United States v. Uriarte

• Decision Date: 15 September 2020
• Docket Number: No. 19-2092,19-2092
• Citation: 975 F.3d 596
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Hector URIARTE, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

975 F.3d 596

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.Hector URIARTE, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 19-2092

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued May 13, 2020

Decided September 15, 2020^*

Debra Riggs Bonamici, Andrianna D. Kastanek, Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Yelena A. Dolgosheeva, Attorney, Law Offices of Yelena A. Dolgosheeva, Buffalo Grove, IL, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before Sykes, Chief Judge, and Flaum, Easterbrook, Ripple, Kanne, Rovner, Wood, Hamilton, Barrett, Brennan, Scudder, and St. Eve, Circuit Judges.

Ripple, Circuit Judge.

Section 403 of the First Step Act of 2018 amended the mandatory minimum sentence for certain firearm offenses. Although sentencing reform is generally prospective, Congress specifically mandated that these amendments were to apply to an offense committed before enactment "if a sentence for the offense has not been imposed as of such date of enactment." First Step Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-391, § 403(b), 132 Stat. 5194, 5222 (codified at 18 U.S.C. § 924 note). We vacated, on unrelated grounds, Hector Uriarte's initial sentence before the enactment of the First Step Act. United States v. Cardena , 842 F.3d 959 (7th Cir. 2016). At resentencing, the district court ruled that he was entitled to be sentenced under the provisions of the Act. We agree with the district court and therefore affirm its judgment.

IBACKGROUND

Hector Uriarte was a member of a gang that conspired to kidnap and rob drug dealers for money and drugs. He was indicted for, and convicted of, several federal offenses, including racketeering, drug crimes, and two counts of using a firearm to commit a kidnapping in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). A conviction for a single count of using a firearm to commit a crime of violence like kidnapping carries a mandatory minimum penalty of five years’ imprisonment. Id. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i). That mandatory minimum is elevated to seven years if the firearm was "brandished" during the course of the crime. Id. § 924(c)(1)(A)(ii).

Before the First Step Act, a second violation of § 924(c) triggered a much higher 25-year mandatory minimum, even if the two counts were asserted in a single indictment. The First Step Act amended § 924(c) so that only a second § 924(c) violation committed after a prior conviction for the same offense will trigger the 25-year minimum. First Step Act § 403(a); see United States v. Davis , ––– U.S. ––––, 139 S. Ct. 2319, 2324 n.1, 204 L.Ed.2d 757 (2019).

At the time of Mr. Uriarte's sentencing in 2013, the district court calculated that he was subject to a mandatory minimum of 42 years’ imprisonment: 10 years from the various racketeering and drug charges, 7 years for the first firearm offense because the court determined that it had involved brandishing a weapon, and 25 years for the second firearm offense. The court sentenced Mr. Uriarte to 50 years in prison, a sentence above the mandatory minimum but well below the Guidelines recommendation.

Along with several codefendants, Mr. Uriarte appealed his convictions and sentence. Cardena , 842 F.3d 959. Among other arguments, we reviewed a challenge to his sentence based on the Supreme Court's decision in Alleyne v. United States , 570 U.S. 99, 133 S.Ct. 2151, 186 L.Ed.2d 314 (2013). Alleyne held that brandishing is an element of the § 924(c) offense that must be found by a jury. In Mr. Uriarte's case, the court rather than the jury had found the element of brandishing. Cardena , 842 F.3d at 1000–02. We therefore vacated his sentence and remanded so that Mr. Uriarte could be resentenced without the brandishing enhancement for the first firearm offense.¹

At the time of the enactment of the First Step Act, Mr. Uriarte was a convicted, but unsentenced, federal defendant. When the time for his sentencing arrived, he asked the district court to apply § 403 of the Act. The court agreed, and over the Government's objection, it sentenced him under the provisions of the First Step Act. As Mr. Uriarte's second firearm offense no longer triggered a 25-year mandatory minimum, the court sentenced him to 20 years’ imprisonment based on its recalculation of the mandatory minimum: 10 years for the various drug and racketeering offenses, 5 years for the first firearm offense without the brandishing enhancement, and 5 years for the second firearm offense.² The Government now appeals Mr. Uriarte's new sentence.

IIDISCUSSION

A .

Mr. Uriarte's case presents a straightforward factual situation and an equally straightforward legal issue for our resolution.

