United States v. Del Valle-Rodriguez , 761 F.3d 171 ( 2014 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 13-1858
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
ALBERTO OMAR DEL VALLE-RODRÍGUEZ,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Aida M. Delgado-Colón, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Howard, Selya and Lipez,
Circuit Judges.
Arza Feldman and Feldman and Feldman on brief for appellant.
Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez, United States Attorney, Nelson
Pérez-Sosa, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate
Division, and John A. Mathews II, Assistant United States Attorney,
on brief for appellee.
August 4, 2014
SELYA, Circuit Judge. In Tapia v. United States, 131 S.
Ct. 2382 (2011), the Supreme Court made pellucid that "a court may
not impose or lengthen a prison sentence to enable an offender to
complete a treatment program or otherwise to promote
rehabilitation." Id. at 2393. Nevertheless, a sentencing "court
commits no error by discussing the opportunities for rehabilitation
within prison or the benefits of specific treatment or training
programs." Id. at 2392. This case requires us, for the first
time, to plot the fine line that separates impermissible uses of
rehabilitation from permissible uses. Concluding that the sentence
imposed was free from error in this or any other respect, we
affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
Because this sentencing appeal trails after a guilty
plea, we glean the facts from the plea agreement, the change-of-
plea colloquy, the unchallenged portions of the presentence
investigation report (PSI Report), and the transcript of the
disposition hearing. See United States v. Nguyen, 618 F.3d 72, 73
(1st Cir. 2010); United States v. Dietz, 950 F.2d 50, 51 (1st Cir.
1991).
Our account starts with the events of June 5, 2012. On
that date, defendant-appellant Alberto Omar Del Valle-Rodríguez
commandeered an automobile at gunpoint. Police officers
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subsequently located the stolen car and apprehended the appellant
in Carolina, Puerto Rico.
A federal grand jury sitting in the District of Puerto
Rico returned an indictment charging the appellant with taking a
motor vehicle by force, violence, and intimidation with the intent
to cause death or serious bodily harm (count 1).1 See 18 U.S.C.
§ 2119(1). After initially maintaining his innocence, the
appellant agreed to plead guilty to this count. A magistrate judge
recommended acceptance of the changed plea and ordered the
preparation of a PSI Report.
At the disposition hearing, the district court (having
accepted the guilty plea) constructed the appellant's guideline
sentencing range (GSR). To a base offense level of 20, see USSG
§2B3.1(a), the court essayed various adjustments, up and down,
netting out a total of three additional levels. See id.
§§2B3.1(b)(2)(D), 2B3.1(b)(5), 3E1.1(b). These computations,
unchallenged on appeal, yielded a total offense level of 23. The
court paired this total offense level with an unchallenged criminal
history category of V (which resulted from the appellant's
significant record of prior convictions and the fact that he had
committed the 2012 carjacking while on probation).
1
Count 2 of the indictment charged the appellant with using
a firearm in relation to a crime of violence. See 18 U.S.C.
§ 924(c). Because the district court dismissed this count as part
of the appellant's plea bargain, we make no further mention of it.
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The court proceeded to fix the GSR at 84 to 105 months
and sentenced the appellant to an upwardly variant term of
immurement (120 months). This timely appeal ensued.
II. ANALYSIS
The appellant does not gainsay the sentencing court's
guideline calculations. He does, however, attack what he perceives
as the court's reliance on his rehabilitative needs and its
imposition of an above-the-range sentence. We address these
matters sequentially.
A. Rehabilitation.
We preface our analysis of the appellant's first claim of
error by noting that he failed to advance this claim below. Our
review is, therefore, limited to plain error. See United States v.
Medina-Villegas, 700 F.3d 580, 583 (1st Cir. 2012). The plain
error standard is familiar. To succeed on plain error review, a
defendant must demonstrate "(1) that an error occurred (2) which
was clear or obvious and which not only (3) affected the
defendant's substantial rights, but also (4) seriously impaired the
fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings."
United States v. Duarte, 246 F.3d 56, 60 (1st Cir. 2001). Here,
however, we discern no error, plain or otherwise.
The appellant argues that the district court erred by
using his drug addiction and his related need for rehabilitation as
factors warranting an increase in the length of his sentence. The
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factual support for this argument is at best tenuous; the appellant
points only to the court's allusions at sentencing to his "chronic
drug addiction" and "need for supervision."
