United States of America v. Jose Alberto Lara

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
File Name: 17a0390n.06
Case No. 15-5874
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
JOSE ALBERTO LARA,
Defendant-Appellant.
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ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR
THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF
KENTUCKY
BEFORE: ROGERS, SUTTON, and COOK, Circuit Judges.
COOK, Circuit Judge. In a previous opinion, we held in abeyance the issue of whether
defendant Jose Alberto Lara could be found jointly and severally liable for the proceeds of a drug
conspiracy in which he had participated. United States v. Lara, No. 15-5874, 2017 WL 527912,
at *4 (6th Cir. Feb. 8, 2017). We did so because the Supreme Court had recently granted
certiorari in a separate case to address “whether, under [21 U.S.C.] § 853, a defendant may be
held jointly and severally liable for property that his co-conspirator derived from the crime but
that the defendant himself did not acquire.” Honeycutt v. United States, --- S. Ct. ---, No. 16-
142, 2017 WL 2407468, at *3 (June 5, 2017).
The Court now has resolved that question, holding that “[Congress] authorized the
Government to confiscate assets only from the defendant who initially acquired the property and
who bears responsibility for its dissipation.” Id. at *8; see also id. at *7–9 (rejecting the

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Case No. 15-5874, United States v. Jose Alberto Lara
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application of Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640 (1946), (i.e., conspiracy liability) to §
853). Because the district court held Lara liable under § 853 for $162,211—the sum of the drug
proceeds attributed to the conspiracy as a whole—without making factual findings about what
portion (if any) Lara “actually acquired” or whether he received “substitute property” derived
from the proceeds, see id. at *7–9, we VACATE the district court’s sentence with respect to
Lara’s money-forfeiture judgment and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion. The judgment of the district court is otherwise AFFIRMED for the reasons given in our
prior opinion.

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