Valenzuela-Fonseca

MEMORANDUM **

Jorge Valenzuela-Fonseca appeals the sentence imposed following his guilty plea to illegal reentry following deportation in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326 .

Valenzuela-Fonseca contends that the district court erred in sentencing him pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1326 (b) to more than the two-year maximum set forth in 8 U.S.C. § 1326 (a), when he did not admit and a jury did not find any prior convictions. He argues that the avoidance-of-constitutional-doubt doctrine requires that Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224 , 118 S.Ct. 1219 , 140 L.Ed.2d 350 (1998), be limited to the holding that a prior conviction that increases the maximum penalty need not be alleged in the indictment when the prior conviction, unlike here, is admitted as part of a guilty plea. Although conceding that the issue is foreclosed by United States v. Pacheco-Zepeda, 234 F.3d 411 (9th Cir.2000), and United States v. Quintana-Quintana, 383 F.3d 1052 (9th Cir.2004), to preserve the issue, Valenzuela-Fonseca also argues that in light of Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 , 120 S.Ct. 2348 , 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), and subsequent Supreme Court decisions, Almendarez-Torres has been overruled and…