United States v. Juan Rodrigo Gamez-Orduno, Jose Martinez-Carra, Jesus Martinez-Villa

235 F.3d 453, 2000 Daily Journal DAR 13260, 2000 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 9936, 2000 U.S. App. LEXIS 31826
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedDecember 14, 2000
Docket99-10443, 99-10445, 99-10048
StatusPublished
Cited by109 cases

This text of 235 F.3d 453 (United States v. Juan Rodrigo Gamez-Orduno, Jose Martinez-Carra, Jesus Martinez-Villa) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth 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. Juan Rodrigo Gamez-Orduno, Jose Martinez-Carra, Jesus Martinez-Villa, 235 F.3d 453, 2000 Daily Journal DAR 13260, 2000 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 9936, 2000 U.S. App. LEXIS 31826 (9th Cir. 2000).

Opinions

Opinion by Judge BERZON; Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Judge NOONAN

OVERVIEW

BERZON, Circuit Judge:

This case arose from an encounter near the Arizona-Mexico border between the three appellants and several Border Patrol agents, leading to appellants’ arrest, conviction and sentencing for marijuana trafficking and other offenses.

In February of 1998, Border Patrol agents found appellants, along with seven other men, approximately 880 pounds of marijuana, and three handguns, in a trailer near Arivaea, Arizona. Following their arrest, a grand jury returned an indictment charging appellants and the others with conspiracy to possess with intent to [456]*456distribute marijuana1 and possession with intent to distribute marijuana.2 The indictment also charged appellant Martinez-Villa with being a felon in possession of a firearm3 and with using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime.4

Several months later, the government filed informations asserting that appellants were subject to enhanced punishment on the drug charges due to prior drug convictions. Still later, the grand jury returned a superseding indictment against appellants, adding charges against appellants Martinez-Carra and Gamez-Orduño alleging use and carrying of a firearm during a drug trafficking crime and being felons in possession of firearms, and against all appellants for illegal re-entry after deportation.5 After appellants entered conditional guilty pleas, the district court sentenced each appellant to concurrent terms of imprisonment for 120 months on each count and eight years of supervised release thereafter.

All three appellants now appeal the district court’s denial of their motions to suppress evidence discovered in what they allege was an illegal search of the trailer. Gamez-Orduño and Martinez-Carra appeal the denial of their motions to dismiss the superseding indictment based on a claim of prosecutorial vindictiveness, grounding their vindictiveness claim on both the superseding indictment and the earlier sentence-enhancing informations. Gamez-Orduño and Martinez-Carra also appeal the district court’s denial of their motion to dismiss the indictment or otherwise sanction the government because the government failed to disclose the report of a proffer session with Martinez-Villa (the “free talk”), while Martinez-Villa appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment based on the government’s alleged breach of an immunity agreement governing the free talk. Finally, Gamez-Orduño appeals the district court’s calculation for sentencing purposes of the quantity of marijuana attributable to him. We reverse the district court’s ruling on the suppression motion and the Gamez-Orduño sentencing calculation, affirm the remaining district court rulings, and remand.

BACKGROUND

On the morning of February 22, 1998, Border Patrol agents found the tracks of a pack of horses heading northward near the Mexican border. Following the tracks, the agents discovered two locations where the horses’ riders had dismounted, eaten and rested. At one of the rest stops, the agents found a torn scrap of vinyl. The agents eventually followed the tracks directly to the front door of a trailer, where they found fresh horse droppings on the patio and a piece of vinyl tarp that matched the scrap they had discovered on the trail. The agents arrived at the trailer at around 2:00 p.m.

The agents heard voices coming from the trailer. Through the screen door an agent saw a man trying to hide. Concerned about the agents’ safety, one agent opened the unlatched door. Inside the trailer, the agents found ten men, one of whom was trying to hide in the shower, and discovered Martinez-Villa sleeping on a fully-loaded handgun. The Border Patrol agents found 399.26 kilograms (approximately 880 pounds) of marijuana, and two handguns wrapped in some clothes. In addition to the guns and drugs, the agents seized two horses and a mule from outside the trailer and a heavy-duty scale from inside.6 All ten of the men found in [457]*457the trailer were eventually indicted on charges related to the transport of the marijuana.

Appellants’ testimony at the November 30, 1998 suppression hearing as to how they got to the trailer was as follows: On February 21, 1998, Gamez-Orduño and Martinez-Carra, along with other men arrested at the trailer who are not party to this appeal, were lost in the desert with a “load” of marijuana. A man named “Oscar” located them and transported them, lying down in the bed of a pickup truck, to a ranch in Arivaca. Oscar used a key from a key ring that also had the truck’s ignition key on it to unlock the gate located at the entrance of the ranch, and drove through the gate to the trailer. He then unlocked the door to the trailer with a key from the same key ring, reached inside the trailer without looking, flipped on the light switch, and invited the smugglers in.

The trailer was owned by one Mary Ann Carrillo, Oscar’s mother, and appeared to be someone’s home. Oscar, who lived on his mother’s property, provided the smugglers with food, sleeping bags and a place to sleep. Before Oscar left to get food, he told the men to stay in the trailer and not to “go out at all.” All ten then spent the night in the trailer. Gamez-Orduño believed that Oscar had authority to allow him into the trailer because of Oscar’s familiarity with the premises and his instruction to the men to stay in the trailer.

Initially, both Gamez-Orduño and Martinez-Villa testified that they were in the trailer awaiting a ride to Tucson, where they hoped to find work. On cross-examination, however, Martinez-Villa admitted that he had been approached at his house in Nogales, Mexico, and offered $500 to find and guide a lost group of marijuana backpackers to the trailer. He then related that he left Mexico on horseback, found the backpackers, and guided them to the trailer; that he knew Mary Ann Carrillo because he had formerly worked at a neighboring ranch and had had one conversation with her then, when he was looking for some of her livestock; that that one conversation was the extent of his prior relationship with Mary Ann Carrillo; and that he had no prior relationship at all with Oscar Carrillo. Martinez-Villa stayed at the Carrillo ranch the night of February 22, he testified, “because I was tired and they gave me a break to be able to stay there.”

The government’s questions about Martinez-Villa’s role in the smuggling enterprise, it was revealed at the suppression hearing, were based on a previously undisclosed report summarizing the free talk session with Martinez-Villa. The district court ordered the report disclosed after reviewing it in camera, noting that the report directly contradicted the government’s previous position that neither Mary Ann Carrillo nor her son Oscar was involved in the drug trafficking or had any connection to the appellants, and that the appellants were trespassers in the trailer. Indeed, the court found, the report detailed the Carrillos’ significant involvement in the drug operation at their ranch. The court deemed the report a material nondisclosure violating Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), and required the government to disclose it.

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Bluebook (online)
235 F.3d 453, 2000 Daily Journal DAR 13260, 2000 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 9936, 2000 U.S. App. LEXIS 31826, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-juan-rodrigo-gamez-orduno-jose-martinez-carra-jesus-ca9-2000.