His argument's legal foundation, loosely based on the
Supreme Court's decision in Tapia, is also shaky. It seeks to
exploit a grey area: the Tapia Court did not draw a precise line
separating the impermissible use of rehabilitation to increase the
length of a sentence from the permissible discussion of
rehabilitation programs. See Tapia, 131 S. Ct. at 2392-93. But
even though this court has not had occasion to plot that line post-
Tapia, a broad consensus has developed among the courts of appeals.
While the courts have used a variety of locutions, the dividing
line is whether a sentencing court's reference to rehabilitative
needs was causally related to the length of the sentence or,
conversely, was merely one of a mix of sentencing consequences and
opportunities. In the absence of a causal relationship, courts
have hesitated to find Tapia error. See United States v. Lifshitz,
714 F.3d 146, 150 (2d Cir. 2013) (per curiam) (finding no Tapia
error where court mentioned rehabilitation but did not "base[] the
length of [the defendant's] sentence on his need for treatment" and
other "primary considerations" were present); United States v.
Repolgle, 678 F.3d 940, 943 (8th Cir. 2012) (finding no Tapia error
where, despite mention of rehabilitation, there was no evidence
that the court lengthened the sentence based on rehabilitative
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concerns). Where, however, the record indicates that
rehabilitative concerns were the driving force behind, or a
dominant factor in, the length of a sentence, courts have found
Tapia error. See, e.g., United States v. Garza, 706 F.3d 655, 662
(5th Cir. 2013) (finding Tapia error where "rehabilitative needs
were the dominant factor" for the sentence); United States v.
Cordery, 656 F.3d 1103, 1105-06 (10th Cir. 2011) (finding Tapia
error where court imposed "a longer term of imprisonment in order
to make [the defendant] eligible for" a particular rehabilitation
program).
We join this consensus and hold that no Tapia error
occurs unless rehabilitative concerns are being relied upon either
in deciding whether to incarcerate or in deciding the length of the
incarcerative sentence to be imposed. Thus, the mere mention of
rehabilitative needs, without any indication that those needs
influenced the length of the sentence imposed, is not Tapia error.2
Measured against this benchmark, the appellant's argument
shrivels. First, the district court never mentioned
2
In United States v. Vandergrift, ___ F.3d ___ (11th Cir.
2014) [No. 12-13154], the Eleventh Circuit held that any
consideration of rehabilitation by a sentencing court amounts to
Tapia error. See id. at ___ [No. 12-13154, slip op. at 12]. This
rigid formulation is inconsistent not only with the consensus view
of the other circuits but also with the Tapia Court's statement
approving some discussion of rehabilitation by a sentencing court.
See Tapia, 131 S. Ct. at 2392. We find this interpretation
unnecessarily restrictive and choose to take a more balanced view.
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rehabilitation.3 Second, the record contains no indication that
the district court's references to the appellant's chronic drug
addiction either were a proxy for rehabilitative concerns or played
any causal role in determining the length of his sentence. There
is simply nothing in the sentencing record that, fairly viewed,
indicates that the court hinged any part of its sentencing
determination on rehabilitative concerns.
We reject the appellant's far-fetched suggestion that the
district court's articulation of his perceived "need for
supervision" insinuates that his sentence was designed to
accommodate rehabilitative treatment. That rank speculation
depends on a distorted interpretation of the court's language.4
After all, "supervision" is virtually a term of art in criminal
sentencing, cf. USSG §5D1.1(a) (discussing "term of supervised
release"), and the appellant's unsavory criminal past graphically
illustrates the need for supervision. Nothing in what the district
court said supports equating "supervision" with "rehabilitation"
here.
3
The closest that the court came to mentioning rehabilitation
was when it told the appellant: "[U]ntil you decide to do something
with [your] drug addiction you will be putting . . . people[']s
li[ves] at risk."
4
One is reminded of Humpty Dumpty, who famously said: "When
I use a word . . . it means just what I choose it to mean — neither
more nor less." Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass and What
Alice Found There, ch. 6 (1871).
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To cinch the matter, the actual basis for the district
court's sentencing determination is crystal clear. The court made
persistent and pointed references to the appellant's extensive
criminal history, serial probation violations, and elevated risk of
recidivism. These factors — not drug addiction or rehabilitative
concerns — plainly appear to have been the driving forces behind,
and the dominant factors in, the length of the appellant's
sentence. There is no hint of Tapia error.
