USA V. JESUS RODRIGUEZ, No. 21-50108 (9th Cir. 2022)
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Defendant was convicted of importing methamphetamine into the United States. He argued that the court should vacate his sentence and remand for resentencing because the district court erred in denying him a minor-role adjustment at sentencing and by erroneously concluding that he was not eligible for safety-valve relief. The Ninth Circuit held that the district court erred in analyzing whether to apply the minor role adjustment. Accordingly, the court vacated Defendant’s sentence and remanded for resentencing.
The court started by correcting two legal errors that appear to have infected all of the district court’s analysis. First, the district court incorrectly held that Defendant’s recruiter’s culpability was not relevant to the minor-role analysis. Second, the district court appeared to treat each factor in the mitigating-role analysis as presenting a binary choice, but the commentary to Section 3B1.2 instructs courts to analyze the degree to which each factor applies to the defendant. Because the court vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing, the court did not need to reach Defendant’s argument that the district court erred in concluding that he was not eligible for safety-valve relief.
Court Description: Criminal Law. Vacating a sentence and remanding for resentencing in a case in which Jesus Ezequiel Rodriguez was convicted of importing methamphetamine into the United States, the panel held that the district court, which denied Rodriguez a minor-role adjustment under U.S.S.G. § 3B1.2(b), erred in analyzing whether to apply the adjustment. The panel started by correcting two legal errors that appear to have infected all of the district court’s analysis. First, the district court incorrectly held that Rodriguez’s recruiter’s culpability was not relevant to the minor-role analysis. The panel noted that in United States v. Dominguez-Caicedo, 40 F.4th 938 (9th Cir. 2022), this court clarified that the mitigating-role commentary’s reference to the “average participant” refers to the “mathematical average,” and that to calculate that average, all likely participants—including leaders or organizers or those who were otherwise highly culpable—must be included in the calculation. Second, the district court appeared to treat each factor in the mitigating-role analysis as presenting a binary choice, but the commentary to § 3B1.2 instructs courts to analyze the degree to which each factor applies to the defendant. UNITED STATES V. RODRIGUEZ 3 With these clarifications in mind, the panel turned to the three disputed factors among the five that district courts must consider when determining whether to grant a mitigating- role adjustment. The first is the degree to which the defendant understood the scope and structure of the criminal activity. The panel wrote that the district court—which held that the first factor weighed against granting the adjustment because Rodriguez was aware of his own role in the offense—misunderstood the first factor. The panel explained that when applying it, a district court must examine the defendant’s knowledge of the scope and structure of the criminal enterprise, not just his knowledge of his own conduct. The panel wrote that on remand, the district court, which appeared to conclude that a larger drug trafficking organization was involved in the offense, should examine the degree to which Rodriguez knew of the scope and structure of that organization. The second factor is the degree to which the defendant participated in planning or organizing the criminal activity. Holding that the district court’s interpretation of this factor was erroneous, the panel explained that one who simply receives instructions and follows them does not “plan” or “organize” the crime. The fifth factor is the degree to which the defendant stood to benefit from the criminal activity. The panel wrote that the district court’s holding—that this factor weighed against Rodriguez because $1,500 “is not an insubstantial amount of money”—is inconsistent with United States v. Diaz, 884 F.3d 911 (9th Cir. 2018). The panel noted that the district court did not consider that Rodriguez was to be paid a fixed amount to perform a discrete task, that he did not have a proprietary interest in the drugs, and that the 4 UNITED STATES V. RODRIGUEZ amount he was to be paid was relatively modest compared to the value of the drugs. The pane wrote that like all of the other factors, the purpose of this factor is to aid in determining the defendant’s relative role in the offense. Because the panel vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing, the panel did not need to reach Rodriguez’s argument that the district court erred in concluding that he was not eligible for safety-valve relief. Concurring in the judgment, Judge VanDyke agreed with the majority that this case should be remanded because the district court misapplied some of the mitigating-role factors in a way that may have affected the court’s ultimate decision not to grant a minor role reduction. He wrote separately to note (1) the district court’s significant reliance on considerations beyond the five explicit factors provided by the sentencing guidelines was not error; and (2) unless a defendant offers some real proof to the contrary, someone running large quantities of drugs across the border understands “the scope and structure of the criminal activity” well enough for the first factor to weigh against the defendant, regardless of whether he knows specifically the many other participating individuals. UNITED STATES V. RODRIGUEZ 5
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