United States v. Diaz-Balleza

Opinion

Case: 24-10597 Document: 64-1 Page: 1 Date Filed: 03/14/2025

United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

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United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit

No. 24-10597 Summary Calendar FILED ____________ March 14, 2025 Lyle W. Cayce

United States of America, Clerk

Plaintiff—Appellee,

versus

Eleazar Diaz-Balleza,

Defendant—Appellant.

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Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas USDC No. 4:24-CR-49-1

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Before Wiener, Ho, and Ramirez, Circuit Judges. Per Curiam: * Defendant-Appellant Eleazar Diaz-Balleza was convicted of illegal reentry after deportation in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) and (b)(1). He was sentenced to 18 months of imprisonment and three years of supervised release.

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*

This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.

Case: 24-10597 Document: 64-1 Page: 2 Date Filed: 03/14/2025

No. 24-10597

Diaz-Balleza claims that the district court procedurally erred in imposing the sentence by relying on erroneous facts. He fails to show that all four prongs of the plain error standard are met. We thus decline to correct the alleged error. See United States v. Coto-Mendoza, 986 F.3d 583, 585-86 (5th Cir. 2021); United States v. Caravayo, 809 F.3d 269, 273 (5th Cir. 2015).

He next contends that § 1326(b) is unconstitutional because it allows a sentence above the otherwise applicable statutory maximum based on facts that are neither alleged in the indictment nor found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. As he correctly concedes, this argument is foreclosed by Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224 (1998). See United States v. Pervis, 937 F.3d 546, 553–54 (5th Cir. 2019); see also Erlinger v. United States, 602 U.S. 821, 838 (2024) (explaining that Almendarez-Torres “persists as a narrow exception permitting judges to find only the fact of a prior conviction” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)).

AFFIRMED.