United States v. Carmona

685 F. App'x 875
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedApril 18, 2017
DocketNo. 16-10409 Non-Argument Calendar
StatusPublished

This text of 685 F. App'x 875 (United States v. Carmona) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh 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. Carmona, 685 F. App'x 875 (11th Cir. 2017).

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

A jury convicted Alejandro Carmona of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine, heroin, and cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 846, 841(a)(1), (b)(l)(A)(i), (b)(l)(A)(ii), and (b)(l)(A)(viii). He was subsequently sentenced to 240 months of incarceration, which was well below the applicable guidelines range. On appeal, Carmona raises three challenges to his conviction and sentence: (1) that the district court erred by instructing the jury on deliberate ignorance; (2) that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated when the court relied on drug quantities not reflected in the verdict to calculate his guideline range; and (3) that the district court erred by failing to make preliminary findings concerning the scope of his agreement or the reasonable foreseeability of his co-conspirators’ con[877]*877duct. We address each issue in turn and, for the reasons discussed below, affirm the conviction and sentence.

I.

Carmona first argues that the district court erred when, at the government’s request, it instructed the jury on deliberate ignorance. He contends that giving the instruction was in error because it permitted the government to argue inconsistent theories, because the government had not presented evidence of deliberate ignorance, and because the instruction created a significant risk that the jury would substitute a lesser standard in place of the actual knowledge required for a conviction. We review the decision to give a deliberate ignorance instruction de novo. United States v. Stone, 9 F.3d 934, 937 (11th Cir. 1993). We will not reverse a conviction on the basis of the jury charge, however, unless “the issues of law were presented inaccurately ... or the charge improperly guided the jury in such a substantial way as to violate due process.” United States v. Turner, 871 F.2d 1574, 1578 (11th Cir. 1989).

A deliberate ignorance instruction is “appropriate when the facts support the inference that the defendant was aware of a high probability of the existence of the fact in question and purposely contrived to avoid learning all of the facts in order to have a defense in the event of a subsequent prosecution,” United States v. Garcia-Bercovich, 582 F.3d 1234, 1237 (11th Cir. 2009) (quoting United States v. Perez-Tosta, 36 F.3d 1552, 1564 (11th Cir. 1994)). This Court has held that “where ‘the evidence supports both actual knowledge and deliberate ignorance, the instruction is properly given.’” United States v. Arias, 984 F.2d 1139, 1143 (11th Cir. 1993) (quoting United States v. Ochoa-Fabian, 935 F.2d 1139, 1142 (10th Cir. 1991)). District courts should not, however, instruct the jury on deliberate ignorance when the evidence points only to actual knowledge. United States v. Steed, 548 F.3d 961, 977 (11th Cir. 2008).

Nevertheless, an erroneously given deliberate ignorance instruction is harmless if the jury was properly instructed that finding such deliberate ignorance required proof beyond a reasonable doubt, if the jury was also instructed on the theory of actual knowledge, and if there was sufficient evidence of actual knowledge to support that theory. See Stone, 9 F.3d at 937-41. Such an erroneous instruction is harmless because, if it is unsupported by the evidence, we can assume that jurors rejected that theory and convicted on the alternative ground—actual knowledge—for which there was an appropriate charge and sufficient evidence. Id. As such, we need not determine whether the instruction was appropriately given if we can readily determine that the verdict is supported by sufficient evidence of actual knowledge. Id.

As an initial matter, Carmona’s argument that the instruction was improperly given because actual knowledge and deliberate ignorance are “contradictory” or “logically inconsistent” theories is without merit. This Court has routinely recognized that the instruction is proper when the evidence supports both charges. See Arias, 984 F.2d at 1143. Secondly, and more importantly, the jury here was instructed that to find Carmona guilty based on deliberate ignorance they must do so beyond a reasonable doubt. Thus, if—as Carmona urges this Court—the government only presented evidence of actual knowledge to the jury, we can presume that the jury followed the court’s instruction and declined to convict based on deliberate ignorance. Stone, 9 F.3d at 938 (“Few tenets are more fundamental to our jury trial [878]*878system than the presumption that juries obey the court’s instructions.”). Therefore, even assuming that the instruction was in error, such error was harmless so long as the government presented sufficient evidence of actual knowledge. See id. at 937-40.

We have no trouble concluding that the evidence of Carmona’s actual knowledge of the drug trafficking conspiracy was more than sufficient to support the jury’s verdict. As just a brief overview, testimony showed that Carmona: controlled and directed the travel of buses used to transport the drugs; founded the companies that owned those buses; maintained—at his home—the business records for those companies; received $4000 per month in expenses and $500 per week in salary to run the companies; instructed members of the conspiracy not to touch the buses’ batteries shortly before heroin was seized from the batteries of one of those buses; had repeated telephone conversations with members of the conspiracy as they rode from Mexico to Atlanta on buses carrying substantial quantities of drugs and no paying customers; repeatedly met with leaders of the drug trafficking conspiracy in Atlanta and received payments from the organization before his buses began traveling to Atlanta; and carried large amounts of cash out of the bus warehouse in suitcases. Accordingly, even if we assume that the government presented no evidence of deliberate ignorance, there were still adequate grounds on which the jury, having been properly instructed, could have convicted based on actual knowledge. Thus, any er~ ror in providing the instruction was harmless and this assignment of error is due to be rejected.

II.

Carmona next argues that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated when the district court considered drug quantities not reflected in the jury’s special verdict form to calculate his guideline range.1 He maintains that the court erred by calculating his guideline range on the basis of drugs attributed to his co-conspirators, instead of sentencing him solely on the basis of drugs for which the jury found him culpable. Carmona contends that any fact that exposes a defendant to a longer sentence must be found by a jury and not a judge.

These arguments were not raised in the district court2 and, as such, are subject only to plain error review on appeal. United States v. Duncan, 400 F.3d 1297, 1301 (11th Cir.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

United States v. Barakat
130 F.3d 1448 (Eleventh Circuit, 1997)
United States v. Nathan Deshawn Faust
456 F.3d 1342 (Eleventh Circuit, 2006)
United States v. Steed
548 F.3d 961 (Eleventh Circuit, 2008)
United States v. Kaley
579 F.3d 1246 (Eleventh Circuit, 2009)
United States v. Garcia-Bercovich
582 F.3d 1234 (Eleventh Circuit, 2009)
United States v. Watts
519 U.S. 148 (Supreme Court, 1997)
United States v. Jack C. Turner
871 F.2d 1574 (Eleventh Circuit, 1989)
United States v. James W. Stone
9 F.3d 934 (Eleventh Circuit, 1993)
United States v. Matthew Andrew Carter
776 F.3d 1309 (Eleventh Circuit, 2015)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
685 F. App'x 875, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-carmona-ca11-2017.