Opinion
23-2685
08-19-2024
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JUAN ANGEL MARTINEZ, JR., Defendant-Appellant.
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
Submitted July 1, 2024
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:19-CR-00601(4) John J. Tharp, Judge.
Before DIANE S. SYKES, Chief Judge, THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge, JOSHUA P. KOLAR, Circuit Judge
ORDER
Juan Martinez distributed cocaine and marijuana in Chicago for 15 months, beginning in late 2016. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and marijuana, 21 U.S.C. § 846, and to distributing cocaine and marijuana. Id. § 841(b)(1)(A). The district judge sentenced him to the statutory minimum of 120 months' imprisonment and 5 years' supervised release. Martinez filed a notice of appeal, but his appointed counsel asserts that the appeal is frivolous and moves to withdraw. See Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 744 (1967). Martinez responded under Circuit Rule 51(b). Because counsel's analysis appears thorough, we limit our review to the subjects that counsel and Martinez discuss. See United States v. Bey, 748 F.3d 774, 776 (7th Cir. 2014). We grant the motion and dismiss the appeal.
In his Anders submission, counsel informs us that Martinez does not wish to challenge his guilty plea, so counsel appropriately refrains from discussing any arguments related to the plea's validity. See United States v. Konczak, 683 F.3d 348, 349 (7th Cir. 2012); United States v. Knox, 287 F.3d 667, 670-71 (7th Cir. 2002).
Counsel first considers challenging the judge's finding that Martinez was ineligible for safety-valve relief from his 10-year statutory minimum sentence. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f). To qualify for such relief, a defendant must not have committed a prior offense amounting to at least three criminal history points. Id.; United States v. Pace, 48 F.4th 741, 751-52 (7th Cir. 2022). Martinez has such an offense: a 2015 state conviction for dealing cocaine. At sentencing, Martinez contended that the cocaine dealing was merely "relevant conduct" to the charged offense, and relevant conduct ordinarily is not factored in a defendant's criminal history calculation. U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(2); United States v. Nance, 611 F.3d 409, 413 (7th Cir. 2010). The judge, after holding an evidentiary hearing, disagreed and found Martinez ineligible for safety-valve relief.
Counsel correctly concludes that it would be frivolous to challenge the judge's conclusion that the prior drug offense was not relevant conduct. To assess relevant conduct, a judge evaluates whether there is a "strong relationship" between the current offense and the previous conduct, accounting for such factors as "similarity, regularity, and temporal proximity." United States v. Hubbert, 35 F4th 1068, 1072 (7th Cir. 2022) (internal citations omitted). And the judge here appropriately highlighted facts confirming that the prior offense was not sufficiently related to the current offense: the disparate quantity of drugs (100 grams in the prior offense versus almost 100 kilograms in the instant offense); different suppliers; different locations (Joliet and Chicago); and lack of temporal proximity (the offenses occurred more than a year apart). See United States v. Draheim, 958 F.3d 651, 658-60 (7th Cir. 2020). In his Rule 51(b) response, Martinez disputes these factual findings but points to no evidence in the record that contradicts the district court's conclusions, and we do not re-weigh evidence on appeal. United States v. Wallace, 991 F.3d 810, 812 (7th Cir. 2021).
Counsel also properly rejects reprising Martinez's argument at sentencing that he does not meet all three of the criteria under § 3553(f)(1) needed to disqualify him from safety-valve relief.[*] The Supreme Court has made clear that only one of the disqualifying factors is needed to preclude safety-valve relief. Pulsifer v. United States, 601 U.S. 124, 152 (2024); see also Pace, 48 F.4th at 756.
Finally, counsel rules out any challenge to Martinez's sentence. Martinez received the statutory minimum term of imprisonment and supervised release and so could not demonstrate that the sentence was unreasonable. See United States v. Spann, 682 F.3d 565, 567 (7th Cir. 2012).
Martinez also argues, for the first time, that he should receive a sentence reduction to account for the two and half years he spent in federal prison for his 2015 drug offense. Under the Guidelines, time served for one offense can be credited to a sentence for another offense if the first offense is relevant conduct to the second offense. U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3(b); see United States v. Conley, 777 F.3d 910, 913 (7th Cir. 2015). But because Martinez offered nothing to disturb the district judge's conclusion that the 2015 offense was not relevant conduct to his current offense, he cannot receive credit for the time served.
We GRANT counsel's motion to withdraw and DISMISS the appeal.
[*] A defendant meets the criteria in § 3553(f)(1) if:
"(1) The defendant does not have(A) more than 4 criminal history points, excluding any criminal history points resulting from a 1-point offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines; (B) a prior 3-point offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines; and (C) a prior 2-point violent offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines[.]"