United States v. Perez-Delgado ( 2024 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 22-1231
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
RICARDO PEREZ-DELGADO, a/k/a Bam Bam,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Francisco A. Besosa, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Barron, Chief Judge,
Thompson and Montecalvo, Circuit Judges.
Ralph A. Jacobs for appellant.
Brendan B. Gants, with whom W. Stephen Muldrow, United States
Attorney, Mariana E. Bauzá-Almonte, Assistant United States
Attorney, Chief, Appellate Division, and Julia M. Meconiates,
Assistant United States Attorney, were on brief, for appellee.
April 18, 2024
THOMPSON, Circuit Judge. Here are the basic
need-to-knows of today's sentencing appeal: Ricardo Perez-Delgado
("Perez") received a forty-year prison sentence, even though the
applicable guideline sentencing range ("GSR") only went up to a
ceiling of thirty years and five months of imprisonment. For his
part, relying upon the Sentencing-Law-101 fundamental that a court
must adequately explain the reasons for its chosen sentence, he
argues the district court didn't adequately lay out its rationale
for imposing a sentence nine years and seven months (essentially
a decade) over the top of the GSR. For the government's part, it
claims there's nothing to see here: The district court's
explanation was perfectly fine and it more than adequately
justified the upwardly variant sentence. For our part, after
taking the time to mull it all over, we conclude that Perez's
arguments carry the day. We, unsurprisingly then, vacate and
remand for resentencing.
THE BACKDROP
Before getting to the merits of today's sentencing
appeal, we start off with a summary of the facts and of how the
case got to us. And since we're here on a sentencing appeal
following a guilty plea, we lift the facts from the undisputed
portions of the probation office's presentence investigation
report ("PSR"), the plea agreement, and the transcript of the
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sentencing hearing. See United States v. Vaquerano Canas, 81 F.4th
86, 89 (1st Cir. 2023).
The Crime
In the late-night hours of March 31, 2019 and continuing
through the early-morning hours of April 1, Perez, along with Angel
David López-Zayas ("López") and Freddie Ramos-Ortiz ("Ramos"),
planned to rob a businessman ("the victim"), who owned gas stations
and commercial properties in Puerto Rico. After scoping the
victim's home, they left to acquire some supplies and to speak
with Jadiel Joaquin Torres-Rijos ("Torres"), who decided to join
their plan to rob the victim. The four of them returned to the
victim's home, pepper sprayed his dogs, and broke the fence to his
home. They entered the home through the kitchen window, but the
noise woke the victim from his slumber. To avoid being caught,
the four robbers exited the home and waited outside. The victim
then exited the home too, to see what all the ruckus was about.
Outside the home, López rushed towards the victim
swinging a baseball bat, but missed the victim because it was dark.
In an effort to defend himself, the victim then retrieved a gun
from his car and shot at the robbers. Avoiding the gunfire, López,
Ramos, and Torres ran into the home. Still outside himself, the
victim stumbled upon Perez and a struggle between them ensued,
during which the victim bit Perez on the face. Later on, López
heard screaming and ran back outside to find the victim being held
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with his arms behind his back and being beaten with a baseball bat
and the butt of a rifle.1 All four robbers ultimately took part
in the beating. Perez then shot the victim six times with the
victim's own gun and killed him.2
1 The PSR does not specify which co-defendant or co-defendants
were holding the victim down and beating the victim when López ran
outside.
2 In the parties' briefing to us, there was a bit of a squabble
between them because the fact that Perez was the shooter is not
included anywhere in the PSR's Offense Conduct section as a fact
found by the probation office during their investigation or as a
fact stipulated to by the parties. Rather, this fact appears in
the PSR's Victim Impact section, which describes the probation
office's interview of the victim's children, who indicated in that
interview that Perez was the shooter. On appeal, Perez seemed to
have been challenging the evidentiary basis for this fact (one
cited by the district court when delivering its sentence) as no
evidence was presented at sentencing to corroborate his role as
the shooter, explaining that the victim's children's statement was
the only piece of evidence and it was merely "a belief" that
included no "suggestion of the basis for that belief." At oral
argument, though, defense counsel made it clear as day that Perez
is not challenging that fact and Perez was, indeed, the shooter.
