United States v. Diaz-Colon

865 F. Supp. 2d 201, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78289, 2012 WL 1995095
CourtDistrict Court, D. Puerto Rico
DecidedJune 5, 2012
DocketCriminal No. 09-228 (FAB)
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 865 F. Supp. 2d 201 (United States v. Diaz-Colon) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Puerto Rico primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Diaz-Colon, 865 F. Supp. 2d 201, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78289, 2012 WL 1995095 (prd 2012).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

FRANCISCO A. BESOSA, District Judge.

On April 2, 2012, the United States Probation Office disclosed defendant Erik [202]*202Diaz-Colon’s (“Diaz”) presentence investigation report (“PSR”). (Docket No. 801.) On April 11,-the Probation Office disclosed an amended PSR. (Docket No. 803.) Defendant Diaz objected to the PSR on May 2,. 2012 in a sentencing memorandum. (Docket No. 818.) The government responded to defendant Diaz’s sentencing memorandum on May 16, 2012. (Docket No. 826.) Defendant Diaz filed his reply to the government’s response on May 20, 2012. (Docket No. 833.) The government filed a sur-reply on June 1, 2012. (Docket No. 837.)

Defendant Diaz objected to several aspects of the PSR; this opinion focuses primarily on the application of enhanced penalties for certain counts that defendant Diaz was found guilty of committing. Defendant Diaz was found guilty by a jury for the following crimes: general conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 371 (“Count One”), a civil rights conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 241 (“Count Five”), and aiding and abetting for depriving the victim of his rights and privileges protected by the Constitution under 18 U.S.C. § 242 (“Count Six”). (Docket No. 729.) As to Count Six, the jury found that the victim’s death was not proximately, naturally and foreseeably caused by the deprivation of the victim’s rights secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States. Id. Defendant argues, inter alia, that he is not subject to the enhanced penalties under 18 U.S.C. §§ 241 (Count Five) and 242 (Count Six) because neither Count Five nor Count Six of the Superceding indictment averred that bodily harm or death resulted from the violation of the victim’s civil rights. (Docket Nos. 818 & 833.) Defendant Diaz maintains that the imposition of additional penalties, up to life in prison or death, under §§ 241 and 242, would result in an Apprendi violation. Id. (citing Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000)).

The Apprendi court determined that “[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” 530 U.S. at 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (holding that defendant who was convicted pursuant to guilty plea of unlawful possession of a firearm in New Jersey state court, which carried punishment of imprisonment between 5-10 years, could not be sentenced to an extended term under New Jersey’s hate crime statute because a finding of racial bias upon which defendant’s hate crime sentence was based was not proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.) In deciding that the New Jersey procedure was “an unacceptable departure from the jury tradition that is an indispensable part of our criminal justice system”, the Apprendi court limited its holding to protecting a criminal defendant’s right to “a jury determination that he is guilty of every element of the crime with which he is charged, beyond a reasonable doubt.” 530 U.S. at 476, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (quoting United States v. Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506, 510, 115 S.Ct. 2310, 132 L.Ed.2d 444 (1995)). The Apprendi court noted that the defendant had not “asserted a constitutional claim based on the omission of any reference to sentence enhancement or racial bias in the indictment”, and thus, the Court refused to “address the indictment question separately today.” Id. at 477, n. 3, 120 S.Ct. 2348. Two years after Apprendi, however, in United States v. Cotton, the Supreme Court explicitly held that “[i]n federal prosecutions, [any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum] must also be charged in the indictment.” 535 U.S. 625, 627, 122 S.Ct. 1781, 152 L.Ed.2d 860 (2002) (citing Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 476, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000)). [203]*203The Cotton court held that while a superseding indictment’s failure to allege any threshold levels of drug quantity that would have led to enhanced penalties under a federal statute rendered the defendant’s enhanced sentence erroneous, under the plain-error test of Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(b) “the error did not seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” 535 U.S. at 632-33, 122 S.Ct. 1781 (emphasis added). The Supreme Court declined to determine whether the error “affected substantial rights” of the defendant, because the evidence that the conspiracy involved more than a certain quantity of drugs to invoke the enhanced penalties was “overwhelming” and “essentially uncontroverted.” Id.

Defendant Diaz asserts that he is not subject to the enhanced penalties under sections 241 and 242 because the superseding indictment did not charge that bodily harm or death resulted from the violation of the victim’s rights. This Court disagrees. While the plain error standard does not apply because defendant Diaz has raised this objection at the sentencing phase (not on appeal), pursuant to the general guidelines established by Apprendi and Cotton, the Court finds that defendant Diaz may be subject to enhanced penalties for the following reasons.

First, the superseding indictment is not completely devoid of reference to facts regarding the defendant Diaz’s actions allegedly taken “with intent to cause death and serious bodily harm” to the victim. (Docket No. 230 at 2-4) (charging defendants, including defendant Diaz, with a conspiracy to take a vehicle “from the person of Elis Manuel Andrades Telleria [victim] by force, violence, and intimidation, which resulted in his death, in violation of Title 18 United States Code, Section 2119(3), in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371.”) (emphasis added). Defendant Diaz is correct that the indictment does not include specific language regarding bodily injury or resulting death in the sections describing the Civil Rights Violations Counts (Counts Five and Six); as the government points out, however, the indictment as a whole clearly put defendant Diaz on notice that he was being charged with crimes where death resulted. See Docket No. 826 at 3.

Second, and more important, unlike the defendant in Apprendi, the facts triggering the enhanced penalty (“death resulting”) for Counts Five (violation of section 241) and Six (violation of section 242) were treated as elements of the offense during trial and submitted to the jury for their consideration.

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

Related

United States v. Diaz-Colon
881 F. Supp. 2d 259 (D. Puerto Rico, 2012)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
865 F. Supp. 2d 201, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78289, 2012 WL 1995095, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-diaz-colon-prd-2012.