United States v. Suarez-Guzman ( 2018 )

Not for Publication in West's Federal Reporter
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 16-2302
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
ANTHONY SUÁREZ-GUZMAN,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Juan M. Pérez-Giménez, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Lynch and Lipez, Circuit Judges,
and Ponsor, District Judge.
Johnny Rivera-González and Johnny Rivera's Law Office 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.
March 2, 2018

Of the District of Massachusetts, sitting by designation.
LIPEZ, Circuit Judge. Appellant Anthony Suárez-Guzman
claims that his three-year sentence for violating the terms of his
supervised release on a drug offense is unreasonably long given
his full acceptance of responsibility and multiple mitigating
personal factors. Notwithstanding the favorable considerations,
we find no basis on which to override the district court's
discretionary sentencing judgment.
Pursuant to an agreement with the government, appellant
pled guilty in December 2010 to one count of an indictment charging
him with participating in a drug conspiracy. He admitted that he
had sold various controlled substances, including heroin and
cocaine, as part of a distribution ring that operated at public
housing projects in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. Appellant was sentenced
to sixty months' incarceration and eight years of supervised
release, the latter beginning in March 2014 upon completion of his
prison term. In October 2015, the United States Probation Office
("USPO") notified the court that appellant had violated multiple
conditions of his release. Consistent with the USPO's
recommendation, the court issued a written reprimand and modified
appellant's supervised release terms to include 150 hours of unpaid
community service.
In June 2016, the USPO reported new violations of the
supervised release conditions, including drug use and failure to
perform the required community service. The USPO reported that
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appellant tested positive for marijuana on six separate occasions
and failed to report for drug testing on seven additional
occasions. He also failed to report to a treatment program for
substance abuse or to his scheduled community service work.
Appellant admitted all of the asserted violations, and he waived
a revocation hearing. At sentencing, defense counsel argued that
numerous factors -- including appellant's youth (age twenty when
originally arrested and incarcerated), lack of family support,
absence of new criminal charges, and loss of employment --
warranted a sentence at the low end of the guidelines range of
three-to-nine months' imprisonment.
The district court concluded otherwise. After detailing
appellant's numerous violations, the court observed that appellant
had "made a mockery of the supervised release over a year or close
to a year."1 Accordingly, the court imposed the statutory maximum
three-year term of imprisonment, to be followed by a new three-
year term of supervised release. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3).
Appellant's attorney immediately asked the court to reconsider,
1 The court summarized the violations as follows:
using controlled substances, not following the
instructions of the probation officer, not
reporting to community service work, not
seeking employment, failing to report to the
substance abuse outpatient treatment, failing
to report to the U.S. Probation Officer for a
scheduled urinalysis without being excused[.]
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seeking a reduction to no more than one year of incarceration, but
the request was denied. Counsel then objected to the sentence as
substantively unreasonable.
On appeal, appellant argues that the district court
abused its discretion in imposing the maximum term. See United
States v. Wright, 812 F.3d 27, 30 (1st Cir. 2016) (noting abuse-
of-discretion standard for preserved challenges to revocation
sentences). He asserts that the three-year sentence does not
reflect the mitigating factors presented by his circumstances,
particularly his immediate acceptance of responsibility and his
mental health. He emphasizes that he fully adhered to the
conditions of release during the first year, lapsing only when he
lost his job and could not find new employment because of his
"educational and vocational deficits." At that low point, he
explains, the absence of family support and his inexperience in
coping with adversity led to his noncompliance.
For the first time on appeal, appellant suggests that
the court's response to his initial violations set him up for
failure because he needed "professional mental assistance" for
possible depression, not an additional burden (the unpaid
community service work). He further contends, also for the first
time, that his community-service default was attributable, in
part, to discomfort with his assignment -- accompanying police
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officers to pick up drug addicts -- because he could have faced
reprisals for being an informant.
Without minimizing appellant's difficulties, we cannot
say that the district court's rejection of his request for leniency
was outside the bounds of its "wide latitude in sentencing
decisions." United States v. Williams, 630 F.3d 44, 52 (1st Cir.
2010). When revoking supervised release in favor of a term of
imprisonment, courts are directed to consider certain of the
familiar statutory sentencing factors, see 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e),
including "the history and characteristics of the defendant,"
id. § 3553(a)(1), and the need "to afford adequate deterrence to
criminal conduct," id. § 3553(a)(2)(B).2 Here, the district court
highlighted the substantial number of violations and appellant's
repeated refusal to take advantage of available assistance.3
2Section 3583(e) "incorporates some, but not all" of the
§ 3553(a) factors. Although the court must consider each listed
factor, it "need only identify the principal factors upon which it
relies to reach its sentencing decision." United States v.
Márquez-García, 862 F.3d 143, 145 (1st Cir. 2017).
3
Responding to defense counsel's request for reconsideration,
the court stated:
He would not answer the calls of my probation
officer. She is there to help him. She is
there to help him get a job. . . . He was
provided all the tools. He had the tools there
since day one when he was placed on supervised
release.
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Although not stated explicitly, the court's comments reflect a
judgment that appellant should be given a significant period of
incarceration because of his demonstrated inability to conform his
behavior to the court's requirements while on release and that he
should be sanctioned for the repeated breaches of the court's
trust. See U.S.S.G. ch. 7, pt. A, introductory cmt. 3(b) (noting
the Sentencing Commission's view that "at revocation the court
should sanction primarily the defendant's breach of trust").
Particularly given that appellant did not rectify his
conduct when offered a second chance, the district court's decision
to impose the maximum term "was grounded in a plausible sentencing
rationale." United States v. Bermúdez-Meléndez, 827 F.3d 160, 166
(1st Cir. 2016); see also United States v. Márquez-García, 862
F.3d 143, 147 (1st Cir. 2017) ("There are typically 'a broad range
of reasonable sentences that can apply in any given case.'"
(quoting United States v. Martin, 520 F.3d 87, 96 (1st Cir.
2008))). The new factors appellant raises on appeal -- his
possible depression and need for mental-health treatment, and the
inappropriateness of his drug-related community-service assignment
-- do not, under plain-error review, overcome the court's judgment
Earlier in the proceeding, the court observed that "Mr. Suarez has
shown that he is unable to comply with the law or the conditions
of supervision imposed by this Court."
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that appellant's unsuccessful period of supervised release, with
numerous violations, warrants the term imposed.4
Hence, "[a]lthough the sentence imposed is stern," Márquez-
García, 862 F.3d at 148, we cannot say that its imposition was an
abuse of discretion.
Affirmed.
4 Although Suárez does not expressly argue procedural
unreasonableness, the government discusses at length its view that
no procedural errors occurred at sentencing. We agree. The
guidelines range is undisputed, and the record belies any assertion
that the court failed to recognize all relevant considerations.
We note in particular that defense counsel presented "vigorous
arguments on [appellant's] mitigating factors." United States v.
Alejandro-Rosado, 878 F.3d 435, 439 (1st Cir. 2017); see also id.("Though the district court's consideration was unfavorable to the
defendant, the fact that it weighed some factors more heavily than
others does not amount to procedural error.").
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