We, therefore, take Perez and defense counsel at their word and
include that tidbit of information here. While we do not wish to
spill more ink on a tangent that everyone agrees on (i.e., Perez's
role as the shooter), we must quickly emphasize before moving on
that "[f]actual findings made at sentencing must be supported by
a preponderance of the evidence" and "findings based solely on
unreliable evidence cannot be established by a preponderance."
United States v. Castillo-Torres, 8 F.4th 68, 71 (1st Cir. 2021).
As we've done before, "[w]e . . . warn[] district courts not to
base sentencing determinations upon mere charges unsupported by
any admission or some other evidence, even when the defendant
offers no rebuttal evidence." Id. (citation and internal quotation
marks omitted); see also id. at 72–73 (vacating sentence because
relevant factual finding was not supported by preponderance of the
evidence, where in the PSR the probation office merely "pass[ed]
along allegations made by someone else . . . without vouching for
them").
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With the victim dead, the robbery could now proceed as
originally planned. To sum it up, the four robbers stole two
safes, multiple firearms, two cars, and over $20,000 in cash.
Later on, they divvied up the loot amongst themselves and went on
their own way.
The Sentencing Proceedings
As might be expected, Perez was eventually found,
arrested, and indicted for these actions. And on August 18, 2021,
he agreed to plead guilty pursuant to a plea agreement to the use
and carry of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence
resulting in death. Also pursuant to that plea agreement, the
government agreed to dismiss other counts against Perez arising
from his conduct and agreed to a three-level reduction for
acceptance of responsibility, resulting in a total offense level
("TOL") of forty. The parties also agreed to jointly recommend a
sentence of imprisonment of 300 months.3
In anticipation of sentencing, the probation office
filed its PSR with the district court. The PSR calculated a TOL
of forty (which the parties also agreed to) and a Criminal History
Category ("CHC") of I (as Perez had no criminal priors). These
We take a beat here to note that the plea agreement also
3
included a waiver-of-appeal provision, but as that provision was
conditioned upon the district court sentencing Perez to 300 months
or less (which emphatically did not occur here), it serves as no
bar to today's appeal. See United States v. Ruiz-Huertas, 792
F.3d 223, 226 n.2 (1st Cir. 2015).
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calculations yielded a GSR of 292-365 months' imprisonment.4
Before closing out, the PSR indicated that the probation officer
who prepared the report did not eye any factors that would warrant
a sentence outside the GSR.
The sentencing hearing took place on March 4, 2022.
Business started as usual with the district court first noting
that it had read Perez's sentencing memorandum, which discussed
his background and upbringing. Both parties then voiced their
joint recommendation of 300 months' imprisonment. Thereafter, the
victim's son and Perez addressed the district court.
At the end of these preliminaries, attention turned back
to the district court to give its sentencing colloquy, which went
a little like this: First, the district court ran the numbers
itself (i.e., the TOL, CHC, and GSR) and ultimately adopted the
probation office's GSR calculation -- namely, 292-365 months'
imprisonment.5 Second, the district court stated that it, in
deciding Perez's sentence, had considered the relevant statutory
factors outlined in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), the PSR, Perez's
sentencing memorandum, counsels' arguments, and the victim's son's
4 Although the PSR indicates that the GSR's minimum term of
imprisonment was 290 months, not 292 months, that appears upon
inspection to be just a typo and this two-month difference is not
ultimately relevant to the issues on appeal today.
5 Just as the probation office did, the district court
mistakenly indicated that the GSR's minimum term of imprisonment
was 290 months, not 292 months.