At the time of the enactment of the First Step Act, Mr. Uriarte was a convicted, but unsentenced, federal defendant. He was awaiting sentencing. An earlier sentencing proceeding, conducted before the enactment of the First Step Act, had resulted in a sentence that we decided could not stand. We vacated that sentence, rendering it a nullity, and directed the district court to resentence Mr. Uriarte. See Cardena , 842 F.3d at 1000–02 ; Pepper v. United States , 562 U.S. 476, 508, 131 S.Ct. 1229, 179 L.Ed.2d 196 (2011) (Vacatur "wipe[s] the slate clean."); United States v. Barnes , 948 F.2d 325, 330 (7th Cir. 1991) ("[T]he effect of the order to vacate was to nullify [Mr. Uriarte's] sentence."). While Mr. Uriarte was awaiting sentencing, Congress enacted the First Step Act.

The Act's language is also quite simple. Congress amended the law so that contemporaneous § 924(c) convictions no longer trigger a 25-year mandatory minimum sentence. First Step Act of 2018, § 403(a), Pub. L. No. 115-391, 132 Stat. 5194, 5221–5222 (Dec. 21, 2018). The cases to which the amendment applies are set forth in § 403(b), which states:

APPLICABILITY TO PENDING CASES.—This section, and the amendments made by this section, shall apply to any offense that was committed before the date of enactment of this Act, if a sentence for the offense has not been imposed as of such date of enactment.

When Congress drafted this language, it departed explicitly from the usual rule that criminal sentencing statutes are applicable only to crimes committed after the effective date of the statute. See Dorsey v. United States , 567 U.S. 260, 272–73, 132 S.Ct. 2321, 183 L.Ed.2d 250 (2012) (explaining the default rule that, pursuant to the federal saving statute, 1 U.S.C. § 109, the reduced penalties of a criminal statutory amendment are generally not applicable to offenses committed before the statute was enacted).

Congress thereby ensured that all individuals awaiting sentencing in the United States courts on the effective date of the Act would be sentenced in accord with the policy decisions it had just made. To accomplish this goal, Congress made no distinction between defendants who had never been sentenced and those whose sentence had been vacated fully and who were awaiting the imposition of a new sentence. In this way, Congress stanched, to the degree that it could without overturning valid and settled sentences, the mortmain effect of sentencing policies that it considered no longer in the Nation's best interest. It ensured, moreover, all persons awaiting sentencing on the effective date of the Act would be treated equally, a value long cherished in our law. Id. at 276–77, 132 S.Ct. 2321.

This interpretation is both straightforward and compatible with the purpose of the First Step Act. We begin with the language at issue here: "if a sentence for the offense has not been imposed as of such date of enactment." § 403(b). Congress writes statutes against the backdrop of the existing legal landscape. The Supreme Court has reminded us that our "elected representatives, like other citizens, know the law." Cannon v. Univ. of Chi ., 441 U.S. 677, 696–97, 99 S.Ct. 1946, 60 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). When Congress crafted this statutory language, it well understood that vacating a sentence "wipe[s] the slate clean." Pepper , 562 U.S. at 508, 131 S.Ct. 1229; see also United States v. Mobley , 833 F.3d 797, 802 (7th Cir. 2016) ("When we vacate a sentence and order a full remand, the defendant has a ‘clean’ slate—that is, there is no sentence until the district court imposes a new one."). We presume that Congress is aware of the established meaning of legal terms. NLRB v. Amax Coal Co. , 453 U.S. 322, 329, 101 S.Ct. 2789, 69 L.Ed.2d 672 (1981) ("Where Congress uses terms that have accumulated settled meaning under either equity or the common law, a court must infer, unless the statute otherwise dictates, that Congress means to incorporate the established meaning of these terms.").

Here, Congress has not given any indication that it intended to depart from settled principles. See Chambers v. NASCO, Inc. , 501 U.S. 32, 47, 111 S.Ct. 2123, 115 L.Ed.2d 27 (1991). Therefore, we read § 403(b) against the background principle that a court resentences "on a clean slate." Krieger v. United States , 842 F.3d 490, 505 (7th Cir. 2016). Nothing in the text of the statute suggests that Congress intended to create an exception to the ordinary effect of the vacatur of a sentence. Indeed, it is clear that the statute reflects a congressional intention that its policy decision apply to both pre-Act offenders who have never been sentenced and to pre-Act offenders whose sentences had been vacated before the date of enactment, but who had not been resentenced as of that date.³

Whether an unsentenced defendant falls into one group or the other, he lacks a sentence. The statutory language makes clear that, on sentencing day, both should be treated under the same congressional policy.

B.

Despite this straightforward application of the text, which is compatible with the statute's manifest remedial purpose, it is possible, to borrow a phrase from Lewis Carroll, to take select words of the statute and "pay them extra"⁴ to come up with a plausible alternative reading. This approach introduces a significant amount of ambiguity and internal contradiction into the basic interpretative inquiry. Let...