United States v. Fernandez-Santos ( 2017 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
Nos. 15-2456 & 15-2462
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
DIEGO FERNÁNDEZ-SANTOS,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Francisco A. Besosa, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Howard, Chief Judge,
Dyk* and Thompson, Circuit Judges.
Jose R. Gaztambide-Aneses for appellant.
Mainon Schwartz, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom
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, were on brief, for appellee.
May 1, 2017
* Of the Federal Circuit, sitting by designation.
THOMPSON, Circuit Judge. Defendant-appellant Diego
Fernández-Santos ("Fernández") pled guilty to three charges
stemming from his possession of guns and drugs while on supervised
release. He later moved to change his plea to not guilty, but the
district court denied the motion and sentenced him to seventy-six
months' imprisonment on those three charges plus twenty-four
months, to be served consecutively, for violating the terms of his
supervised release. He now appeals the court's denial of his
motion to change his plea and the procedural reasonableness of his
100-month sentence. Finding no error on either score, we affirm.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY1
Back in 2011, Fernández was convicted of possessing
cocaine with intent to distribute. He was sentenced to time served
and placed on supervised release. Fernández failed to comply with
the terms of that supervised release, so law enforcement officers
obtained a warrant for his arrest. Early in the morning of
February 13, 2014, the officers approached his home to make the
arrest, knocked on the door, and identified themselves. They got
no response but heard movement inside, so they attempted to enter
by force. But this took a little time, and as they were trying to
1 Fernández appeals after two days of trial and a guilty plea,
so we take the facts from the change-of-plea colloquy, the
unchallenged portions of the presentence investigation report, and
transcripts of the trial and sentencing hearing. See United States
v. Díaz-Bermúdez, 778 F.3d 309, 310 (1st Cir. 2015).
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get through the front door, someone ran out the back door carrying
a red bag. Officers gave chase. The runner turned out to be
Fernández's twelve-year-old nephew, and the red bag contained drug
paraphernalia, cocaine residue, zip-top bags with a fruit insignia
(commonly used by drug dealers to brand their product), 9mm
ammunition, and two firearm magazines.
Meanwhile, other officers got in the house and quickly
apprehended a wet-handed Fernández, who was darting out of the
bathroom and also trying to flee out the back door. Officers
searched the house and found more drug paraphernalia, including
cutting agents (used to increase the quantity of saleable drugs),
torn "eight-ball" wrappings on top of the washing machine next to
the bathroom (later found to contain trace amounts of cocaine),
digital scales, and more fruit-branded zip-top bags. When asked
if there was anything in the house that might harm an officer,
Fernández said there was a gun hidden behind the washing machine,
so the officers immediately recovered it.
On March 27, 2014, a grand jury indicted Fernández on
three charges: (1) possession with intent to distribute a
detectable amount of cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841
("Count One"); (2) possession of a firearm in furtherance of the
drug-trafficking crimes charged in Count One, in violation of 18
U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A) ("Count Two"); and (3) being a convicted
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felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2) ("Count Three").
Fernández's trial began on June 9, 2014. A jury got
selected, the government and Fernández's counsel made their
opening statements, the court gave preliminary jury instructions
about the three charges and their elements, and the government
presented some of its evidence. The next day Fernández put a halt
to the trial and changed his plea to guilty to all three charges.
At his change-of-plea colloquy, Fernández stated that he
had received a copy of the indictment and had discussed it with
his counsel. Fernández further stated that he was satisfied with
his counsel's representation, understood the charges against him,
committed the crimes charged, and was pleading guilty knowingly,
voluntarily, and intelligently. The government recounted some of
the evidence against Fernández, who agreed with the government's
version of the facts. The district court accepted his guilty plea
and set a date for sentencing.
Shortly after pleading guilty, Fernández was transferred
from Puerto Rico to a prison in Georgia. Fernández claims he lost
touch with his lawyer after the transfer. On September 10, 2014,
three months after Fernández pled guilty to the charges, his
attorney filed a motion to withdraw from the case. The district
court opted to grant the motion in part--it appointed a new
attorney to work with the original one. Then, on November 3, 2014,
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Fernández's original attorney sought the same relief and made a
second motion to withdraw. This time, the district court granted
it in full. That left Fernández's new attorney as his sole defense
counsel.
The ins and outs of the rest of the proceedings are
important to understanding Fernández's legal arguments on appeal,
so we outline them now and save the details for later. First,
working with his new attorney, on January 11, 2015, seven months
after he pled guilty, Fernández moved to withdraw his guilty plea.