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and Perez's in-court statements. Third, the district court briefly
recounted Perez's age, educational background, employment and
health status, and marijuana use. Fourth, the district court
summarized the nature and circumstances of the offense. This
factual summary was largely consistent with the facts found in the
Offense Conduct section of the PSR, with two notable exceptions.
The district court added in that "[o]ver 50 percent of [the
victim's] bones were broken" and "[the victim] was then released
and shot with his own firearm approximately six times by Mr.
Perez." Fifth, and finally, the district court meted out a variant
sentence of 480 months' imprisonment (i.e., forty years total, and
115 months above the GSR's 365-month top). The district court's
explanation for its variant sentence amounted to one sentence:
The Court finds that the sentence recommended
by the parties does not reflect the
seriousness of Mr. Perez'[s] offense, does not
promote respect for the law, does not protect
the public from additional crimes by Mr.
Perez, and does not address the issues of
deterrence and punishment. Accordingly, it is
the judgment of the Court that [Perez] is
committed to the custody of the Bureau of
Prisons to be imprisoned for a term of 480
months.
And that was it. The district court did not otherwise address its
basis for the upward variance or even acknowledge that its chosen
sentence had strayed from the GSR at all.
Once the district court was done speaking, defense
counsel offered the following objection:
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Your Honor, as to appeal purposes, we need to
object to the sentence that has been handed
down today for being substantive[ly] and
procedurally unreasonable, and the term of
imprisonment specifically being over
what -- the Plea Agreement and the recommended
guidelines in the PSR.
To this objection, the district court said not a word.
Following the end of the sentencing hearing, the
district court filed a statement of reasons ("SOR"), in which it
checked off the following three boxes as reasons for its variant
sentence: Perez's "[r]ole in the [o]ffense"; the need "[t]o
reflect the seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for the
law, and to provide just punishment for the offense"; and the need
"[t]o afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct."
Unhappy with his variant sentence, Perez then asked us
to weigh in through a timely notice of appeal.
THE MERITS
Against this factual and procedural backdrop, we turn
our attention to Perez's sentencing appeal, which follows our
now-familiar "two-step framework" for sentencing appeals. United
States v. Colón-Cordero, 91 F.4th 41, 48 (1st Cir. 2024).
Step one involves determining whether the sentence was
procedurally reasonable. See United States v. Melendez-Hiraldo,
82 F.4th 48, 53 (1st Cir. 2023). Examples of errors that might
require us to label a sentence procedurally unreasonable include
the district court "failing to calculate (or improperly
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calculating) the Guidelines range, treating the Guidelines as
mandatory, failing to consider the § 3553(a) factors, selecting a
sentence based on clearly erroneous facts, or failing to adequately
explain the chosen sentence -- including an explanation for any
deviation from the Guidelines range." Gall v. United States, 552
U.S. 38, 51 (2007).
Assuming all is procedurally a-okay, we then proceed to
step two, which involves determining whether the sentence was
substantively reasonable. See Melendez-Hiraldo, 82 F.4th at 53.
We stamp a sentence as substantively reasonable "if its rationale
is plausible and resulted in a defensible outcome." United States
v. De La Cruz, 91 F.4th 550, 553 (1st Cir. 2024).
With our two-step framework in place, we lay out Perez's
arguments on appeal. Essentially, he has three arrows in his
quiver: First, he argues that his sentence was procedurally and
substantively unreasonable because the district court did not
adequately explain the reasons for its upwardly variant sentence.
Second, he argues that his sentence was procedurally and
substantively unreasonable because the district court created a
sentencing disparity with his co-defendants and did not adequately
explain the basis for that disparity.6 And third, he argues that
6 López was sentenced to 240 months, Ramos was sentenced to
282 months, and Torres was sentenced to 360 months. All of these
sentences were ten or more years less than Perez's sentence of 480
months and no co-defendant received an upwardly variant sentence.
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his sentence was procedurally unreasonable because the district
court did not put him on notice that his role in the offense was
going to be an issue at sentencing.
