United States v. Julian Villar ( 2021 )

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
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No. 20-2322
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
v.
JULIAN P. VILLAR,
Appellant
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Criminal Action No. 1:19-cr-00023-002)
District Judge: Honorable Susan P. Baxter
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Submitted under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
On April 30, 2021
Before: PHIPPS, NYGAARD and ROTH, Circuit Judges
(Opinion filed: December 3, 2021)
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OPINION *
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ROTH, Circuit Judge
*
This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not
constitute binding precedent.
This is an appeal from a judgment of sentence, challenging the District Court’s
decision not to apply a sentence reduction under the United States Sentencing Guidelines
Section 2P1.1(b)(3). We will affirm the judgment of the District Court.
I. FACTS
Julian P. Villar was first charged in 2009 with conspiracy to possess with intent to
distribute cocaine. He pleaded guilty in 2013 and received a sentence of sixty-three
months’ imprisonment and five years of supervised release. He failed to self-surrender to
federal prison so a warrant was issued for his arrest. Four years later, while Villar was
still a fugitive, law enforcement agents arrested him again on a heroin-distribution
charge. He again pleaded guilty and received a sentence of seventy-seven months’
imprisonment and five years of supervised release, plus an additional twelve months’
imprisonment because he committed this offense while on supervised release, all to run
consecutively to the earlier sixty-three month sentence.
In May 2019, the Bureau of Prisons approved Villar’s application for a transfer
from FCI-Milan in Michigan to a minimum-security prison, FCI-McKean in
Pennsylvania. In July 2019, Villar was furloughed from FCI-Milan with instructions to
arrive at FCI-McKean within approximately 24 hours. He never arrived. More than a
month later, Villar was arrested in a hotel in Michigan.
Because he failed to appear at FCI-McKean, Villar was indicted and charged with
one count of escape after conviction. On May 15, 2020, he entered an open plea to the
escape charge. At his sentencing, Villar objected to the Pre-Sentence Report’s failure to
include a four-level reduction to his base-offense level because he purportedly escaped
2
from non-secure custody under U.S.S.G. § 2P1.1(b)(3). The District Court declined to
grant Villar this four-point reduction. Villar appealed.
II. DISCUSSION
The District Court had subject-matter jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3231. We
have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a). When exercising
appellate jurisdiction over a sentence, we review the District Court’s “factual findings for
clear error[ ] and . . . [its] application of those facts to the Guidelines for an abuse of
discretion.”1 “An abuse of discretion occurs only [when] the district court’s decision is
arbitrary, fanciful, or clearly unreasonable—in short, [when] no reasonable person would
adopt the district court’s view.” 2
Pursuant to section 2P1.1(b)(3) a defendant, who escapes from the “non-secure
custody of a community corrections center, community treatment center, halfway house,
or similar facility,” is entitled to a four-point downward departure. When deciding
whether to apply this downward departure, courts engage in a two-prong inquiry: “First,
a court must inquire whether the facility from which the defendant escaped is ‘non-
secure’ as defined by the notes to this section of the Sentencing Guidelines. . . . Second,
a court must inquire whether the facility in question is similar to a [community correction
center], a community treatment center . . . , or a halfway house.” 3
1
United States v. Gonzalez, 905 F.3d 165, 205 (3d Cir. 2018) (internal quotation marks
omitted).
2
United States v. Green, 617 F.3d 233, 239 (3d Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks and
citation omitted).
3
United States v. Hillstrom, 988 F.2d 448, 451 (3d Cir. 1993) (citations omitted).
3
Villar argues that the District Court failed to consider whether the conditions of
his custody were sufficiently similar to community correction centers and other facilities.
Thus, according to Villar, the District Court committed reversible error.
Villar’s concern is, however, unfounded because he failed to provide the District
Court with any evidence at sentencing suggesting that his conditions of confinement were
sufficiently similar to a community correction center, a community treatment center, or a
halfway house. Nor did Villar proffer any evidence at sentencing showing that his
conditions of confinement were sufficiently similar to an otherwise “similar facility”
under section 2P1.1(b)(3). Villar had the burden of proving by a preponderance of the
evidence that he was entitled to the reduction. 4 He did not do so.
In sum, the District Court did not make an “arbitrary, fanciful, or clearly
unreasonable” 5 decision by declining to grant Villar’s request for a downward
departure—particularly when he failed to furnish any evidence suggesting that he
satisfied section 2P1.1(b)(3)’s requirements. The District Court therefore did not abuse
its discretion.
III. CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, we will affirm the judgment of sentence.
4
United States v. Miller, 224 F.3d 247, 250-51 (3d Cir. 2000).
5
See Green, 617 F.3d at 239.
4