After hearing from both sides, the court denied this motion,
concluding that: Fernández pled guilty voluntarily, knowingly,
and intelligently; Fernández's claim of actual innocence was
meager; and Fernández's motion was not timely. Following this
denial, on November 4, 2015, the district court sentenced Fernández
to sixteen months to be served concurrently on Counts One and
Three, and sixty months to be served consecutively for Count Two-
-a total of seventy-six months for the three charges. But that
was not all. Remember that officers caught Fernández when they
came to arrest him for violating the conditions of his supervised
release imposed for his 2011 conviction. One of those conditions:
"the defendant shall not commit another . . . crime." So, after
Fernández pled guilty to the other crimes, the court found
Fernández had violated the conditions of his supervised release.
For the violation, the court sentenced Fernández to an additional
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twenty-four months, to be served consecutively to his seventy-six
month sentence, bringing Fernández's total sentence to 100 months.
Fernández appeals, challenging the district court's
denial of his motion to withdraw his guilty plea and the
consecutive nature of his violation sentence.
DISCUSSION
A. Motion to Withdraw the Guilty Plea
Fernández first argues that the district court erred by
denying Fernández's motion to withdraw his guilty plea. Of course,
the government says the district court did no such thing. That "a
defendant has no absolute right to withdraw a guilty plea" is a
well-established maxim. United States v. Caramadre, 807 F.3d 359,
366 (1st Cir. 2015), cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 2455 (2016). A
person wishing to do so after the court has accepted a plea but
before sentencing bears the burden of showing a "fair and just
reason for requesting the withdrawal." Id. (quoting Fed. R. Crim.
P. 11(d)(2)(B)). To determine whether a defendant has shown a
"fair and just reason," courts consider a number of factors under
the totality of the circumstances, including
 "whether the original guilty plea was knowing,
intelligent, and voluntary,"
 "the timing of the request," and
 "whether the defendant is now colorably asserting
legal innocence."
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Id. (citation omitted). If these factors weigh in favor of
allowing the defendant to withdraw his guilty plea, courts also
consider any prejudice the government would face as a result. Id.
We review a district court's ruling on a motion to withdraw a
guilty plea for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Merritt,
755 F.3d 6, 9 (1st Cir. 2014). Assessing each of Fernández's
arguments on each factor in turn, we conclude that the district
court did not abuse its discretion in denying Fernández's motion
to withdraw his plea.
1. Knowing, Intelligent, and Voluntary Plea
On to Fernández's first argument, that his guilty plea
was not made knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily. He gives
us two reasons why, claiming: (1) he did not understand the
charges against him, and (2) his original lawyer gave him
ineffective assistance. As we explain, neither argument helps him
here.
i. Understanding of the Charges
Fernández claims he did not understand the charges
against him because the court explained the charges in "very
general terms" and inadequately explained the mens rea the
government would have to prove at trial.2 So, his plea was not
2
Fernández contends that abuse-of-discretion review applies
to all of his withdrawal-related arguments on appeal. The
government suggests that Fernández may have waived his argument
that he did not understand the charges against him. Because
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knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. The government says the
explanation of the charges was adequate. We agree.
Rule 11 requires the district court to "inform the
defendant of, and determine that the defendant understands . . .
the nature of each charge to which the defendant is pleading,"
Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(b)(1)(G), including "the elements of the
charges that the prosecution would have to prove at trial," United
States v. Gandia-Maysonet, 227 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 2000). However,
Rule 11 "does not require the court to explain the technical
intricacies of the charges in the indictment." United States v.
Ramos-Mejía, 721 F.3d 12, 15 (1st Cir. 2013) (internal citations
and quotation marks omitted). Ordinarily, "it is sufficient in a
plea colloquy for a district court to ascertain that a defendant
is aware of the nature of the charge[s] against him by reading the
charge[s] in the indictment to the defendant and obtaining his
competent acknowledgment that he understands the charge[s]." Id.
(internal citations and quotation marks omitted).
Here, the district court certainly did at least this
much. At the change-of-plea hearing, the district court confirmed
that Fernández was competent to plead guilty (a finding he does
not challenge on appeal) and wanted to plead guilty to the charges.
Fernández's claim is easy enough to dispose of on the merits, we
proceed to do so. See United States v. Kinsella, 622 F.3d 75, 86
(1st Cir. 2010) (taking an analogous approach).
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The district court went on to describe the charges against
Fernández, including a statement of the mens rea the government
would have to prove on each charge. Fernández affirmed that he
understood each charge. The district court also confirmed that
Fernández had received the indictment and discussed it and his
decision to plead guilty with his attorney. The government
summarized the proof it would have presented on each charge if the
trial had continued; Fernández said he agreed with the government's
version of what he heard and "that [is] what [he] did." And as
the government points out, Fernández was also present during jury
selection and the first two days of his trial, where he heard the
preliminary jury instructions explaining the charges against him,
including the mens rea the government would have to prove in order
to convict. The charges against Fernández were uncomplicated, and
the court repeatedly, and accurately, explained them before
accepting Fernández's plea. Fernández gives us no credible or
compelling reason to believe he did not understand the charges
against him.
ii. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel
Alternately, Fernández attempts to convince us that he
did not knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily plead guilty via
his claim that his lawyer "failed to represent him adequately and
misguided him." Pertinently, he alleges that his lawyer (1)
pressured him into pleading guilty after convincing two defense
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witnesses not to testify, (2) may have failed to ask the government
to produce test results showing that one of the seized pieces of
evidence tested negative for cocaine, and (3) had a conflict of
interest (though he gives no details about that alleged conflict).
