United States v. Pantoja-Hernandez

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
• Decided: July 6, 2026
• Docket: 25-2110
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

Appellate Case: 25-2110 Document: 39 Date Filed: 07/06/2026 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT July 6, 2026 _________________________________ Christopher M. Wolpert Clerk of Court UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v. No. 25-2110 (D.C. No. 2:25-CR-00066-KG-1) JOSE SOCORRO (D. N.M.) PANTOJA-HERNANDEZ,

Defendant - Appellant.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

v. No. 25-2113 (D.C. No. 2:25-CR-00238-KG-1) CARLOS PANTOJA-CAMPOS, (D. N.M.)

Defendant - Appellant. _________________________________

ORDER AND JUDGMENT * _________________________________

Before TYMKOVICH, McHUGH, and FEDERICO, Circuit Judges. _________________________________

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined *

unanimously to honor the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. Appellate Case: 25-2110 Document: 39 Date Filed: 07/06/2026 Page: 2

Defendant Jose Socorro Pantoja-Hernandez (a/k/a Carlos Pantoja-Campos), 1

a native and citizen of Mexico, pled guilty to illegally re-entering the United States

while he was on supervised release for a prior illegal reentry conviction. See

8 U.S.C. § 1326(a)(1), (a)(2), (b)(1). The district court sentenced him to 28 total

months in prison for the illegal reentry conviction and for violating his conditions of

supervised release. On appeal, Defendant challenges the substantive reasonableness

of his sentences. Exercising jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a) and 28 U.S.C.

§ 1291, we affirm the district court’s judgment.

BACKGROUND

Defendant was charged and pled guilty to having illegally reentered the United

States, on September 26, 2024, after he was previously deported on July 9, 2024. At

that time, he was completing a term of supervised release imposed for a previous

illegal reentry conviction. The probation office petitioned to revoke his supervised

release following his new illegal reentry charge. Defendant admitted his illegal

reentry violated the terms of his supervised release and waived his right to a

preliminary hearing on the supervised release violations, agreeing to have them

addressed at sentencing for the new illegal reentry charge.

1 Appeals 25-2110 and 25-2113 are consolidated. Jose Socorro Pantoja-Hernandez (Appeal No. 25-2110) and Carlos Pantoja-Campos (Appeal No. 25-2113) are the same person. Appeal 25-2110 is his appeal of the sentence imposed for his illegal reentry conviction (District Court Case No. 2:25-cr-66). Appeal 25-2113 is his appeal of the sentence imposed for a supervised release violation (District Court Case No. 2:25-cr-238). 2 Appellate Case: 25-2110 Document: 39 Date Filed: 07/06/2026 Page: 3

A probation officer prepared a presentence investigation report (“PSR”) on the

illegal reentry charge. The PSR detailed Defendant’s lengthy criminal history, which

included five illegal reentry offenses and several driving offenses, including

convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol. Defendant was first ordered

removed from the United States in May 2015. Since then, he has been deported four

times and convicted for illegal reentry four times, in 2016, 2018, 2023, and 2024.

The PSR determined that Defendant’s criminal history category was VI based on his

criminal history and because the instant offense was committed while Defendant was

completing a term of supervised release. The PSR calculated Defendant’s total

offense level as 10, and his advisory Sentencing Guidelines range for the illegal

reentry offense was 24 to 30 months’ imprisonment.

At sentencing, Defendant requested a 15-month total sentence, and for the

supervised release sentence to run concurrent to the illegal reentry sentence. In

support, he argued that his criminal history category overrepresented the severity of

his criminal record, placing him into criminal history category VI with dangerous

offenders, despite his lack of a dangerous criminal history. Defendant also noted that

he continued to reenter the United States because his family resided in the United

States, and while they had previously been unable to travel outside of the country,

they would be able to now visit him in Mexico. The government requested a

24-month sentence for the illegal reentry offense and a concurrent sentence for the

supervised release violation.

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The district court found that the Guidelines range for the illegal reentry

offense was 24 to 30 months’ imprisonment and the Guidelines range for the

supervised release violation was 18 to 24 months’ imprisonment. The court

sentenced Defendant to 24 months in prison for the illegal reentry offense and

18 months in prison for the supervised release violation. It ordered that 14 months of

the supervised release sentence would be concurrent to the illegal reentry sentence

and 4 months would be consecutive. The court stated that it had considered the

18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors and found that Defendant’s 28-month total sentence met

the sentencing goals. It noted Defendant’s mitigating circumstances surrounding his

family ties to the United States but also observed that this was Defendant’s sixth

illegal reentry conviction, which presented a need for deterrence, and that

Defendant’s driving offenses presented a need to protect the public.

Defendant timely appealed.

LEGAL FRAMEWORK

Substantive reasonableness “concerns whether the length of the sentence is

reasonable in light of the statutory factors under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).” United States

v. Adams, 751 F.3d 1175, 1181 (10th Cir. 2014). This proposition applies to

revocation of supervised release as well as initial sentencing on a conviction. See

United States v. McBride, 633 F.3d 1229, 1231 (10th Cir. 2011). Defendant

challenges the substantive reasonableness of his sentences under § 3553(a)(6), which

requires sentencing courts to consider “the need to avoid unwarranted sentence

4 Appellate Case: 25-2110 Document: 39 Date Filed: 07/06/2026 Page: 5

disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of

similar conduct.”