Of those three arrows, Perez's first
inadequate-variance-explanation argument clearly hits the
bull's-eye for reasons we'll explain in due course. Our
discussion, therefore, will be limited to this winning argument.
See, e.g., Colón-Cordero, 91 F.4th at 48 ("[W]e need train our
focus on only some of those claims, not all, to reach our
outcome."); United States v. Torres-Meléndez, 28 F.4th 339, 340
(1st Cir. 2022) (focusing discussion of sentencing appeal on only
one procedural-reasonableness argument, as "the simplest way to
handle a case is often the best way" (citation and internal
quotation marks omitted)). And even though Perez makes his
inadequate-variance-explanation argument on both procedural and
substantive unreasonableness terms,7 our discussion of this
particular argument will be limited to procedural reasonableness
because, as we mentioned above, we don't reach step two of our
framework unless all the procedural i's are dotted and t's are
crossed. See United States v. Reyes-Santiago, 804 F.3d 453, 467-68
(1st Cir. 2015).
7 We've explained before that "[t]he lack of an adequate
explanation can be characterized as either a procedural error or
a challenge to the substantive reasonableness of the sentence."
United States v. Crespo-Ríos, 787 F.3d 34, 37 n.3 (1st Cir. 2015).
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But before getting into the weeds of why Perez's argument
is a winner, we pause first to address our standard of review and
second to walk through some of the A, B, C's of sentencing that
guide our coming analysis.
Standard of Review
At either step in the two-step framework, we review
preserved claims of error for abuse of discretion and, "[w]ithin
the abuse-of-discretion rubric, we review the sentencing court's
findings of fact for clear error and questions of law (including
the court's interpretation and application of the sentencing
guidelines) de novo." United States v. Carrasquillo-Vilches, 33
F.4th 36, 41 (1st Cir. 2022) (citation and internal quotation marks
omitted). If the defendant failed to preserve their claim of
error, however, they are left saddled with plain-error review.
See United States v. Montero-Montero, 817 F.3d 35, 37 (1st Cir.
2016).
Here, the government requests that we review Perez's
inadequate-variance-explanation argument for plain error, because
he supposedly failed to preserve this error before the district
court. That's a request we cannot grant for the following reasons.
It is true (as the government points out) that in general "[t]o
preserve a claim of error for appellate review, an objection must
be sufficiently specific to call the district court's attention to
the asserted error." United States v. Soto-Soto, 855 F.3d 445,
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448 n.1 (1st Cir. 2017). But "our preservation policy" is not
ironclad either; it simply requires "putting the district court on
notice of the error." Colón-Cordero, 91 F.4th at 50. To that
end, we have emphasized that, "[t]o preserve a claim of procedural
sentencing error for appellate review, a defendant's objection
need not be framed with exquisite precision." United States v.
Rivera-Berríos, 968 F.3d 130, 134 (1st Cir. 2020).
Applying our preservation policy here, we deem defense
counsel's objection sufficiently specific to call the district
court's attention to its failure to adequately explain the variance
from the GSR. To recap, once the district court finished its
sentencing colloquy, defense counsel objected "to the sentence
that has been handed down today for being . . . procedurally
unreasonable, and the term of imprisonment specifically being over
. . . the recommended guidelines in the PSR." Accordingly, defense
counsel specified that he was objecting to the sentence on
procedural-reasonableness grounds and then "supplied more specific
reasons for objecting -- among them" that the sentence was above
the applicable GSR. United States v. García-Pérez, 9 F.4th 48, 53
(1st Cir. 2021). We find that "[s]ubsumed within th[at]
objection[] is the clearly implicit charge that the district
court's explanation" did not sufficiently explain why Perez's
sentence was above the GSR. United States v. Serrano-Berríos, 38
F.4th 246, 250 n.1 (1st Cir. 2022).
