United States v. Ramirez-de-Jesus ( 2018 )

Not for Publication in West's Federal Reporter
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 17-1026
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
ALVIN RAMÍREZ DE JESÚS,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Francisco A. Besosa, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Torruella, Boudin, and Lynch,
Circuit Judges.
Luis A. Guzmán-Dupont on brief for appellant.
Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez, United States Attorney,
Mariana E. Bauzá-Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief,
Appellate Division, and Thomas F. Klumper, Assistant United States
Attorney, Senior Appellate Counsel, on brief for appellee.
May 16, 2018
BOUDIN, Circuit Judge. In 2010 Alvin Ramírez De Jesús
("Ramírez") was imprisoned after pleading guilty to participating
in a drug trafficking conspiracy. He was released in 2015 to begin
a four-year term of supervised release. In 2016, a probation
officer complained to the district court that Ramírez had violated
conditions of release by having or using cocaine. Just a month
later, Probation filed another motion, notifying the court that
Ramírez had failed to report twice that he had been arrested or
contacted by law enforcement officers.
After a hearing, the district court revoked Ramírez's
supervised release but then left him at large with new warnings
and new conditions. Thereafter, the district court learned that
Ramírez had now abandoned his required drug treatment program and
also had been arrested for threatening his girlfriend. After
further proceedings the district court imposed a twelve-month term
of imprisonment for the violation of supervisory release
conditions, itself to be followed by a new three-year term of
supervised release.
Ramírez has now completed his twelve-month sentence and,
at the time of this appeal, is on supervised release for his new
three-year term. Far from suggesting that the appeal from the old
term is moot, the government says that the original revocation of
supervised release still adversely affects Ramírez. See United
States v. Molak, 276 F.3d 45, 48 (1st Cir. 2002). Ramírez
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continues to press his case against that revocation, saying in his
brief that the revocation was unreasonable.
Although Ramírez's brief is thirty-nine pages long and
contains numerous citations to case law, it is not organized in a
conventional fashion. The primary argument in the brief is that
the district court did not explain the reasons for the revocation
and sentence. We have considered Ramírez's other arguments and
have found them meritless under any standard of review.
Clearly the reasons for the revocation and sentence are
the serious violations charged and found by the district judge in
the revocation proceeding; Ramírez concedes that he committed the
violations and deserves both revocation and some time in prison,
suggesting that six months would be fair. But he says that the
district court did not offer any precise explanation for why it
chose the twelve-month term in prison and a new supervised release
term rather than some lesser punishment.
The district judge did explain the choice of the twelve-
month term and new supervisory release term. At the sentencing,
a lawyer from the federal defender's office represented Ramírez
and made no attempt to deny the violations or even to minimize
them. Instead, consistent with his earlier sentencing memorandum,
counsel argued that Ramírez was the caregiver for his father who
had documented serious medical conditions and that a six-month
sentence followed by six months of supervised release would be
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sufficient punishment, taking account of Ramírez's plea agreement
in the domestic violence case.
Ramírez's counsel adverted briefly to text messages
between Ramírez and his estranged companion, saying that Ramírez
was now subject to a stay away order. The government, replying,
said that the transcript showed Ramírez threatening to kill someone
that the girlfriend may or may not have been dating and then
threatening to kill her too, saying "I am a gangster." Invited by
the district court, Ramírez himself then offered an apology to his
ex-partner and asked for treatment.
In turn the district court showed just how it derived
the twelve-month sentence it was now imposing. The domestic
violence offense, said the judge, was punishable by a term of a
year and messages from Ramírez included threats to kill. Based on
Ramírez's criminal history, computed as category IV, and given
that his domestic violence offense was a grade C violation, the
guideline range for his supervised release violation was six to
twelve months in prison. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3); U.S.S.G. §§
7B1.1(a)(3), 7B1.4(a). Ramírez, the judge noted, had met prior
efforts to help him reform by abandoning the program in which he
was enrolled and had ignored the district court's own stern warning
when it nominally revoked supervised release but left Ramírez free
and imposed no penalty.
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The several missed opportunities to reform and the death
threats were aggravating circumstances. And the sentence was
within, albeit at the top of, the narrow range prescribed. To
claim on appeal that the twelve-month term of imprisonment and
three-year term of supervised release were not "explained" is far
from accurate and the sentence has been amply justified by the
district court.
Affirmed.
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