877 F.3d 447
1st Cir.
2017

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Rafael SANTIAGO-REYES, Defendant, Appellant.

No. 16-2071

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

December 15, 2017

447

Before HOWARD, Chief Judge, TORRUELLA and LYNCH, Circuit Judges.

scienter relied almost entirely on the fact that the defendants had given inconsistent statements to the police. No red flags existed that might have alerted the defendants to the fact that they were transporting narcotics (as opposed to other types of contraband).

By contrast, the present record contains ample evidence, including Victor‘s testimony regarding the contents of the intercepted calls, from which a jury reasonably could find—as this jury did—that the appellant knew that a drug deal was in the offing. Moreover, the jury reasonably could have found that the appellant either knowingly participated in the transportation of the drugs or deliberately closed his eyes to the obvious fact that he was transporting drugs.4

III. CONCLUSION

We need go no further. For the reasons elucidated above, the judgment is

Affirmed.

Javier A. Morales-Ramos on brief for appellant.

Rosa Emilia Rodriguez-Velez, United States Attorney, Mariana E. Bauza-Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate Division, and B. Kathryn Debrason, Assistant United States Attorney, on brief for appellee.

LYNCH, Circuit Judge.

mandate rule. Accordingly, we affirm Santiago-Reyes‘s sentence, and we remand with instructions for the district court to address the pending § 2255 motion as soon as practicable.

I.

We give the background for why the case was remanded for resentencing. On April 28, 2012, the Puerto Rico Police Department received a report that three individuals had robbed a home and fled in a red Toyota Yaris. Shortly thereafter, two masked men entered a store, Agrocentro Sola. One man held the two employees at gunpoint, while the other grabbed $600 from the cash register. The men then pushed the employees against the wall, hit one of the employees in the head, and stole both employees’ cellphones and an additional $300 before fleeing by car.

Responding to the employee‘s 9-1-1 call, the police spotted a red Toyota Yaris nearby and gave chase. When the vehicle finally stopped, the officers arrested the three men inside—including the defendant in this case, Rafael Santiago-Reyes—and seized a revolver, two masks, cellphones, and approximately $900 in cash from the car.

Santiago-Reyes later confessed to the home robbery and to possessing a weapon during the Agrocentro Sola robbery. For his role in the Agrocentro Sola robbery, Santiago-Reyes was indicted on two counts: (1) interference with commerce by threats or violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951 (“The Hobbs Act“); and (2) carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). He pled guilty to both counts.

The plea agreement stipulated that Santiago-Reyes‘s total offense level was 17 (after applying a three-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility). Together with a criminal history category (“CHC“) of I, the recommended Guidelines sentence range (“GSR“) was 20-34 months of imprisonment for Count 1, and 66 months of imprisonment for Count 2.

The district court, however, refused to apply the three-level reduction at the sentencing hearing, and instead imposed a two-level enhancement for reckless endangerment during flight, and another two-level enhancement for obstruction of justice. Based on a total offense level of 24, and CHC of I, the applicable GSR for Count 1 became 51-61 months of imprisonment. The judge ultimately sentenced Santiago-Reyes to 51 months of imprisonment for Count 1 and a consecutive 66 months of imprisonment for Count 2.

In February 2014, Santiago-Reyes appealed his sentence, arguing that the district court erred in imposing the enhancements, and in refusing to grant the three-level reduction for his acceptance of responsibility.1 This court vacated the sentence in a judgment order, and remanded the case back to the district court with the following instructions:

While the record supports application of the [reckless endangerment during flight] enhancement to Pagan-Bibiloni, who was the driver of the vehicle fleeing the scene of the robbery, it is not clear whether the enhancement may be applied to Diaz-Cestary and Santiago-Reyes, who were passengers in the vehicle, without facts establishing they “aided or abetted, counseled, commanded, induced, procured, or willfully caused” reckless endangerment during flight. The parties did not raise or brief application of the enhancement to Diaz-Cestary and Santiago-Reyes on this basis, nor did the court adequately explain its reasons for applying the enhancement to them. The judgment is therefore vacated and this matter remanded for further briefing and, if necessary, factfinding on the issue of application of USSG § 3C1.2 (2012) to Diaz-Cestary and Santiago-Reyes.

United States v. Santiago-Reyes, No. 13-1680 (1st Cir. May 4, 2015) (judgment order) (emphasis added) (citations omitted). Subsequently, the district court ordered briefing on the reckless-endangerment enhancement, and concluded that it did not apply to Santiago-Reyes. The judge then ordered Santiago-Reyes to appear for a resentencing hearing on July 26, 2016.