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To be sure, we concede that defense counsel could have
offered some greater specificity in his objection. But "exquisite
precision" has never been required, Rivera-Berríos, 968 F.3d at
134, and we have explained before that "[t]he lack of an adequate
explanation can be characterized as . . . procedural error,"
Crespo-Ríos, 787 F.3d at 37 n.3. Furthermore, we think the broader
context of this particular sentencing hearing makes it
"contextually clear" that defense counsel's objection and specific
reference to the sentence being above the GSR put the district
court sufficiently on notice that defense counsel believed its
explanation to be wanting. Colón-Cordero, 91 F.4th at 49. The
broader context here involves (1) an extraordinary variance (just
shy of a decade); (2) a sentencing hearing at which both the
government and defense counsel advocated for a within-the-GSR
sentence; (3) a PSR in which the probation office indicated it
thought there was no reason to vary; (4) a sentencing memorandum
from defense counsel explaining that the within-the-GSR joint
recommendation more than satisfied all the goals of sentencing;
(5) three other co-defendants who did not receive upwardly variant
sentences; and (6) a sentencing colloquy during which (as we will
explain in just a minute) the district court did not explain why
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it opted for such a significantly outside-the-GSR sentence. To
require more in this context would be to gild the lily.8
On this record, therefore, we keep our
abuse-of-discretion review and file plain-error review away for
another day. With that, we move on to the aforementioned A, B,
C's of sentencing necessary to understand our analysis and ultimate
decision.
A, B, C's of Adequate Sentencing Explanations
A sentencing court is obligated to "state in open court
the reasons for its imposition of the particular sentence." 18
U.S.C. § 3553(c). This obligation serves multiple purposes: it
not only gives the defendant (and the public) an understanding of
why the defendant is receiving a particular sentence, but it also
"allow[s] for meaningful appellate review" and "promote[s] the
perception of fair sentencing." Gall, 552 U.S. at 50.
Nevertheless, explaining the reasons for a particular
sentence is more of an art than a science. On the one hand, the
explanation must highlight "the primary factors driving the
imposed sentence," but on the other hand, it need not be "precise
to the point of pedantry." Rivera-Berríos, 968 F.3d at 134
(citations omitted). Basically, context is the name of the game
here, because "[t]he appropriateness of brevity or length,
8 We by no means suggest that only in these specific contextual
circumstances would such an objection be considered preserved.
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conciseness or detail, when to write, what to say, depends on the
circumstances." Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 356 (2007);
see also Colón-Cordero, 91 F.4th at 50-51 ("Just what kind of
explanation is needed depends on the context of each individual
case."). For example, a sentence that sits comfortably within the
GSR "requires a less elaborate explanation." United States v.
Murphy-Cordero, 715 F.3d 398, 402 (1st Cir. 2013).
Conversely (and relevantly for our purposes here today),
an outside-the-GSR sentence (whether above or below) requires
more. See id. Just how much more depends on the degree of the
variance. The more the sentencing court decides to vary, the more
it needs to explain. See United States v. Reyes-Correa, 81 F.4th
1, 10 (1st Cir. 2023). And while "we have not mandated that a
sentencing court follow any particular format in explaining an
upwardly variant sentence," United States v. Flores-Nater, 62
F.4th 652, 656 (1st Cir. 2023), part of its explanation must
include why the defendant's case "differ[s] from the norm" or "the
mine-run of" cases covered by the applicable GSR. Serrano-Berríos,
38 F.4th at 250 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
Whatever explanation the sentencing court decides to give must
also be case-specific. Boilerplate or generic explanations that
are one-size-fits-all-defendants (particularly in the context of
variant sentences) will not do. See, e.g., Colón-Cordero, 91 F.4th
at 52-53; Reyes-Correa, 81 F.4th at 10–11; United States v.
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Carrasquillo-Sánchez, 9 F.4th 56, 62 (1st Cir. 2021);
Rivera-Berríos, 968 F.3d at 137.
