United States v. Joel Rodriguez

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Decided: February 7, 2023
• Docket: 21-4317
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

USCA4 Appeal: 21-4317 Doc: 51 Filed: 02/07/2023 Pg: 1 of 8

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 21-4317

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

JOEL ARMANDO RODRIGUEZ,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Wilmington. James C. Dever III, District Judge. (7:20-cr-00057-D-1)

Submitted: January 30, 2023 Decided: February 7, 2023

Before KING and HARRIS, Circuit Judges, and FLOYD, Senior Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ON BRIEF: Rudolph A. Ashton, III, DUNN PITTMAN SKINNER & CUSHMAN, PLLC, New Bern, North Carolina, for Appellant. Michael F. Easley, Jr., United States Attorney, David A. Bragdon, Nicholas Hartigan, Assistant United States Attorneys, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. USCA4 Appeal: 21-4317 Doc: 51 Filed: 02/07/2023 Pg: 2 of 8

PER CURIAM:

Joel Armando Rodriguez pled guilty, without the benefit of a plea agreement, to

possession with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine, and aiding and abetting

the same, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(B), 18 U.S.C. § 2. The district court

sentenced Rodriguez to 150 months’ imprisonment, a term in the middle of the advisory

Sentencing Guidelines range determined at sentencing. Rodriguez timely appeals, raising

two sentencing challenges. First, Rodriguez asserts that the district court erred in

calculating the relevant drug weight because it relied on the insufficiently corroborated

statements of two cooperating defendants. Second, he argues that the court imposed a

sentence that is greater than necessary to meet the sentencing goals of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).

We affirm.

We review Rodriguez’s sentence for reasonableness, applying “a deferential abuse-

of-discretion standard.” Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007). We first “ensure

that the district court committed no significant procedural error,” such as improperly

calculating the Guidelines range, inadequately considering the § 3553(a) factors, or basing

the sentence on clearly erroneous facts. United States v. Fowler, 948 F.3d 663, 668 (4th

Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks omitted). If we find no significant procedural error,

we then consider the substantive reasonableness of the sentence, “tak[ing] into account the

totality of the circumstances to determine whether the sentencing court abused its

discretion in concluding that the sentence it chose satisfied the standards set forth in

§ 3553(a).” United States v. Nance, 957 F.3d 204, 212 (4th Cir. 2020) (internal quotation

marks omitted).

2 USCA4 Appeal: 21-4317 Doc: 51 Filed: 02/07/2023 Pg: 3 of 8

Rodriguez argues that the district court erroneously relied on insufficiently

corroborated hearsay statements from two cooperating defendants in determining the drug

quantities attributable to him. He specifically challenges the inclusion of quantities of

methamphetamine and crystal methamphetamine (“ice”) as relevant conduct. “We review

the district court’s calculation of the quantity of drugs attributable to a defendant for

sentencing purposes for clear error . . . [and] . . . will reverse the district court’s finding

only if we are left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.”

United States v. Crawford, 734 F.3d 339, 342 (4th Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks

omitted).

The district court found Rodriguez responsible for 10,671.5 kilograms of converted

drug weight. This included 996.42 grams of cocaine recovered from Rodriguez’s vehicle

during a traffic stop and for which he admitted ownership. The court derived the remaining

drug weight from quantities of cocaine, methamphetamine, and ice that Cooperating

Defendant 1 (“CD-1”) and Cooperating Defendant 2 (“CD-2”) stated they purchased from

Rodriguez. The methamphetamine and ice significantly increased Rodriguez’s Guidelines

range. Rodriguez contends that the district court erred in attributing the methamphetamine

and ice to him because the court based its findings on hearsay testimony, neither of these

controlled substances was charged in the indictment, and Rodriguez admitted only to an

offense involving cocaine.