On July 7, 2016, before the hearing, Santiago-Reyes filed a pro se motion under 18 U.S.C. § 2255 to vacate Count 2 of his sentence, arguing that his Hobbs Act conviction (Count 1) could not serve as a predicate offense for his § 924(c) conviction (Count 2) because the residual clause of that statute—§ 924(c)(3)(B)—was void under Johnson, 135 S.Ct. 2551. A few weeks later, on July 24, 2016, his counsel filed a motion to dismiss Count 2 of his conviction on the same grounds. His counsel conceded that “the motion is premature (he has not yet been sentenced after his appeal).” Counsel also inconsistently argued that “the Johnson matter is ripe for discussion now before this Honorable Court.”

The district court disagreed during the resentencing hearing. The judge refused to consider the Johnson issue because the matter was not ripe, and Santiago-Reyes‘s counsel acquiesced:

MR. MORALES-RAMOS: I understand, Judge, that the referral to anoth- er case is immature because he has not been sentenced yet. So he cannot—

THE COURT: No, no, no. It‘s not that he hasn‘t been sentenced yet—well, it‘s part of it, but it‘s another case. It‘s not this case. As a matter of fact, it‘s a civil case.

MR. MORALES-RAMOS: I understand, Judge.

THE COURT: So, therefore, I am going to let—and it was referred to a magistrate judge.

So I am going to allow the Government to provide its position and let the magistrate judge issue its report and recommendation. That‘s it.

MR. MORALES-RAMOS: Okay. Our position is in the motion we filed.

The district court then lowered Santiago-Reyes‘s total offense level from 24 to 22, and resentenced him to 41 months of imprisonment for Count 1 (the low end of the GSR) and a consecutive 66 months of imprisonment for Count 2. At the time of this appeal, Santiago-Reyes‘s § 2255 motion had been stayed by agreement pending the resolution of Dimaya v. Lynch, 803 F.3d 1110 (9th Cir. 2015), cert. granted, 137 S.Ct. 31 (2016) (oral argument Oct. 2, 2017). The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to issue a decision. As a result, the stay is still in effect.

II.

Santiago-Reyes argues on appeal that the district court erred in not dismissing his 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) count pursuant to the Supreme Court‘s decision in Johnson, 135 S.Ct. 2551. He asserts that a conviction under the Hobbs Act is not a “crime of violence” under § 924(c). But we need not decide whether Johnson applies here. The district court did not err in declining to address, on procedural grounds, Santiago-Reyes‘s motion to dismiss.2

Defendant‘s counsel conceded in his briefing on the motion to dismiss that the motion was “premature,” and did not object at the resentencing hearing to the judge‘s finding that the motion was not ripe because the Johnson claim was first raised in a § 2255 motion that was pending. The coup de grace to Santiago-Reyes‘s argument is that this precise appeal is standing in the way of finalizing his sentence so that the district court can consider his § 2255 motion, which has been pending for 14 months. As such, the district court did not err.

In any case, consideration of the Johnson issue during resentencing would have been barred by the mandate rule. Our circuit “generally requires that a district court conform with the remand order from an appellate court.” United States v. Ticchiarelli, 171 F.3d 24, 31 (1st Cir. 1999). “A district court seeking to determine the scope of remand must therefore consider carefully ‘both the letter and the spirit of the mandate, taking into account the appellate court‘s opinion and the circumstances it embraces.‘” United States v. Davila-Felix, 763 F.3d 105, 109 (1st Cir. 2014) (quoting United States v. Genao-Sanchez, 525 F.3d 67, 70 (1st Cir. 2008)).

Here, the purpose of our limited remand was unequivocal: to determine whether the reckless-endangerment enhancement applied to Santiago-Reyes.

And the “letter” of our judgment limited the district court to elicit “further briefing and, if necessary, factfinding” to resolve that issue. Whether Johnson applied fell far outside the scope of remand, especially because Santiago-Reyes never raised the issue until his motion to dismiss.

III.

Accordingly, we affirm the district court‘s resentencing order and remand the case with instructions for the district court to conduct a hearing on the pending § 2255 motion as soon as practicable, after the Supreme Court resolves Dimaya, No. 15-1498 (Oct. 2, 2017).

So ordered.

Notes

1
The district court‘s calculation of Santiago-Reyes‘s sentence was the sole issue of his first appeal. He never contested whether a conviction under the Hobbs Act (Count 1) qualified as a predicate offense under § 924(c) (Count 2).
2
The Government argues that either Santiago-Reyes forfeited his argument, or, in the alternative, plain error review applies because Santiago-Reyes failed to preserve his objection to his Johnson claim at the resentencing hearing. Because Santiago-Reyes‘s claim fails even under the more favorable abuse of discretion standard, we will not pass upon whether his claim was, in fact, waived.
4
The fact that the drugs were concealed in the trunk liner of the rental vehicle driven by the appellant does not alter this conclusion. After all, the jury, crediting the appellant‘s statements during the intercepted calls and Victor‘s testimony, reasonably could have inferred that the appellant either knew that the drugs had been hidden there or purposefully avoided such knowledge.
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