All that said, "a sentencing court's rationale need not
always be explicit even when the court imposes an upwardly variant
sentence." Flores-Nater, 62 F.4th at 656. In such instances, "if
the explanation can be gleaned 'by fair inference' from the
sentencing record," we'll deem that sufficient. Id. (quoting
United States v. Ortiz-Pérez, 30 F.4th 107, 114 (1st Cir. 2022)).
Nevertheless, our willingness to infer a sentencing rationale has
its limits. See Carrasquillo-Sánchez, 9 F.4th at 62 ("[W]hile 'a
court's reasoning can often be inferred by comparing what was
argued by the parties or contained in the pre-sentence report with
what the judge did,' such inferences must be anchored in 'what the
judge did.'" (quoting United States v. Jiménez-Beltre, 440 F.3d
514, 519 (1st Cir. 2006) (en banc))).
With those sentencing-explanation basics squared away,
all that's left is our take on today's sentencing appeal.
Our Take
Perez argues the district court's explanation was too
threadbare to make the cut on appeal. More specifically, he
explains that the district court offered only a generic,
one-sentence explanation for a sentence that varied upwardly by
nearly a decade. Besides that one sentence, the district court
offered only a factual summary of the crime, which doesn't amount
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to a sentencing explanation (according to Perez). Seemingly
ignoring the generic, one-sentence explanation, the government
counters that the district court's explanation can be inferred by
its references to Perez's privileged history and upbringing, the
brutal nature of the crime, and his role as the shooter. In our
view, Perez has the better of the arguments.
To kick things off, we agree that the district court's
explanation was limited to one generic sentence: "The Court finds
that the sentence recommended by the parties does not reflect the
seriousness of Mr. Perez'[s] offense, does not promote respect for
the law, does not protect the public from additional crimes by Mr.
Perez, and does not address the issues of deterrence and
punishment." Nothing in this one sentence is specific to Perez's
case, highlights which aspects of the crime were particularly
troubling to the district court, or explains why an extra ten years
in prison is the magic number. Rather, this explanation is
boilerplate. And we use the term "boilerplate" literally because
the explanation the district court gave here tracks almost
word-for-word the same explanations we have deemed inadequate in
many other cases. See, e.g., Colón-Cordero, 91 F.4th at 52-53;
Reyes-Correa, 81 F.4th at 10-11; Flores-Nater, 62 F.4th at 656-57;
Serrano-Berríos, 38 F.4th at 249-50; United States v.
Muñoz-Fontanez, 61 F.4th 212, 214-15 (1st Cir. 2023). As we've
indicated before and repeat today, this explanation "simply
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rehearses -- but does not apply -- certain of the factors that
Congress has instructed courts to consider in imposing sentences."
Reyes-Correa, 81 F.4th at 11 (quoting Flores-Nater, 62 F.4th at
656, which in turn is citing 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)).
Of course, this doesn't end our analysis because, as we
mentioned above, an adequate sentencing explanation can, at times,
be fairly inferred "from the sentencing colloquy and the parties'
arguments (oral or written) in connection with sentencing."
Montero-Montero, 817 F.3d at 37. And the government beseeches us
to look at the district court's sentencing colloquy because, in
the government's view, all the answers as to why the district court
gave Perez an extra decade in prison are right there. So, let's
take another look at that sentencing colloquy to see if we find
the answers the government assures us are there (they aren't).
To refresh the memory, after adopting the probation
office's GSR tabulations, the district court acknowledged that it
had considered the § 3553(a) factors, the PSR, Perez's sentencing
memorandum, counsels' arguments, and the victim's son's and
Perez's in-court statements. Then, the district court laid out
some basic biographical details about Perez: twenty-six years
old, associate's degree, pre-arrest employment in maintenance,
prior marijuana use, and physical and mental health intact. Next,
the district court ran through the facts of the crime. Once
finished with its factual recap, the district court gave the
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aforementioned, one-sentence explanation and meted out its
forty-year sentence. Having reviewed the sentencing colloquy, we
find nothing that comes close to an adequate explanation for a
sentence with a variance of this magnitude (nearly a decade over
the top-line of the GSR).