“For sentencing purposes, the government must prove the drug quantity attributable

to a particular defendant by a preponderance of the evidence.” United States v. Bell, 667

F.3d 431, 441 (4th Cir. 2011). “Under the Guidelines, ‘[w]here there is no drug seizure or

3 USCA4 Appeal: 21-4317 Doc: 51 Filed: 02/07/2023 Pg: 4 of 8

the amount seized does not reflect the scale of the offense, the court shall approximate the

quantity of the controlled substance.’” United States v. Williamson, 953 F.3d 264, 273 (4th

Cir. 2020) (quoting U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 2D1.1 cmt. n.5 (2018)). In

making this approximation, a court may “give weight to any relevant information before

it, including uncorroborated hearsay, provided that the information has sufficient indicia

of reliability to support its accuracy.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted); see USSG

§ 6A1.3(a) cmt. n., p.s. (stating that, in determining relevant facts, “[a]ny information may

be considered, so long as it has sufficient indicia of reliability to support its probable

accuracy”). Uncorroborated hearsay alone can provide sufficiently reliable evidence of

drug quantity. United States v. Wilkinson, 590 F.3d 259, 269 (4th Cir. 2010). “The

defendant bears the burden of establishing that the information relied upon by the district

court . . . is erroneous.” United States v. Slade, 631 F.3d 185, 188 (4th Cir. 2011).

A task force officer involved with the investigation testified at the sentencing

hearing that he considered the information from both cooperating defendants reliable.

Furthermore, the statements of both cooperating defendants were consistent with other

information collected during the investigation.

CD-1 told investigators that he purchased kilograms of cocaine from a Hispanic

man who lived with his girlfriend, Reba Scott, at 970 McGirt Gin Road in Robeson County,

North Carolina. Additionally, CD-1 said that the Hispanic man traveled from North

Carolina to his cocaine supply in Texas. Investigators independently confirmed that Scott

lived at 970 McGirt Gin Road and they identified Rodriguez—who they discovered had a

history of cocaine trafficking—as the Hispanic man. Through license plate readers,

4 USCA4 Appeal: 21-4317 Doc: 51 Filed: 02/07/2023 Pg: 5 of 8

investigators also were able to verify that Rodriguez had traveled between North Carolina

and Texas. And officers seized nearly one kilogram of cocaine from Rodriguez during a

North Carolina traffic stop while he was accompanied by Scott on a suspected return trip

from Texas.

As part of an investigation of CD-2, law enforcement followed his movements

through a GPS tracker affixed to his vehicle. Agents made 11 controlled purchases from

CD-2—primarily methamphetamine and ice, but also cocaine. CD-2 made an unprotected

statement that Rodriguez was his drug supplier and that he purchased cocaine and

methamphetamine from Rodriguez at 970 McGirt Gin Road. CD-2 also said that when he

received a call for the controlled buys, he would obtain the drugs from Rodriguez and then

immediately complete the deals. This was consistent with agents’ observation of CD-2’s

movements when they were monitoring him with the GPS tracker.

We conclude that the information provided by the cooperating defendants was

sufficiently corroborated by other information discovered through the investigation and

hence had sufficient indicia of reliability to support its accuracy. Accordingly, the district

court did not clearly err in relying on the information to calculate the drug weight

attributable to Rodriguez.

Rodriguez also argues that methamphetamine and ice were improperly included as

relevant conduct, because he was only charged with, and pled guilty to, a cocaine offense.

“Under the Guidelines, the drug quantities that may be attributed to a defendant include

the quantities associated with the defendant’s offense of conviction and any relevant

conduct.” United States v. Flores-Alvarado, 779 F.3d 250, 255 (4th Cir. 2015). Relevant

5 USCA4 Appeal: 21-4317 Doc: 51 Filed: 02/07/2023 Pg: 6 of 8

conduct includes “all acts and omissions committed, aided, [or] abetted . . . by the defendant

. . . that occurred during the commission of the offense of conviction.” USSG

§ 1B1.3(a)(1)(A). “[I]n a drug distribution case, quantities and types of drugs not specified

in the count of conviction are to be included in determining the offense level if they were

part of the same course of conduct . . . as the count of conviction.” USSG § 1B1.3, cmt.

background. Thus, a sentencing court may take into account quantities and types of drugs

that were not charged or otherwise specified in the indictment, as long as it finds, by a

preponderance of the evidence, that the conduct occurred and that it was part of the same

course of conduct as the count of conviction. United States v. Williams, 977 F.2d 866, 870

(4th Cir. 1992).

