Supreme Court to review sentence

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether a Spokane felon, caught with heroin and a firearm in 2003, should have been sentenced to a minimum of 15 years in federal prison as an “armed career criminal” because of prior prison terms for drug possession.

The nation’s highest court announced Tuesday it will review the sentence given to Gino Gonzaga Rodriquez because of conflicting rulings on similar legal issues by four circuit appeals courts.

Rodriquez had several state felony convictions, including two in California for burglary and three in Washington for delivery of drugs, before being charged with the federal firearms violation, according to court documents.

After getting out of prison in Washington, he absconded from community supervision before being arrested in April 2003 in Spokane. He was caught with a bag of heroin and $900, documents say.

In a subsequent search of his home, police found a semiautomatic pistol.

Indicted on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm, Rodriquez stood trial before a jury in U.S. District Court in Spokane and was convicted Jan. 28, 2004.

At sentencing in September of that year, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Harrington asked Judge Robert Whaley to sentence Rodriquez under provisions of the federal Armed Career Criminal law.

Felons sentenced under that federal law face 15 years to life in prison.

The law, intended by Congress to get repeat criminals off the street, defines such individuals as those with three or more felony convictions for crimes of violence or “serious drug offenses.” Those are defined as state drug crimes in which the sentence is 10 years or more.

In the case of Rodriquez, his two California burglary convictions counted as two strikes. For his three Washington drug convictions, Rodriquez faced only five years for each, but was given 10-year sentences because he was a repeat drug offender.

Harrington argued that because of those enhanced 10-year sentences, they should count as the third strike and make Rodriquez eligible for sentencing to a minimum of 15 years in federal prison.

Assistant Federal Defender Kim Deater and defense appeals attorney Cece Glenn argued that five-year statutory drug sentences, enhanced for repeated offenders, should not count as a “serious drug offense” under the Armed Career Criminal law.

Whaley agreed and sentenced Rodriquez to seven years, four months in prison – less than half the time the Justice Department was seeking. The Spokane judge’s ruling was upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but in the meantime three other circuit courts rendered conflicting rulings.

It was for that reason that U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement in June petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari – or judicial review. The court receives hundreds of such requests, but only added the Spokane case and 16 others to its Fall Term, which begins Monday.

Rodriquez, now 45, is serving his sentence at a U.S. Penitentiary in Allenwood, Pa.