United States v. Rafael Marin-Pina, 680 F. App'x 360

Marin-Pina, convicted of illegal reentry after deportation, sentenced to 51 months imprisonment and three years supervised release.
He sought to have the district court take judicial notice of 8 U.S.C. § 1158 (asylum statute) to support an affirmative defense; the court declined.
He argued the denial prevented presentation of a complete defense under the Sixth Amendment.
He also argued his sentence exceeded the statutory maximum charged in the indictment but conceded that Almendarez-Torres foreclosed relief on that claim.
Trial evidence showed Marin-Pina had lived previously in the Yucatan without threats and that several weeks elapsed between the last threat in Mexico and his entry to the U.S.; he presented no evidence of an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether district court abused discretion / denied complete defense by refusing judicial notice of § 1158	District court’s refusal prevented Marin-Pina from relying on asylum law as part of his defense	Court should not have been required to take judicial notice; even if error, any mistake harmless	Any error in declining judicial notice was harmless because Marin-Pina could not have established the affirmative defense (other legal options existed and no imminent threat was shown)
Whether sentence exceeded statutory maximum charged in indictment	Marin-Pina claimed due process violation because sentence exceeded indictment’s charge	Government relied on Almendarez-Torres to permit sentence enhancement despite indictment	Issue conceded by Marin-Pina as foreclosed by Almendarez-Torres; court did not address on the merits

Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224 (allows certain prior-conviction facts to be treated as sentencing enhancements)
United States v. Skelton, 514 F.3d 433 (5th Cir. 2008) (standard for reviewing Sixth Amendment right-to-present-defense claims)
United States v. Dvorin, 817 F.3d 438 (5th Cir.) (abuse-of-discretion and prejudice standard for evidentiary rulings)
United States v. Cantu, 167 F.3d 198 (5th Cir. 1999) (harmless-error analysis in criminal cases)
United States v. Posada-Rios, 158 F.3d 832 (5th Cir. 1998) (standards for asylum/flight-or-fear defenses and assessing imminence of threat)
Moncrieffe v. Holder, 133 S. Ct. 1678 (2013) (treatment of prior convictions in immigration-related relief analyses)

AFFIRMED.