United States v. Marquez-Garcia , 862 F.3d 143 ( 2017 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 16-1294
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
KELVIN MÁRQUEZ-GARCÍA,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Carmen Consuelo Cerezo, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Torruella, Selya and Thompson,
Circuit Judges.
Irma R. Valldejuli on brief for appellant.
Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez, United States Attorney, Mariana
E. Bauzá-Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief,
Appellate Division, and Mainon A. Schwartz, Assistant United
States Attorney, on brief for appellee.
July 5, 2017
SELYA, Circuit Judge. Defendant-appellant Kelvin
Márquez-García mounts a multifaceted challenge, on both procedural
and substantive grounds, to a 24-month sentence imposed following
the revocation of a term of supervised release. After careful
consideration, we summarily affirm. See 1st Cir. R. 27.0(c).
I.
We briefly rehearse the relevant facts. In December of
2012, the appellant pleaded guilty to the unlawful possession of
a machine gun. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(o). The district court
sentenced him to a 21-month term of immurement, to be followed by
three years of supervised release. The appellant served his prison
sentence and embarked upon his supervised release term in August
of 2014. Two days shy of a year later, he was found to be in
possession of yet another gun.
In due course, the appellant pleaded guilty to a charge
of being a felon in possession of a firearm. See id. § 922(g)(1).
For this offense, the district court imposed a fresh 48-month term
of imprisonment, to be followed by three more years of supervised
release. No disposition was made at that time with respect to the
appellant's apparent violation of his original supervised release
term.
In September of 2015, the probation officer moved to
revoke the original supervised release term based on the conduct
underlying the appellant's felon-in-possession charge. The
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district court convened a revocation hearing, at which the
appellant conceded the violation. The court revoked the original
period of supervision; noted that the appellant's felon-in-
possession conviction was a Grade B violation, see USSG
§7B1.1(a)(2); and calculated the advisory guideline sentencing
range (GSR) at four to ten months, see id. §7B1.4(a). Because the
underlying offense (unlawful possession of a machine gun) was a
Class C felony, see 18 U.S.C. §§ 924(a)(2), 3559(a), the maximum
permitted term of imprisonment was 24 months, see id. § 3583(e)(3).
The appellant urged the court to sentence him at the
bottom of the GSR. The government asked for a sentence at the top
of the GSR. After considering the sentencing factors limned in 18
U.S.C. § 3583(e), the court sentenced the appellant to a 24-month
term of immurement, to run consecutively to his 48-month sentence
on the felon-in-possession charge. This timely appeal followed.
II.
The appellant challenges his revocation sentence on both
procedural and substantive grounds. We discuss his claims of error
one by one.
A.
To begin, the appellant asserts that the district court
failed to give due consideration to the section 3583(e) factors.
As a general matter, appellate courts review preserved claims of
sentencing error for abuse of discretion. See Gall v. United
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States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007). But when a party has failed to
raise a particular claim of error before the sentencing court,
appellate review is normally limited to plain error. See United
States v. Ruiz-Huertas, 792 F.3d 223, 226 (1st Cir.), cert. denied,
136 S. Ct. 258 (2015). To vault the formidable hurdle imposed by
plain error review, an appellant must show "(1) that an error
occurred (2) which was clear or obvious and which not only
(3) affected the [appellant's] substantial rights, but also
(4) seriously impaired the fairness, integrity, or public
reputation of judicial proceedings." United States v. Duarte, 246
F.3d 56, 60 (1st Cir. 2001). Because the appellant raises his
section 3583(e) claim for the first time on appeal, our review is
for plain error.
Section 3583(e) sets forth various factors that a
sentencing court must consider before imposing a revocation
sentence. This statute incorporates some, but not all, of the
familiar sentencing factors enumerated in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).
See United States v. Vargas-Dávila, 649 F.3d 129, 131 (1st Cir.
2011). These incorporated factors include, as relevant here, the
history and characteristics of the offender, see 18 U.S.C.
§ 3553(a)(1); the nature and circumstances of the new offense, see
id.; the need to deter further criminal conduct, see id.§ 3553(a)(2)(B); and the need to protect the community from the
offender's penchant for criminal behavior, see id.
