United States v. Contreras

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: March 3, 2026
• Docket: 25-3654
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAR 3 2026 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 25-3654 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellee, 1:15-cr-00242-DKW-1 v. MEMORANDUM* ROMAN GABRIEL CONTRERAS,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii Derrick Kahala Watson, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted February 18, 2026**

Before: CALLAHAN, FRIEDLAND, and BRESS, Circuit Judges.

Roman Gabriel Contreras appeals pro se the district court’s order denying

his second motion for a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). We

have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Reviewing for abuse of discretion, see

United States v. Keller, 2 F.4th 1278, 1281 (9th Cir. 2021) (per curiam), we affirm.

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). Contreras contends the district court abused its discretion by failing to

address his arguments that he is serving an “unusually long sentence.” U.S.S.G.

§ 1B1.13(b)(6). The court, however, was not required to resolve those arguments

because it denied the motion under the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) sentencing factors

alone. See Keller, 2 F.4th at 1284 (a district court that properly denies a

§ 3582(c)(1)(A) motion based on the § 3553(a) sentencing factors need not

evaluate the defendant’s asserted extraordinary and compelling circumstances).

Moreover, the court did not abuse its discretion in evaluating the § 3553(a) factors,

which the court concluded were largely unchanged since Contreras’s prior

sentence reduction motion. The court explained that Contreras’s participation in

programming was “unremarkable,” and counterbalanced by a new disciplinary

violation. It also noted that Contreras’s sentence was near the bottom of the

applicable Guidelines range, and it rejected Contreras’s challenges to that range as

untimely and unsupported. This record shows that the court considered Contreras’s

arguments and reasonably concluded they did not support a sentence reduction.

The court therefore did not abuse its discretion by denying Contreras’s motion. See

United States v. Robertson, 895 F.3d 1206, 1213 (9th Cir. 2018) (a district court

abuses its discretion only if its decision is illogical, implausible, or not supported

by the record).

AFFIRMED.

2 25-3654