When faced with a substantive reasonableness challenge, “courts of appeals

must review all sentences—whether inside, just outside, or significantly outside the

Guidelines range—under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.” Gall v. United

States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007). A court abuses its discretion if the sentence it

imposed was “arbitrary, capricious, whimsical, or manifestly unreasonable.” United

States v. Sanchez-Leon, 764 F.3d 1248, 1267 (10th Cir. 2014) (internal quotation

marks omitted). “A sentence within the correctly calculated Guidelines range is

presumed to be reasonable; the burden is on the appellant to rebut the presumption.”

United States v. Verdin-Garcia, 516 F.3d 884, 898 (10th Cir. 2008) (citation

omitted). “That burden is a hefty one.” Id.

Because “[t]he purpose of the [S]entencing [G]uidelines is to eliminate

disparities among sentences nationwide,” United States v. Franklin, 785 F.3d 1365,

1371 (10th Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks omitted), when a district court

“correctly calculate[s] and carefully review[s] the Guidelines range, [it] necessarily

[gives] significant weight and consideration to the need to avoid unwarranted

disparities,” Gall, 552 U.S. at 54. “A sentence within a Guideline[s] range

‘necessarily’ complies with § 3553(a)(6).” Franklin, 785 F.3d at 1371 (internal

quotation marks omitted).

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ANALYSIS

Both of Defendant’s sentences fall within their respective Guidelines ranges.

And he does not contest the district court’s application of the correct Guidelines

range for either sentence. Thus, his sentences are presumptively reasonable.

Verdin-Garcia, 516 F.3d at 898.

Defendant argues that he was placed in criminal history category VI because

of his supervised release violation, despite his nonviolent criminal history. Criminal

history category VI is not reserved for violent offenders. It is for all criminal

defendants with at least 13 criminal history points, which are counted for both violent

and non-violent offenses. See United States v. Cortez, 139 F.4th 1146, 1158

(10th Cir. 2025) (McHugh, J., concurring) (stating when considering sentencing

disparity, that “defendants in the same criminal history category should have similar

criminal backgrounds because they committed a similar number of offenses and spent

similar amounts of time in custody”). Defendant nevertheless argues that offenders

in the VI category are typically violent offenders, which means they do not have

“similar records” to his under § 3553(a)(6). He therefore argues he “was not

sentenced in the same range as defendants with a similar criminal history” to his

own. Aplt. Opening Br. at 5. However, Defendant has not presented this court with

any statistics or cases to show how other defendants with a criminal history similar to

his own were sentenced, or that there is, in fact, any sentencing disparity. See Aplt.

Br. at 5-10.

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The PSR cited Sentencing Commission statistics showing the average sentence

for other defendants charged with illegal reentry, in the last five years, with an

offense level of 10, and a criminal history category of VI, was 23 months in prison.

The median was 24 months. Defendant received a 24-month sentence for his illegal

reentry charge, just like the comparators in this group. Although Defendant argues

he is not similarly situated to all other defendants within criminal history category

VI, he did not provide the district court with any statistics or other evidence to show

a sentencing disparity with any other group of comparators. Further, Defendant did

not offer the district court any evidence to show a sentencing disparity with other

defendants who committed comparable supervised release violations. The court

“couldn’t abuse its discretion by failing to consider facts not presented.” United

States v. Doty, 150 F.4th 1351, 1357 (10th Cir. 2025) (internal quotation marks

omitted). Accordingly, Defendant has not overcome the presumption that the district

court acted within its discretion when it imposed his within-Guidelines sentences.

See Franklin, 785 F.3d at 1371.

Relatedly, Defendant challenges the district court’s failure to explicitly discuss

the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities during sentencing. This is a

procedural argument that is not properly before us because he challenges only

substantive reasonableness in this appeal. See United States v. Gross, 44 F.4th 1298,

1303 (10th Cir. 2022) (“[P]rocedural error is the failure to consider all the relevant

factors, whereas substantive error is when the district court imposes a sentence that

does not fairly reflect those factors.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Even so,

7 Appellate Case: 25-2110 Document: 39 Date Filed: 07/06/2026 Page: 8

the district court stated that it considered the § 3553(a) factors and discussed the

specific circumstances of Defendant’s case when it imposed Defendant’s

within-Guidelines sentences. That was sufficient. See United States v.

Ruiz-Terrazas, 477 F.3d 1196, 1202 (10th Cir. 2007) (“[A] specific discussion of

Section 3553(a) factors is not required for sentences falling within the ranges

suggested by the Guidelines.”).

We also reject Defendant’s argument that his sentence was substantively

unreasonable because both he and the government requested lower sentences than he

received, based on Defendant’s mitigating circumstances and criminal history. But

sentencing courts are not bound by the parties’ recommendations and must exercise

their discretion in sentencing criminal defendants. See Gall, 552 U.S. at 41. And in

light of the presumption of reasonableness and the deferential review afforded the

district court’s decision, we cannot say that its decision to give more weight to

Defendant’s criminal history and the need to protect the public than to his mitigating

circumstances and criminal history arguments was an abuse of discretion. See

United States v. Zamora–Solorzano, 528 F.3d 1247, 1251 (10th Cir. 2008)

(“[A]buse-of-discretion review requires us to give ‘due deference’ to the weight the

district court bestows on any particular § 3553(a) factor in justifying its sentencing

decision.”).

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CONCLUSION

We affirm the district court’s judgments.

Entered for the Court

Carolyn B. McHugh Circuit Judge