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§ 3553(a)(2)(C). Although a sentencing court must consider each
of the factors that section 3583(e) identifies, the court is not
obliged to address these factors "one by one, in some sort of rote
incantation when explicating its sentencing decision." United
States v. Dixon, 449 F.3d 194, 205 (1st Cir. 2006). Rather, the
court need only identify the principal factors upon which it relies
to reach its sentencing decision. See United States v. Turbides-
Leonardo, 468 F.3d 34, 40-41 (1st Cir. 2006).
During the revocation hearing, the district court stated
that it had considered all of the section 3553(a) factors. This
statement, in and of itself, is "entitled to significant weight."
United States v. Santiago-Rivera, 744 F.3d 229, 233 (1st Cir.
2014). Here, moreover, the court made particular reference to
those factors that it found most salient: the appellant's criminal
history, the serious nature and circumstances of his new offense,
the risk that his recidivist behavior posed to the community, and
the need to deter future criminal conduct. The fact that the court
did not explicitly mention the rest of the section 3583(e) factors
in its analysis does not mean that it failed to consider them.
See Turbides-Leonardo, 468 F.3d at 41 (explaining that, in this
context, "silence is not necessarily fatal"). We hold, therefore,
that the sentencing court committed nothing approaching plain
error with respect to its treatment of the section 3583(e) factors.
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B.
Relatedly, the appellant claims for the first time on
appeal that the district court erred in considering certain factors
before imposing his revocation sentence. Specifically, he takes
issue with the court's reliance on the serious nature of his new
offense and the risk that his criminal behavior posed to the
community. The appellant contends that courts may only consider
such factors when imposing a sentence for the offense that
triggered revocation, not when imposing the revocation sentence
itself.
We review the appellant's contention for plain error and
discern none. The contention contradicts the clear language of
section 3583(e), which expressly incorporates the strictures of
section 3553(a) requiring sentencing courts to consider "the
nature and circumstances of the offense," 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1),
and the need "to protect the public from further crimes of the
[offender]," id. § 3553(a)(2)(C), before revoking a supervised
release term and imposing sentence. See id. § 3583(e)(3).
Consequently, it was both necessary and proper for the district
court to consider the challenged factors when imposing the
revocation sentence.1
1
To the extent that the appellant's contention can be read
as arguing that the court could not use his new offense conduct
both as a basis for sentencing him in connection with the new
offense and as a basis for sentencing him in connection with the
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C.
Next, the appellant argues that the district court erred
by mischaracterizing his underlying machine gun offense as a Class
C felony rather than a Class A felony. This argument lacks force.
The maximum sentence for unlawful possession of a
machine gun is ten years. See id. § 924(a)(2). Since Class C
felonies are offenses that bear incarcerative terms of 10 to 25
years, see id. § 3559(a)(3), the appellant's original offense was
— as the district court ruled — a Class C felony.
We add, moreover, that the revocation of a supervised
release term imposed for the commission of a Class A felony is
subject to a five-year maximum sentence. See id. § 3583(e)(3).
By contrast, the revocation of a supervised release term imposed
for the commission of a Class C felony is subject to a two-year
maximum sentence. See id. In this instance, the sentencing court
properly identified the applicable statutory maximum revocation
sentence (two years). Given the facts of this case, there is no
reason to believe that an error in the classification of the
underlying felony (if one occurred) was anything but harmless.
supervised release violation, he is simply wrong. See United
States v. Coombs, 857 F.3d 439, 451 (1st Cir. 2017) (explaining
that nothing prevents a court from sentencing a defendant for the
same transgression "both as a criminal and as a supervised release
violator").
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D.
The appellant's last claim of procedural error is that
the district court failed adequately to explain its reasoning for
imposing an upwardly variant sentence. This claim was not advanced
below and, thus, engenders plain error review. See Ruiz-Huertas,
792 F.3d at 226.
The Supreme Court has admonished that a sentencing court
ought to state its reasons for imposing a particular sentence,
"including an explanation for any deviation from the Guidelines
range." Gall, 552 U.S. at 50-51. Such an explanation, though,
need not be "precise to the point of pedantry." United States v.
