United States v. Adonys Lopez-Moreno

532 F. App'x 567
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedJune 26, 2013
Docket12-41031
StatusUnpublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 532 F. App'x 567 (United States v. Adonys Lopez-Moreno) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Adonys Lopez-Moreno, 532 F. App'x 567 (5th Cir. 2013).

Opinion

PER CURIAM: *

Adonys Misael Lopez-Moreno appeals the sentence of 96 months of imprisonment imposed following his guilty-plea conviction of being found in the United States after a prior deportation. 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) and (b). Pursuant to Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51, 128 S.Ct. 586, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007), we engage in a bifurcated analysis of the sentence. United States v. Delgado-Martinez, 564 F.3d 750, 752 (5th Cir.2009). Under that standard, we first examine whether the district court committed any procedural errors, “such as failing to calculate (or improperly calculating) the Guidelines range, treating the Guidelines as mandatory, failing to consider the § 3553(a) factors, selecting a sentence based on clearly erroneous facts, or failing to adequately explain the chosen sentence.” Gall, 552 U.S. at 51, 128 S.Ct. 586. If the district court’s decision is procedurally sound, we *569 then “consider the substantive reasonableness of the sentence imposed under an abuse-of-discretion standard, ... tak[ing] into account the totality of the circumstances.” Id.

Lopez-Moreno raises three procedural challenges to his sentence. He first contends that the district court based the sentence on an erroneous assumption that Lopez-Moreno received a sentence of 10 years’ probation on a prior conviction for attempted sexual battery of a minor because the state court determined that he was going to be deported and thus no longer a problem in the United States. The first error resulted in a second and related error, Lopez-Moreno asserts, because the district court refused to consider the mitigating facts he presented. Lopez-Moreno did not raise these issues in the district court and we thus review only for plain error. See Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 135, 129 S.Ct. 1423, 173 L.Ed.2d 266 (2009).

Lopez-Moreno fails to explain, much less show, how the district court’s suggested explanation for the prior sentence is a clearly erroneous fact or that it was the basis of his sentence in the instant matter. The record indicates that the district court provided numerous reasons for the sentence, from which recitation the above statement was only a brief digression. Specifically, the district court noted the serious nature of Lopez-Moreno’s pri- or convictions and the potential that Lopez-Moreno would commit future offenses. The district court determined that Lopez-Moreno’s criminal history was greatly under-represented in light of the severity of his prior offenses, the relatively light penalties for those offenses, and the fact that several of the prior convictions were not counted in arriving at the advisory guidelines sentencing range. Further, the district court determined that those prior sentences had failed to provide a deterrent to future criminal conduct and concluded that Lopez-Moreno presented a danger to the public. As to the mitigating facts Lopez-Moreno offered in regard to his prior conviction for attempted sexual battery of a minor, which consisted of his own statement that there had been no evidence he committed the offense and that he had only pleaded guilty in order to be released from prison on a sentence of probation, the district court indicated that it considered his statement but found the detailed records of the plea and conviction more credible than his denials of guilt. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (setting forth the factors courts must consider in imposing sentences).

In his third procedural challenge to his sentence, which challenge he preserved, Lopez-Moreno contends that the district court failed to adequately explain the above-guidelines sentence. “Congress requires the sentencing court to state ‘the reasons for its imposition of the particular sentence.’ ” United States v. Mondragon-Santiago, 564 F.3d 357, 362 (5th Cir.2009) (citation omitted) (quoting § 3553(c)). While sentences within the Guidelines require “little explanation,” the district court must more thoroughly articulate its reasons when it imposes a non-guidelines sentence. United States v. Gomez-Herrera, 523 F.3d 554, 564-65 (5th Cir.2008); see also Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 357-59, 127 S.Ct. 2456, 168 L.Ed.2d 203 (2007). The district court’s reasons “should be fact specific and consistent” with the § 3553(a) factors. United States v. Smith, 440 F.3d 704, 707 (5th Cir.2006) (citation omitted). We have held that there is no error if the sentencing record reveals the reasons for the sentence imposed and permits effective review by the appellate court. United States v. Key, 599 F.3d 469, 474-75 (5th Cir.2010). As illustrated by the discussion above, the district *570 court provided a detailed explanation of how it arrived at the sentence and its analysis of the sentencing factors of § 3553(a). Because the district court sufficiently articulated its reasons for imposing the sentence, Lopez-Moreno has shown no error. See Key, 599 F.3d at 474.

As to the substantive reasonableness of his sentence, Lopez-Moreno argues that the district court abused its discretion when it determined that a 96-month sentence was the least sentence necessary to fulfill the purposes of sentencing. The Government argues that Lopez-Moreno’s assertion at sentencing that the sentence was “greater than necessary to achieve the statutory purposes of 3553(a)” was insufficient to alert the court to the specific reasonableness challenges he raises in this court and the claim should thus only be reviewed for plain error. We need not determine whether plain error review is appropriate, however, because Lopez-Moreno’s arguments fail even under the abuse-of-discretion standard. See United States v. Rodriguez, 523 F.3d 519, 525 (5th Cir.2008).

In reviewing a non-guidelines sentence for substantive reasonableness, we consider “the totality of the circumstances, including the extent of any variance from the Guidelines range.” United States v. Brantley, 537 F.3d 347, 349 (5th Cir.2008) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). We review whether the § 3553(a) factors support the sentence and give deference to the district court’s determination that the § 3553(a) factors justify the variance. Id.

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Bluebook (online)
532 F. App'x 567, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-adonys-lopez-moreno-ca5-2013.