United States v. Alberto Montez-Gaviria

163 F.3d 697, 1998 U.S. App. LEXIS 31196, 1998 WL 857533
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedDecember 14, 1998
DocketDocket 97-1682
StatusPublished
Cited by45 cases

This text of 163 F.3d 697 (United States v. Alberto Montez-Gaviria) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Alberto Montez-Gaviria, 163 F.3d 697, 1998 U.S. App. LEXIS 31196, 1998 WL 857533 (2d Cir. 1998).

Opinion

CALABRESI, Circuit Judge:

Defendant-appellant Alberto Montez-Gavi-ria was convicted in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Jed S. Rakoff, Judge) of illegally entering the country after having been deported. Before his federal conviction and after being sentenced to conditional discharge on an unrelated state crime, he was confined for eight months in a state jail — on an INS detainer — while awaiting transfer to federal custody. At his sentencing hearing, Montez-Gaviria argued that this uncredited period of incarceration (along with his agreement not to contest his deportation after serving his sentence) supported his motion for a two-level downward departure from the Sentencing Guidelines. The district court mistaken *699 ly thought that it could apply the eight months served on the detainer toward Mon-tez-Gaviria’s federal sentence by deeming that sentence to have begun when the INS first placed its detainer on Montez-Gaviria. The court also granted a one-level downward departure on the basis of Montez-Gaviria’s stipulated deportation. It is unclear from the record whether the district court would have ordered a larger downward departure had it known that it could not, in fact, affect the date on which the defendant’s sentence was deemed to have commenced. Accordingly, we vacate the sentence and remand the case to the district court so that it may consider whether it should depart further on the basis of Montez-Gaviria’s uncredited time served in state custody.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Facts and Procedural History

Montez-Gaviria, a citizen of Colombia, entered the United States illegally in 1981. In 1982, he was convicted in New York state court of first-degree manslaughter. Eight years later, following Montez-Gaviria’s release from state prison, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) deported him.

Montez-Gaviria illegally returned to the United States in 1994. On November 18, 1996, he was convicted in New York state court of disorderly conduct. Montez-Gaviria was sentenced to conditional discharge but was not released because the INS lodged a detainer against him on the day he was convicted. Three days later, INS officials interviewed Montez-Gaviria in state prison. During the interview, he admitted to entering the United States illegally. On March 14, 1997, Montez-Gaviria was indicted on one count of illegally entering the United States after having been deported in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) & (b)(2). An arrest warrant was issued on March 20. The INS did not take Montez-Gaviria into federal custody, however, until July 1997. In August 1997, Montez-Gaviria pled guilty to the federal charge.

B. Sentencing

The Presentence Report (“PSR”) calculated Montez-Gaviria’s total offense level as 21. Montez-Gaviria’s prior manslaughter conviction gave him a criminal history category of III, resulting in a sentencing range of 46 to 57 months’ imprisonment. The PSR recommended a sentence at the low end of whatever the sentencing court determined to be the applicable sentencing range.

After the preparation of the PSR but before his sentencing hearing, Montez-Gaviria moved for a two-level downward departure on the ground that he had consented to deportation following his release from prison. A one-level departure would have reduced Montez-Gaviria’s sentence range to 41 to 51 months, while a two-level departure would have yielded a range of 37 to 46 months.

Montez-Gaviria’s sentencing hearing took place in November 1997. The primary issue at the hearing was whether Montez-Gaviria’s consent to deportation should result in a one-level or two-level departure. In arguing for a two-level departure, Montez-Gaviria’s counsel pointed out that his client had been incarcerated for eight months in state jail while awaiting transfer to federal custody. The lawyer noted that he did not propose this incarceration time “as an independent ground for departure,” but rather, as “an additional reason” for the court to depart downward by more than one level.

The government argued for a one-level departure on the ground that a two-level departure would increase a sentencing disparity between defendants who are citizens and those who are aliens. When the court noted that Montez-Gaviria’s incarceration in state custody “was real jail time ... that no credit is being given for,” the government suggested that instead of using the uncredited state custody as a basis for a two-level departure, the district court could, as it had done in a previous case, deem federal custody to have begun during Montez-Gaviria’s state custody. The district judge seemed amenable to this suggestion and stated:

Where there are multi-point departure possibilities];, i]t seems to me eminently sensible to reserve the most extreme departure for the most extreme and deserving cases. And ... I am not convinced that this is such a case. What I do think is that there is a lot of force to the point about the artificiality of his not getting *700 credit for time that he served in state incarceration....

After receiving further comments from the government, Montez-Gaviria’s lawyer, and Montez-Gaviria himself, the district court found that a one-level departure was appropriate and sentenced Montez-Gaviria to 41 months, the minimum sentence in the resulting range. It then deemed that this sentence “commenced on the date that the defendant would have been released from state custody on his 1996 disorderly conduct charge but for the lodging of the federal detainer.” The effect of this sentence would have been a 33-month period of additional jail time — a shorter sentence than would have ensued had the court departed downward by two levels.

C. Montez-Gaviria’s Mistaken Deportation

We heard oral argument in this case on October 1, 1998. In the days immediately following, events took a surprising turn. Attempting to contact Montez-Gaviria to discuss the status of his appeal, his counsel discovered that the INS had mistakenly deported Montez-Gaviria on October 5. Apparently, the terms of the writ by which Montez-Gaviria was transferred to federal custody in 1997 provided that he was to be returned to state custody following his federal prosecution. Pursuant to these terms, federal marshals transferred Montez-Gavi-ria from federal prison to state custody in February 1998. At the same time, -they filed a detainer so that he would be returned to federal prison when state proceedings against him had concluded. In August 1998, however, state authorities released Montez-Gaviria to the INS, who deported him. Both the state and the INS had the detainer in their files but somehow failed to act upon it. In view of Montez-Gaviria’s agreement to deportation, one can only surmise that he reacted much like Brer Rabbit did when tossed into the briar patch.

Upon learning of his client’s deportation, Montez-Gaviria’s lawyer moved this court to dismiss his appeal without prejudice. This would allow Montez-Gaviria to reinstate his appeal if he ever returns to the United States. We address this request, in addition to the merits of the appeal, in this opinion.

II. DISCUSSION

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
163 F.3d 697, 1998 U.S. App. LEXIS 31196, 1998 WL 857533, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-alberto-montez-gaviria-ca2-1998.