The government responds by urging us to review the
colloquy more carefully and read in-between the lines. First, it
argues that the district court referred to "Perez's privileged
history and characteristics" in the colloquy, which suggests that
"his decision to participate in the senseless brutality was
especially troubling" to the district court. But the sum total of
the district court's reference to Perez's background was the
following: "Mr. Perez is 26 years old, has an Associate[']s Degree
in education, was employed in maintenance prior to his arrest for
his offense, and has a history of using marijuana. He is
physically healthy, and mentally stable." To state the obvious,
this is not an explanation for a variant sentence; it doesn't even
acknowledge that there is a variance and, unlike the government's
spin on what it believes animated the district court's thinking,
the district court itself doesn't even use the word "privileged."
No matter, says the government, because it has other
winning arguments on deck. It contends next that, in the detailed
factual summary the district court gave at sentencing, the district
court included that (1) this was "a violent crime during which the
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victim was brutally murdered" and "[o]ver 50 percent of [the
victim's] bones were broken," and that (2) "[the victim] was . . .
shot with his own firearm approximately six times by Mr. Perez."
By including these facts in its summary, the government believes
that the brutal nature of the crime and Perez's role as the shooter
were the driving forces behind the district court's upwardly
variant sentence. Put simply, color us unconvinced.
As an initial matter, we take issue with an underlying
assumption of this argument. A simple recitation of the facts
underlying the crime -- with no emphasis on any particular
fact -- is not a justification for a sentence with an extraordinary
variance. See Reyes-Correa, 81 F.4th at 11-12 ("A summary of the
events that preceded the [sentencing] hearing -- without more -- is
an impermissible basis for a large upward variance.");
Muñoz-Fontanez, 61 F.4th at 214-15 ("But the court's mere listing
of the facts of the arrest, without emphasis on any particular
circumstance, makes it impossible to tell whether it was the
automatic weapon or something else that motivated its decision.").
Rather, "[w]hen imposing a significant variance, a sentencing
court must make clear which specific facts of the case motivated
its decision and why those facts led to its decision."
Muñoz-Fontanez, 61 F.4th at 215.
Even if we declined to view these statements as a factual
recap and instead, take the government's arguments head on, they
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are still wanting. While the district court did indeed describe
the crime as "violent" and "brutal[]," and noted that the victim
was left with fifty percent of his bones broken, a passing
reference to the brutal nature of the crime is hardly an
individualized explanation specific to Perez, especially where the
beating was inflicted equally by four co-defendants.9 Moreover,
the district court did not place particular "emphasis" on this
aspect of the crime, thus making it "impossible to tell" if this
was the driving force behind the sentence. Id. at 214.
The district court's references to Perez's role as the
shooter and the fact that he shot the victim six times fare no
better. Although the district court mentioned these facts, it
gave no indication that it was these facts that justified the
district court's imposition of a variant sentence -- which, given
the magnitude of the variance, it was required to do. See id. at
215. And to the extent the facts that the victim died and that a
firearm was used during the commission of the crime were at the
forefront of the district court's mind when imposing its sentence,
the GSR clearly already took into account both those facts; the
crime to which Perez pleaded guilty, after all, was the "use and
carry of a firearm during, and in relation to crimes of violence
resulting in death," (emphases ours). And "[i]t is settled beyond
As we earlier noted, each co-defendant received a lesser
9
sentence and from the same sentencing court.
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hope of contradiction that when a sentencing court relies on a
factor already accounted for by the sentencing guidelines to impose
a variant sentence, [it] must indicate what makes that factor
worthy of extra weight." Rivera-Berríos, 968 F.3d at 136 (second
alteration in original) (citation and internal quotation marks
omitted). Here, the district court provided no such indication.