Del Valle-Rodríguez, 761 F.3d 171, 177 (1st Cir. 2014). Instead,
the court's duty to explicate its reasoning for imposing a variant
sentence requires only a coherent justification.2 See id.The district court's explanation for imposing an
upwardly variant 24-month sentence is admittedly terse. But no
more is exigible under plain error review where, as here, the
sentence imposed follows "by fair inference from the sentencing
record." United States v. Montero-Montero, 817 F.3d 35, 38 (1st
2 This justification requirement is at its lowest ebb in the
revocation context. While the sentencing guidelines have been
deemed advisory since the Supreme Court's landmark decision in
United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 245-46 (2005), the
guidelines for revocation sentences were written, in the first
instance, merely as non-binding policy statements, see United
States v. Work, 409 F.3d 484, 492 (1st Cir. 2005), and so remain.
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Cir. 2016). This proposition has special bite when one considers
the celerity with which the appellant procured another gun while
on supervised release for his earlier machine gun conviction. See,
e.g., United States v. Vázquez-Martínez, 812 F.3d 18, 24 (1st Cir.
2016) (affirming imposition of upwardly variant sentence under
analogous circumstances).
In all events, the district court noted the principal
factors upon which it relied, including the binary need to protect
the public from, and to deter further criminal conduct by, an
offender who committed a gun-related felony less than a year after
completing a substantial incarcerative term for unlawful
possession of a machine gun. See United States v. Vargas-García,
794 F.3d 162, 166 (1st Cir. 2015) (observing that sentencing court
"need only identify the main factors behind its decision"). For
the purpose of plain error review, the court sufficiently explained
its rationale by touching upon each of the factors that it
supportably found significant. We hold, therefore, that the
district court did not commit plain error in explaining its reasons
for imposing the upwardly variant revocation sentence.
E.
This leaves the appellant's claim that his 24-month
revocation sentence is substantively unreasonable. Specifically,
he submits that the district court offered no credible explanation
for imposing an upwardly variant sentence. The standard of review
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for claims of substantive unreasonableness is "somewhat blurred."
Ruiz-Huertas, 792 F.3d at 228. In order to skirt this murky area,
we assume, favorably to the appellant, that the abuse-of-
discretion standard of review applies. See, e.g., id. (making
similar assumption).
Under the abuse-of-discretion standard, a sentence is
substantively reasonable as long as the sentencing court provided
a "plausible sentencing rationale" and "reached a 'defensible
result.'" United States v. Rodríguez-Adorno, 852 F.3d 168, 177
(1st Cir. 2017) (quoting United States v. Martin, 520 F.3d 87, 96
(1st Cir. 2008)). There are typically "a broad range of reasonable
sentences that can apply in any given case." Id. A procedurally
correct sentence will be vacated on the ground of substantive
unreasonableness only if it "falls outside the expansive
boundaries" of the universe of reasonable sentences. Martin, 520
F.3d at 92.
Here, the sentencing court articulated a plausible
rationale for imposing the upwardly variant sentence. It noted
the short time that had elapsed between the appellant's release
from prison and his commission of a new, gun-related crime; the
serious (and repetitive) nature of the new offense; the danger
presented to the community by the appellant's unrepentant
behavior; and the need for deterrence. Contrary to the appellant's
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self-serving suggestion, this rationale goes well beyond a mere
reference to his felon-in-possession conviction.
We are likewise persuaded that the district court
reached a defensible result. The appellant had been on supervised
release for less than a year when he was arrested on the felon-
in-possession charge, and he had two years of his original
supervised release term remaining at that time. This recidivist
behavior and its timing combined to make manifest a gross
disrespect for the conditions of his supervision and constituted
hard evidence that the appellant's earlier incarceration had not
taught him any lasting lessons. Although the sentence imposed is
stern, the court acted within the wide encincture of its discretion
by meting out a 24-month sentence to an appellant who had,
figuratively, thumbed his nose at the justice system.
That ends this aspect of the matter. In view of the
district court's plausible sentencing rationale and its fashioning
of a sentence within the "broad range of reasonable sentences,"
Rodríguez-Adorno, 852 F.3d at 177, the appellant's claim of
substantive unreasonableness perforce fails. There was no abuse
of discretion.
III.
We need go no further. For the reasons elucidated above,
the sentence is summarily
Affirmed. See 1st Cir. R. 27.0(c).
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