United States v. Rogelio Santillan

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Decided: May 17, 2023
• Docket: 23-6097
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

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UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 23-6097

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

ROGELIO VIDAL SANTILLAN,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, at Statesville. Kenneth D. Bell, District Judge. (5:18-cr-00048-KDB-DSC-14)

Submitted: May 8, 2023 Decided: May 17, 2023

Before KING and WYNN, Circuit Judges, and MOTZ, Senior Circuit Judge.

Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Rogelio Vidal Santillan, Appellant Pro Se.

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PER CURIAM:

Rogelio Vidal Santillan appeals the district court’s order denying his motion for

compassionate release pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), as amended by the First Step

Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-391, § 603(b)(1), 132 Stat. 5194, 5239. We vacate the district

court’s order and remand for further proceedings.

We review a district court’s ruling on a motion for compassionate release for abuse

of discretion. United States v. Kibble, 992 F.3d 326, 329 (4th Cir. 2021). We have held

that “district courts are empowered to consider any extraordinary and compelling reason

for release that a defendant might raise.” United States v. McCoy, 981 F.3d 271, 284 (4th

Cir. 2020) (cleaned up). A district court need not address every argument raised by a

defendant in a compassionate release motion. United States v. High, 997 F.3d 181, 187

(4th Cir. 2021). Instead, “the touchstone must be whether the district court set forth enough

to satisfy our court that it has considered the parties’ arguments and has a reasoned basis

for exercising its own legal decisionmaking authority, so as to allow for meaningful

appellate review.” Id. at 190 (cleaned up).

Santillan presented three main arguments in his compassionate release motion: (1)

health concerns related to Santillan’s long-haul covid symptoms and other ailments; (2)

family circumstances; and (3) the lack of programming and good-time credits available to

undocumented immigrants like himself. The district court’s order rejected this third

argument, but it failed to mention, let alone address, the other two.

In High, we considered several factors in determining that a district court’s

explanation was adequate. 997 F.3d at 188-89. Particularly significant was that the district

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judge who ruled on High’s compassionate release motion was the same judge who

originally sentenced him, but we also observed that the district court had “added to its

original consideration of” the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors at High’s sentencing hearing by

discussing his recidivism. Id. at 189. We also contrasted High’s claims with those of the

defendants in United States v. Martin, 916 F.3d 389, 396 (4th Cir. 2019), and United States

v. McDonald, 986 F.3d 402, 412 (4th Cir. 2021), noting that High had received no

disciplinary infractions and had completed educational courses during his one-and-one half

years of incarceration, while the defendants in Martin and McDonald, who each served

nearly 20 years, “had presented a significant amount of post-sentencing mitigation

evidence” that required a more detailed explanation by the district court. High, 997 F.3d

at 190 (cleaned up).

Here, as in High, the same district judge who presided over Santillan’s sentencing

also denied his compassionate release motion. But while Santillan did not present a

“mountain of new mitigating evidence” for the court to consider, see Martin, 916 F.3d at

396-97, he offered potentially persuasive arguments. And unlike in High, the district court

did not engage in any analysis of the § 3553(a) factors, ending its inquiry at the lack of

extraordinary or compelling reasons. Thus, we conclude that the district court’s

explanation was inadequate.

Accordingly, we vacate the district court’s order and remand for further

proceedings. By this disposition, we express no opinion on whether Santillan’s additional

arguments entitle him to compassionate release, leaving that decision to the district court

in the first instance. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal

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contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would

not aid the decisional process.

VACATED AND REMANDED