United States v. Diaz

675 F. App'x 19

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• Decided: January 10, 2017
• Docket: 15-3417
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

SUMMARY ORDER

Freddie Diaz appeals from the judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Buchwald, J.) imposing a prison sentence of 72 months, following a plea. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history, and the issues presented for review. We affirm because the substantially below Guidelines sentence was procedurally and substantively reasonable.

Diaz pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute at least 500 grams of cocaine. Because he was a career offender, his Sentencing Guidelines range was 188 to 235 months imprisonment and he faced a mandatory minimum of 60 months. The district court sentenced him below Guidelines to 72 months.

We review sentences under an abuse of discretion standard for both procedural error and substantive unreasonableness. United States v. Bennett, 839 F.3d 153, 159 (2d Cir. 2016). Diaz argues that the «district court procedurally erred by failing to consider three factors: 1) the conditions of his pretrial confinement; 2) his psychological history; and 3) evidence that his prior crimes involved poor impulse control. He also argues that his sentence was substantively unreasonable when compared to his codefendant’s sentence.

Diaz’s procedural challenges fail. Diaz’s sentencing submission and the Pre-sentence Report both reviewed his conditions of confinement and psychological history, and the district court repeatedly addressed the Presentence Report at sentencing. As we have explained, “[a] sentencing court does not have to parse every sentencing factor ... or address each of the defendant’s arguments regarding various factors, for a sentence to be procedurally reasonable.” United States v. Pattee, 820 F.3d 496, 512 (2d Cir. 2016). Moreover, at sentencing, the district court explicitly considered both his psychological history and his youth at the time he committed the crimes. The below-Guidelines sentence strongly suggests that these mitigating factors were taken into account. There was no abuse of discretion.

Diaz’s substantive challenge is that his sentence of 72 months was disproportionate to his codefendant’s sentence (48 months). We will vacate sentences as substantively unreasonable only if they are “so shockingly high, shockingly low, or otherwise unsupportable as a matter of law that allowing them to stand would damage the administration of justice.” United States v. Aldeen, 792 F.3d 247, 255 (2d Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks omitted). The disparity between the sentences does not shock the conscience (especially given Diaz’s codefendant’s “safety valve” eligibility under Sentencing Guidelines §§ 2Dl.l(b)(17) and 5C1.2), and it was therefore substantively reasonable. Id.

For the foregoing reasons, and finding no merit in Diaz’s other arguments, we hereby AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.