United States v. Jose Castro-Najera

Case: 13-20023 Document: 00512897311 Page: 1 Date Filed: 01/12/2015 IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT No. 13-20023 Summary Calendar United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit FILED January 12, 2015 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Lyle W. Cayce Clerk Plaintiff-Appellee v. JOSE MARIO CASTRO-NAJERA, also known as Jose Mario Castro Najera, also known as Jose Mario Castro, also known as Mario Castro-Najera, Defendant-Appellant Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas USDC No. 4:12-CR-351-1 Before REAVLEY, DENNIS, and SOUTHWICK, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: * Jose Mario Castro-Najera (Castro) appeals the 45-month below- guidelines sentence imposed following entry of his guilty plea to a charge of illegal reentry after removal. We affirm. Castro challenges the 16-level enhancement imposed under U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(i) based on his Texas conviction for possession of cocaine with * Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4. Case: 13-20023 Document: 00512897311 Page: 2 Date Filed: 01/12/2015 No. 13-20023 intent to deliver, for which he received a sentence longer than 13 months. In his view, the Texas conviction did not qualify as a drug trafficking offense because Texas defines delivery more broadly than § 2L1.2’s drug trafficking offense, given that the Texas offense of delivery may be committed by administering a controlled substance, an act not within the purview of § 2L1.2. He contends further that, for the same reasons, the Texas offense does not qualify as an aggravated felony under 8 U.S.C. § 1326(b)(2). Castro’s claims are foreclosed. See United States v. Teran-Salas, 767 F.3d 453, 460-62 (5th Cir. 2014). In Teran-Salas, we concluded that there is no “realistic probability that Texas would prosecute [the] crime under an ‘administering’ theory in a way that does not also constitute either ‘dispensing’ or ‘distributing’ under the federal sentencing guidelines.” 767 F.3d at 460; see id. at 458-62. Further, “[e]ven without considering the drug type or quantity, conviction under the administer prong is not a realistic probability because no previous Texas case has involved a conviction under this prong.” Id. at 461. Therefore, we held that the Texas offense of possession with intent to deliver cocaine was a drug trafficking offense under the Guidelines and an aggravated felony under § 1326(b). Id. at 461-62 & n.5. AFFIRMED. 2