B. Upward Variance.
The appellant's second claim of error implicates the
reasonableness of the upward variance. We review this claim for
abuse of discretion. See Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 46
(2007). The hallmark of this inquiry is reasonableness. See
United States v. Clogston, 662 F.3d 588, 590 (1st Cir. 2011).
With respect to sentencing determinations, reasonableness
has both a procedural and a substantive dimension. See United
States v. Martin, 520 F.3d 87, 92 (1st Cir. 2008). The procedural
dimension includes errors such as failing to consider appropriate
sentencing factors, predicating a sentence on clearly erroneous
facts, or neglecting to explain the rationale for a variant
sentence adequately. See id. (citing Gall, 552 U.S. at 51). The
substantive dimension focuses on the duration of the sentence in
light of the totality of the circumstances. See id.
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The appellant casts his claim of error as procedural,
arguing that the considerations on which the district court based
its upward variance were already taken into account in fashioning
the GSR. Relatedly, he argues that the court failed to articulate
any reasons why his crime differed from the heartland of the crimes
encompassed within the GSR.
We approach these arguments mindful that deference to the
trial court is a lineament of appellate review of federal criminal
sentences. See United States v. Flores-Machicote, 706 F.3d 16, 20
(1st Cir. 2013). The advisory sentencing guidelines are only "the
starting point and initial benchmark" for shaping a sentence, Gall,
552 U.S. at 49, and sentencing courts may custom-tailor sentences
to fit the distinctive circumstances of particular cases. In
performing this task, a sentencing court ought to adopt a flexible,
case-by-case approach. See Martin, 520 F.3d at 91. Such an
approach may in a given case produce a sentence that falls outside
the GSR.
Where, as here, a court imposes a sentence above the GSR,
it must justify the upward variance. See Flores-Machicote, 706
F.3d at 21. We have held that an upward variance may be justified
by, say, a finding that the defendant's criminal history score
underrepresents the gravity of his past conduct, see id. at 21-22,
or by a finding that the GSR underestimates the likelihood of
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recidivism, see United States v. Politano, 522 F.3d 69, 74-75 (1st
Cir. 2008).
Here, the appellant was found to have a significant
criminal record, some of which (for technical reasons) did not
figure into his criminal history score. In addition, he misled
probation officials as to his whereabouts and failed on several
occasions to comply with probation conditions. The district court
concluded that this sordid history of disrespect for the law
demonstrated both an inordinately high risk of recidivism and the
unsuitability of a within-the-range sentence. This conclusion, in
turn, sparked the upward variance.
The appellant disputes the sentencing court's assessment,
relying heavily on our decision in United States v. Zapete-Garcia,
447 F.3d 57 (1st Cir. 2006). There, we held that a sentencing
court must indicate why the defendant's situation differs from the
mine-run of cases when basing an upward variance on a factor
already generally accounted for by the GSR. See id. at 60.
Zapete-Garcia cannot bear the weight of the appellant's
jeremiad. In that case, the court, faced with a GSR that topped
off at six months, imposed a 48-month sentence. See id. at 58-59.
This sentence represented an upward variance of 800%. See id. By
contrast, the variance here — 15 months over the high end of a GSR
that topped off at 105 months — was much more modest. This is a
critical distinction because the greater a deviation from the GSR,
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the more compelling the sentencing court's justification must be.
See United States v. Smith, 445 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 2006).
In all events, a sentencing court's obligation to explain
a variance requires the court to offer a plausible and coherent
rationale — but it does not require the court to be precise to the
point of pedantry. Viewed through this prism, the court below
provided a sufficient explanation for the variant sentence that it
imposed. The court clearly articulated why it believed that the
appellant's case differed from the norm. In particular, the court
expounded upon the especially high risk of future criminal
activity, the concomitant need to protect the public, and the
appellant's unusual penchant for failing to comply with safeguards
imposed by the judicial system.
We discern no abuse of discretion. The upward variance
is anchored in a plausible, albeit not inevitable, view of the
circumstances sufficient to distinguish this case from the mine-run
of cases covered by the GSR. Moreover, this view was adequately
articulated by the sentencing court. The fact that we, from a
lofty appellate perch, might think some lesser sentence appropriate
is not, in itself, a sufficient reason to disturb the district
court's exercise of its discretion. See Gall, 552 U.S. at 51. In
the last analysis, there is no perfect sentence but, rather, a wide
universe of supportable sentencing outcomes. See Martin, 520 F.3d
at 92.
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III. CONCLUSION
We need go no further. For the reasons elucidated above,
the appellant's sentence is
Affirmed.
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