court also rejected Santoyo's invitation to depart under USSG § 5K2.0 on the asserted ground that his case fell outside the heartland because, inter alia, government agents allegedly "cajoled" him into committing the offense. On appeal, Santoyo argues that the district court should have departed on either of these grounds. He also claims that the Government's refusal to file a departure motion under § 5K1.1 was arbitrary and unreasonable, or, in the alternative, that conditioning a departure under § 5K1.1 upon the Government's motion violates the constitutional principle of separation of powers. We affirm Santoyo's sentence.
On March 26, 1996, Rudolfo Santoyo told one of the Government's confidential informants (CI) that he knew of a man who was willing to sell twenty kilograms of cocaine. Santoyo offered to arrange a meeting between this supplier and the CI. On March 29, Santoyo again offered to introduce the CI to the supplier, who had recently imported a large shipment of cocaine and was looking for customers. In two separate telephone conversations on April 2, Santoyo discussed the sale of cocaine with the CI. As a result of these conversations, Santoyo arranged a meeting for that night between himself, Jesus "Jesse" Diaz (Santoyo's supplier), the CI, and one of the CI's "associates" (an undercover DEA agent).
Santoyo arrived at the meeting with Jesse Diaz. During the course of this meeting, Santoyo and Diaz stated that they could deliver twenty kilograms of cocaine to the CI's associate in Berwyn, Illinois (the conspirators' hometown) at a cost of $20,500 per kilogram, but that the price per kilogram would jump to $21,500 if the delivery was made to the associate in Palatine, Illinois. Diaz bragged that he could easily handle this order because his uncle was "sitting on" 150 kilograms of cocaine. The meeting broke up, and the participants agreed to keep in touch by pager and telephone to arrange further meetings. Santoyo and Diaz promised to provide the DEA agent with a free sample of cocaine at their next meeting after they made final arrangements to obtain the cocaine from Diaz's uncle.
Santoyo paged the DEA agent on April 9 and, during a subsequent recorded conversation, told the agent that he wanted to arrange another meeting to discuss their cocaine transaction. In this conversation, Luis Huerta--the conspiracy's source of cocaine and Diaz's uncle--spoke to the agent and expressed his intention to complete the sale of twenty kilograms on the following day. Santoyo was unable to attend the meeting on April 10, but Huerta and Diaz met the DEA agent and yet another undercover agent as promised. In a recorded conversation, the agents expressed their desire to purchase forty kilograms of cocaine now and, if this deal went well, they would be interested in buying twenty to forty kilograms every two weeks. Huerta claimed that he could deliver forty kilograms for $21,500 per kilogram.
Two weeks later, the two undercover DEA agents met with Diaz and Huerta at a local mall to complete the first forty-kilogram sale. Huerta's friend, Juan Urcino, accompanied Huerta and Diaz to the mall because he wanted to buy a purse for his girlfriend; Urcino agreed to wait in the car while Huerta and Diaz took care of some unspecified business. The agents told Huerta that his money was waiting in a motel room in Addison, Illinois, and one of the agents took Diaz to retrieve the money. During this time, Huerta showed the other agent a large green bag containing multiple kilograms of cocaine. At this point, law enforcement officers swarmed to arrest Huerta, and Urcino quickly fled the scene at Huerta's urging. All defendants, including Urcino, were arrested in short order; law enforcement officials arrested Santoyo at his place of employment.
In post-arrest statements, Santoyo admitted that he brokered the deal between Diaz/Huerta and the government agents in return for a monetary commission. Diaz told law enforcement officials that Santoyo contacted him about selling cocaine to the undercover agents; based on this contact, he recruited his uncle, Luis Huerta, as a supplier. Finally, Huerta admitted that he agreed to supply Diaz and Santoyo with multiple kilograms of cocaine to sell to the undercover government agents. All three defendants were indicted on conspiracy and possession charges.
The grand jury also indicted Juan Urcino on these charges, but the Government subsequently dismissed the indictments against Urcino for want of evidence. Urcino gave a statement following his arrest in which he denied any knowledge of his codefendants' drug transaction. He claimed that he only accompanied Diaz and Huerta to the mall in order to buy a purse for his girlfriend (which he did). Santoyo passed a polygraph examination in which he said he "could not say if Urcino at any time knew exactly what was going on" regarding the conspiracy. Diaz's statement to government agents was more definitive and supported Urcino's story that the men never informed Urcino of the purpose for their trip to the mall.
Santoyo pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge and moved the district court to depart downward from the applicable sentencing range on three potential grounds. First, he claimed that, despite the Government's failure to file a motion under USSG § 5K1.1, the court should nevertheless depart based on his substantial assistance in the Juan Urcino matter. The district court deemed itself without discretion to depart according to § 5K1.1 without a motion from the Government. Second, Santoyo claimed that a departure was warranted because his criminal history overrepresented the seriousness of his criminal background. See USSG § 4A1.3. His argument on this point simply highlighted the fact that his prior crimes removed him from consideration for the mandatory minimum sentence pursuant to the "safety valve" provision of USSG § 5C1.2(5); the district court exercised its discretion to deny a departure on this basis. Finally, Santoyo argued that the government agents' alleged efforts in "cajoling" him to introduce the CI to a cocaine supplier, as well as assorted other factors (including those pleaded in support of his other grounds for departure), warranted a departure under § 5K2.0. He did not assert that he was entrapped (nor could he in light of his plea of guilty), but he argued that his case was removed from the heartland because the CI "kept seeking" Santoyo to broker a cocaine sale. The district court found this allegation insufficient to take the case out of the heartland and, thus, rejected Santoyo's motion to depart.
Santoyo makes two series of claims on appeal. 2 First, he argues that the district court had the power to depart pursuant to § 5K1.1 without a motion by the Government. He makes two related, alternative claims in this regard: (1) The Government's failure to make a departure motion under § 5K1.1 was unconstitutionally arbitrary and unreasonable, and (2) the inability of the court to consider a § 5K1.1 departure in the absence of a motion by the Government violates the Constitution's separation of powers principle. Second, he claims that the district court should have departed because the circumstances of his case fell outside the heartland of cases contemplated by the Sentencing Guidelines. See USSG § 5K2.0. We reject all of these claims and affirm Santoyo's sentence.
Santoyo argues that the district court should have departed because he gave substantial assistance to federal law enforcement officials. He claims that telling government agents that he "could not say" that Juan Urcino knew of the cocaine conspiracy was instrumental in the Government's decision to dismiss the indictment against Urcino. Section 5K1.1 permits a downward departure if a defendant offers substantial assistance to authorities, but only if the Government moves the court to make such a departure:
Upon motion of the government stating that the defendant has provided substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense, the court may depart from the guidelines.
Once the Government makes a motion under this Guideline, the court is directed to determine the appropriate level of departure in light of a number of factors enumerated by the Sentencing Commission. Until the Government makes that motion, though, a court is without power to depart under § 5K1.1. A long and unbroken line of cases has recognized this essential prerequisite. See, e.g., Melendez v....
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