As a result, Fernández claims he was "wrongly induced" by his
defense attorney into pleading guilty. The government argues, and
so we find, that Fernández's claims cannot be pursued here on
appeal.
In the plea-withdrawal context, a defendant arguing that
he received ineffective assistance must show that his attorney's
performance fell below an objective level of reasonableness and
that, but for this deficient performance, there is a reasonable
probability he would not have pled guilty. Caramadre, 807 F.3d at
371. If an appellant's claim "is confined to matters found in the
record and can be determined without the need for additional fact
finding," we may consider it on direct appeal. United States v.
Austin, 948 F.2d 783, 785 (1st Cir. 1991). Otherwise, "[f]airness
to the parties and judicial economy both warrant that, absent
extraordinary circumstances, an appellate court will not consider
an ineffective assistance claim where no endeavor was first made
to determine the claim at the district level." United States v.
Isom, 85 F.3d 831, 837 (1st Cir. 1996) (quoting Austin, 948 F.2d
at 785).
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The district court did not "determine the claim" below,
id., suggesting instead that the claim should be addressed in a
collateral proceeding under 28 U.S.C. § 2255.3 And here on appeal,
Fernández makes only skeletal arguments and does not point to
evidence in the record that would allow us to fairly consider his
claim. Indeed, the only evidence he cites to support his
allegations of witness-pressuring is a paragraph from his
affidavit cursorily explaining that his original attorney
"pressured [him to plead guilty] by forcing [his] mother and the
owner of the weapon to desist from testifying." Such brevity does
not help him much.4
3 Specifically, the district court found that "assistance of
competent counsel" does not factor into the plea-withdrawal
analysis in this circuit, so his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel
claims "would be more appropriately addressed pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§ 2255." United States v. Fernandez-Santos, 136 F. Supp. 3d 160,
163 n.1 (D.P.R. 2015). To the contrary, this court has found that
ineffective assistance of counsel may be a "fair and just reason"
to withdraw a guilty plea, see Isom, 85 F.3d at 834, 837, or may
render a plea unknowing or involuntary, see Austin, 948 F.2d at
786. But Fernández does not challenge this finding, so we do not
address it any further.
4 Because Fernández claims his original attorney kept
(presumably exculpatory) witnesses from testifying at trial, we
take this to mean he thought his lawyer's trial performance was
"so deficient that it compel[led] [him] to plead under duress."
Caramadre, 807 F.3d at 371. But from Fernández's bare-bones
statement, we can't assess whether or not that is true because we
don't know what the allegedly-pressured witnesses would have said
on the stand, or how his lawyer's alleged meddling influenced his
decision to plead guilty. (As we explain later, testimony that
Fernández did not own the gun would not help him one whit.) Nor
does the statement give us any basis to assess the usual touchstone
in post-plea ineffective-assistance inquiries: his lawyer's
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Moreover, as far as we can tell, Fernández did not raise
either of his other allegations to the district court. Nor does
he point to anything in the record to show whether his original
attorney requested the lab results, or that his attorney had a
conflict of interest.5 That means we cannot assess those claims
now, either. Therefore, we dismiss Fernández's ineffective-
assistance-of-counsel claim without prejudice to his right to
pursue it later under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. See United States v. Mala,
7 F.3d 1058, 1063 (1st Cir. 1993).
2. Timing
Seven months elapsed between Fernández's guilty plea and
his motion to withdraw it. Fernández claims the delay was not his
fault--he lost contact with his first lawyer when he was moved
from a prison in Puerto Rico to one in Georgia--so the district
court abused its discretion by holding this delay against him in
the plea-withdrawal calculus. The government points out that the
"overall performance in counseling [him] about whether to plead
guilty." Id.
5
Fernández also states that the district court improperly
considered his motion to withdraw his plea because the court
"disregarded and failed to investigate" his "colorable" conflict-
of-interest claim. But, he does not show us where he raised the
issue below, and we do not see how the court could have
"disregarded" something never brought to its attention. This claim
is a nonstarter. See Isom, 85 F.3d at 838 ("[T]he failure to ask
the district court to convene an evidentiary hearing ordinarily
spells defeat for a contention that one should have been held."
(quoting United States v. Tardiff, 969 F.2d 1283, 1286 (1st Cir.
1992))).