Here, CD-2’s information corroborated CD-1’s statement that Rodriguez dealt

drugs from the McGirt Gin Road address. Furthermore, officers seized cocaine from

Rodriguez during a traffic stop when he was returning from a suspected trip to Texas where

CD-1 stated Rodriguez had a drug source. We conclude that the district court did not

clearly err in finding that a preponderance of the evidence established that the sales of

methamphetamine and ice were part of the same course of conduct as the offense of

conviction because they were part of the same “ongoing series of offenses,” USSG

§ 1B1.3, cmt. n.5(B)(ii), and that the sentence is procedurally reasonable.

Turning to Rodriguez’s challenge to the substantive reasonableness of his sentence,

a sentence is substantively reasonable only if it is “sufficient, but not greater than

necessary,” to meet the statutory goals of sentencing. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). In

reviewing a sentence for substantive reasonableness, we consider “the totality of the

6 USCA4 Appeal: 21-4317 Doc: 51 Filed: 02/07/2023 Pg: 7 of 8

circumstances to determine whether the sentencing court abused its discretion in

concluding that the sentence it chose satisfied the standards set forth in § 3553(a).” Nance,

957 F.3d at 212 (internal quotation marks omitted). “A sentence that is within or below a

properly calculated Guidelines range is presumptively [substantively] reasonable.” United

States v. Bennett, 986 F.3d 389, 401 (4th Cir. 2021) (internal quotation marks omitted).

“On appeal, such a presumption can only be rebutted by showing that the sentence is

unreasonable when measured against the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors.” Id. (cleaned up).

Citing Bell, Rodriguez argues that the district court abused its discretion by

sentencing him in the middle of the advisory Guidelines range rather than below or at the

low end because his Guidelines range was based upon uncertain witness estimates. In Bell,

we held that “when the approximation [of the drug weight] is based only upon uncertain

witness estimates, district courts should sentence at the low end of the range to which the

witness testified.” 667 F.3d at 441 (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, in attributing

drug weight, Bell instructs the district court to conservatively determine drug quantity by

using the smaller amount of the witness’ estimates. This is precisely what the district court

did in this case when calculating Rodriguez’s base offense level. We decline Rodriguez’s

invitation to extend the holding in Bell to require the district court to sentence the defendant

at the low end of the final calculated Guidelines range.

In announcing Rodriguez’s within-Guidelines sentence, the district court provided

a detailed explanation that was both rooted in the relevant § 3553(a) factors and responsive

to Rodriguez’s sentencing arguments. Addressing the nature and circumstances of the

offense, § 3553(a)(1), the court found that Rodriguez’s crime involved controlled

7 USCA4 Appeal: 21-4317 Doc: 51 Filed: 02/07/2023 Pg: 8 of 8

substances that were highly addictive and harmful to the community. The court also

discussed Rodriguez’s history and characteristics, § 3553(a)(1), opining that Rodriguez

was an intelligent able-bodied man who chose to traffic in drugs notwithstanding growing

up in a stable environment. The court recounted Rodriguez’s prior convictions and

observed that he committed the instant offense despite having previously served a lengthy

sentence for cocaine trafficking. Therefore, the court concluded that a sentence that

incapacitated Rodriguez was warranted, reflecting consideration of the need to deter

Rodriguez and protect the public from his further crimes, § 3553(a)(2)(B), (C).

Finally, the district court explicitly rejected Rodriguez’s argument for a downward

variance based on the disparity in the Guidelines between ice and methamphetamine,

noting that ice justified stiffer penalties because it was more dangerous. In imposing the

sentence, the district court expressly recognized its duty “to impose a sentence sufficient,

but not greater than necessary,” to meet the § 3553(a) sentencing goals. 18 U.S.C.

§ 3553(a). Rodriguez fails to rebut the presumption of reasonableness accorded his within-

Guidelines sentence.

Accordingly, we affirm Rodriguez’s sentence. We dispense with oral argument

because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this

court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED