United States v. Martin Rios-Galicia ( 2017 )

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 17-10740
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 1:16-cr-00107-MHC-LTW-1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
MARTIN RIOS-GALICIA,
Defendant - Appellant.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
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(August 11, 2017)
Before MARTIN, JILL PRYOR and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
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Martin Rios-Galicia appeals his 24-month sentence, imposed at the low end
of the advisory guideline range, which the district court imposed after he pled
guilty to a single count of illegal re-entry into the United States after having been
previously deported. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.
I.
After Rios pled guilty to a single count of illegal reentry, the probation
office prepared a presentence investigation report (“PSI”), which noted that he had
numerous prior convictions and had been deported to Mexico twice. The PSI
reported that although Rios told the probation officer that he was born in the
United States, a PSI in a prior illegal reentry case of his said Rios had stated that he
was born in Mexico. Rios also told his probation officer that, after a previous
deportation in 2011, he was kidnapped and tortured by Mexican cartel members.
In addition, the PSI noted that Rios and his siblings, all of whom are United States
citizens, grew up together in the United States. He also had a wife and children
living in the United States. The PSI calculated Rios’s total offense level as 13 and
set his criminal history at a category of IV, resulting in a guidelines range of 24 to
30 months’ imprisonment with a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years.
At sentencing, Rios objected to the PSI insofar as it reported that he was not
a United States citizen. The district court overruled the objection, noting that Rios
had pled guilty and, in so doing, admitted that the government could prove that he
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was not a citizen, a fact to which he had offered no evidence to the contrary. The
district court adopted the PSI’s guidelines calculation and imposed a sentence of
24 months’ imprisonment plus three years’ supervised release. The district court
noted that it lacked any authority to say that Rios was a United States citizen or
ensure that he would not suffer harm in Mexico; all the court could do was
consider Rios’s illegal reentry and the factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).
The district court opted to impose a sentence at the bottom of the applicable
guidelines range—a lower sentence than the 30 months Rios received for his
previous illegal reentry conviction—based on his need to be with his family, but
the court declined to give only supervised release given his prior criminal history
and the need for punishment and deterrence.
II.
We review the reasonableness of a sentence under a deferential abuse of
discretion standard, considering the totality of the circumstances and the
sentencing factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). Gall v. United States, 552 U.S.
38, 41 (2007). Under § 3553(a), the district court is required to impose a sentence
“sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes” of
§ 3553(a)(2)—the need to reflect the seriousness of the offense; promote respect
for the law; provide just punishment; deter criminal conduct; protect the public
from the defendant’s future criminal conduct; and effectively provide the
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defendant with educational or vocational training, medical care, or other
correctional treatment. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2). The court must also consider the
nature and circumstances of the offense; the history and characteristics of the
defendant; the kinds of sentences available; the applicable guideline range, the
pertinent policy statements of the Sentencing Commission; the need to avoid
unwarranted sentencing disparities; and the need to provide restitution to victims.
Id. § 3553(a)(1), (3)-(7).
Although we do not automatically presume a within-guidelines sentence to
be reasonable, ordinarily we expect it to be. United States v. Asante, 782 F.3d 639,
648 (11th Cir. 2015). That a sentence falls at the low end of the guideline range
and well below the statutory maximum are two indications of reasonableness. See
United States v. Cubero, 754 F.3d 888, 898 (11th Cir. 2014).
The party challenging a sentence bears the burden of proving the sentence is
unreasonable. United States v. Tome, 611 F.3d 1371, 1378 (11th Cir. 2010). A
district court imposes a substantively unreasonable sentence when it fails to afford
consideration to relevant factors that were due significant weight, gives significant
weight to an improper or irrelevant factor, or commits a clear error of judgment in
considering the proper factors. United States v. Irey, 612 F.3d 1160, 1189-90 (11th
Cir. 2010) (en banc). Although generally the weight to be accorded any given
§ 3553(a) factor is a matter committed to the sound discretion of the district court,
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United States v. Williams, 526 F.3d 1312, 1322 (11th Cir. 2008), a district court
commits a clear error of judgment when it “considers the proper factors but
balances them unreasonably” and imposes a sentence that “does not achieve the
purposes of sentencing as stated in § 3553(a),” Irey, 612 F.3d at 1189-90 (internal
quotation marks omitted). We will vacate a sentence if we are “left with the
definite and firm conviction that the district court committed a clear error of
judgment in weighing the § 3553(a) factors by arriving at a sentence that lies
outside the range of reasonable sentences dictated by the facts of the case.” Id. at
1190.
III.
The district court’s 24-month sentence was substantively reasonable. Rios’s
sentence adequately reflects the nature and circumstances of his offense as well as
his personal history and characteristics. The district court considered that on the
one hand, Rios had already been deported twice, his criminal history spanned
several years, he did not stop engaging in criminal activity after his most recent
deportation, and he should be deterred from again illegally reentering the country.
On the other hand, Rios grew up and built a family in the United States, and the
crimes for which he was arrested after his most recent reentry were less serious
than the offenses in his criminal history. By arriving at a sentence of 24 months—
the bottom of the applicable guidelines range and six months less than Rios
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received for his previous illegal reentry conviction—the district court was well
within its discretion. Thus, we affirm Rios’s sentence.
AFFIRMED.
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