Opinion
No. 15-50527
02-22-2017
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JUAN LEON-CORDOVA, Defendant-Appellant.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
D.C. No. 3:15-cr-01494-LAB MEMORANDUM Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California
Larry A. Burns, District Judge, Presiding Before: GOODWIN, FARRIS, and FERNANDEZ, Circuit Judges.
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
Juan Leon-Cordova appeals from the district court's judgment and challenges the 60-month sentence following his jury-trial conviction for being a removed alien found in the United States, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.
Leon-Cordova contends that the district court erred by enhancing his sentence under section § 1326(b). Specifically, he argues that Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224 (1998), which permits an enhancement based on the existence of a prior felony, is invalid under Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 490 (2000). As Leon-Cordova acknowledges, this argument is foreclosed. See United States v. Pacheco-Zepeda, 234 F.3d 411, 414 (9th Cir. 2000) (Apprendi "unmistakably carved out an exception for 'prior convictions' that specifically preserved the holding of Almendarez-Torres"); see also Alleyne v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2151, 2160 n.1 (2013) (declining to revisit Almendarez-Torres).
AFFIRMED.