The government retorts that "[w]hile the victim's death was
considered in the advisory guideline calculus because the murder
cross reference was applied, . . . the senselessness of shooting
the victim six times after the torture was not." Fair enough, but
the government's retort is citation-free to any aspect of the
record where the district court explains that it upwardly varied
because of this "senselessness." So, we are again left to resort
to guesswork as to why the district court imposed its upwardly
variant sentence. All told, we find nothing in the sentencing
colloquy from which we can infer the district court's reasoning.
Having concluded then that there's nothing in the
district court's sentencing colloquy from which we can infer an
explanation, we ask: is there anything else in the record that
could clear this up? Perez answers "no" and the government answers
"yes," pointing us to the SOR. The government argues that the
district court checked off the "[r]ole in the [o]ffense" box in
its SOR, "illustrat[ing] that P[e]rez's role as the shooter was
important to the [district] court." But this argument fails for
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the reasons just discussed. The district court gave no explicit
indication during its colloquy that Perez's role as the shooter
was anchoring its upward variance. And the facts that the victim
died and that a firearm was used were accounted for by the GSR,
and the district court never explained why these aspects of the
crime should be given greater weight here. Accordingly, there's
nothing in the sentencing record as a whole from which we can infer
an adequate explanation.10
In sum, what we have here is a one-sentence, generic
explanation, a factual summary of the crime, and a sentencing
record from which we cannot infer an adequate rationale. That's
plainly insufficient to justify a nearly ten-year upward variance
because recall that the greater the variance, the greater the
explanation must be. See Reyes-Correa, 81 F.4th at 10. Here,
Perez was sentenced to an additional nine years and seven months
10 In a last-ditch effort, the government makes a passing
argument that the district court's sentence was reasonable and its
explanation was sufficient because, while the GSR only went up to
a maximum 365 months' imprisonment, the criminal statute at issue
here allowed the district court to sentence Perez to life
imprisonment if it so chose. The logic of this argument appears
to be that, since the district court could have sentenced Perez to
life, forty years has got to be reasonable. It is true that we
have, at times, relied in part on the statutory possibility of
life imprisonment to deem an upwardly variant sentence reasonable.
See, e.g., United States v. Díaz-Bermúdez, 778 F.3d 309, 313-14
(1st Cir. 2015). But we have never even so much as suggested that
a crime punishable by a statutory maximum of life imprisonment
would make an upwardly variant sentence irreversible on appeal. A
sentencing court must always explain its sentences, regardless of
any statutory maximum on the books.
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in prison. Any way you slice it, that is an extraordinary
variance. See, e.g., Colón-Cordero, 91 F.4th at 53 (noting an
upwardly variant sentence by nine months represents a "significant
time period by any reasonable measure"); Reyes-Correa, 81 F.4th at
13 (describing upward variance by twenty-seven months as
"massive"); United States v. Vélez-Andino, 12 F.4th 105, 116 (1st
Cir. 2021) (characterizing an upward variance by fourteen months
as "substantial"). So, we decline to bend over backwards trying
to piece together an explanation, "[g]iven that the strength of
the justification must increase proportionally with the length of
an upwardly variant sentence." Reyes-Correa, 81 F.4th at 13.
Therefore, the district court's explanation (or more accurately,
lack thereof) was an abuse of discretion.11
THE WRAP-UP
Convinced that the district court didn't adequately
explain its sentence, we vacate Perez's sentence and remand to the
district court for resentencing consistent with this opinion. The
district court should base its sentence on the existing factual
record, supplemented by any facts that occurred after the prior
date of sentencing, to the extent those facts are offered and
11 We highlight, before we part, that nothing we have said
should be taken to mean that an upwardly variant sentence is
inappropriate here. That is a matter purely in the district
court's discretion. But should the district court on remand decide
to upwardly vary again, the explanation must be individualized and
proportional to the length of the variance.
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admissible. And as we stated above, we do not reach any of Perez's
other appellate arguments against his sentence. To the extent any
of the issues raised in either party's briefing remain relevant on
remand, they are free to pursue them before the district court.
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