United States v. Fidel Ortiz-Valdez, Jr.

MEMORANDUM

The district court did not err in imposing a 16-level sentence enhancement pursuant to section 2L1.2 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines because Ortiz’s voluntary manslaughter conviction was not vacated, and Ortiz may not collaterally attack a prior state conviction used to enhance his sentence. See Custis v. United States, 511 U.S. 485, 487 , 114 S.Ct. 1732 , 128 L.Ed.2d 517 (1994); United States v. Martinez-Martinez, 295 F.3d 1041, 1044 (9th Cir.2002). Even if we deemed the state court’s tentative ruling to constitute vacatur of his state conviction, the district court did not err in relying on the conviction for sentencing enhancement purposes: only the validity of the sentence at the time of deportation is relevant for purposes of the section 2L1.2(b)(1)(A) enhancement, see United States v. Salazar-Mojica, 634 F.3d 1070, 1074 (9th Cir.2011), and Ortiz’s conviction was valid at the time he was deported in 2007. We reject Ortiz’s argument that Salazar-Mojica is distinguishable because it addressed the vaca-tur of a state conviction on state law grounds, not constitutional grounds, because Ortiz likewise moved the state court to vacate his conviction on…