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transfer to Georgia only accounts for part of the delay, so
Fernández's motion to withdraw his guilty plea was still untimely.
We think the government has the better argument.
The timing of a motion to withdraw a guilty plea is
important, as we have said before, because it is "highly probative
of motive." United States v. Doyle, 981 F.2d 591, 595 (1st Cir.
1992). "While an immediate change of heart may well lend
considerable force to a plea withdrawal request, a long interval
between the plea and the request often weakens any claim that the
plea was entered in confusion or under false pretenses." Id. We
have previously found a delay of only thirteen days weakened a
defendant's motion to withdraw a guilty plea. United States v.
Ramos, 810 F.2d 308, 313 (1st Cir. 1987).
In considering Fernández's motion to withdraw, the
district court considered Fernández's argument that he lost touch
with his lawyer, but concluded this factor weighed against him
nonetheless: after he was appointed substitute counsel, Fernández
still waited over two months to file his motion to withdraw. On
appeal, Fernández gives no explanation for the additional delay.
The district court's conclusion on this factor was not an abuse of
discretion. See Isom, 85 F.3d at 839 (two-month delay made
withdraw untimely).
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3. Legal Innocence
Finally, Fernández says he is legally innocent of the
charges and puts forward a couple of arguments to support his
claim. First, because police found only trace amounts of cocaine
in his home (.025 grams), Fernández contends that this small
quantity is insufficient to show he possessed cocaine with an
intent to distribute.6 Second, because he is innocent of the
distribution charge, it follows that he is innocent of possessing
a gun in furtherance of that distribution charge--and to boot, he
didn't even own the gun.7
6 Fernández also points out that one of the pieces of evidence
seized from his home tested negative for cocaine. However, when
this point was raised before the district court, the government
explained that the item at issue contained a cutting agent (so it
was no surprise that it tested negative) and other items seized
tested positive for the presence of cocaine. Fernández does not
respond to this point or otherwise explain why the absence of
cocaine from one piece of evidence shows that he is legally
innocent, so we do not address this point any further.
7 As you may recall from our analysis of his ineffective-
assistance-of-counsel argument, Fernández claimed that if not for
his original lawyer's meddling, the registered owner of the gun
would have testified for Fernández. He does not, however, identify
the owner or give us any hints about what the owner would have
said (other than that he or she owned the gun in question). The
district court dealt with Fernández's ownership argument at trial.
When Fernández attempted to cross-examine a government witness
about the owner of the gun, the court found that only "actual
possession or constructive possession" were relevant because the
charge "has nothing to do with ownership." Fernández has barely
pursued the issue since, so it may be waived: he mentioned the
allegedly exonerating (yet anonymous) witness in passing in his
motion to withdraw his plea, but not at the motion hearing or in
his court-ordered supplemental brief on his innocence claim. See
United States v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir. 1990) ("[I]ssues
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A serious claim of innocence supports the conclusion
that it would be fair and just to allow a defendant to withdraw a
guilty plea. A "mere protestation of legal innocence cannot in
and of itself be issue-determinative, for '[t]here are few if any
criminal cases where the defendant cannot devise some theory or
story which, if believed by a jury, would result in his
acquittal.'" United States v. Kobrosky, 711 F.2d 449, 455 (1st
Cir. 1983) (citation omitted). "Merely voicing a claim of
innocence has no weight in the plea-withdrawal calculus; to be
given weight, the claim must be credible." United States v. Gates,
709 F.3d 58, 69 (1st Cir. 2013). A defendant must put forward
"factual contentions" that create a "'legally cognizable defense'
to the charges, [otherwise] 'he has not effectively denied his
culpability,'" and the district court may deny the motion to
withdraw. Ramos, 810 F.2d at 312 (citation omitted). The
government argues the district court was right to find that
Fernández's innocence claims do not amount to a legally cognizable
defense to the charges, so they did not amount to a fair and just
reason to withdraw his guilty plea, either. We think so, too.
adverted to in a perfunctory manner, unaccompanied by some effort
at developed argumentation, are deemed waived."). But, the
government does not press the point, so once again we proceed to
dispose of the issue on the merits.
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i. Possession with Intent to Distribute
First, contrary to Fernández's protestations, the fact
that only trace amounts of cocaine were found at Fernández's
residence does not show that he is legally innocent of the
possession-with-intent-to-distribute charge. We have explained
that the amount of drugs is only one factor relevant to determining
whether a defendant had an intent to distribute. United States v.
Cortés-Cabán, 691 F.3d 1, 35-36 (1st Cir. 2012). Other relevant
factors include "the purity of the drugs at issue, [] the quantity
of cash on a defendant, [] the manner in which the drugs were
packaged, [] the presence of drug paraphernalia, [] the lack of
any evidence showing a defendant used or consumed the type of drug
seized, [and] the presence of firearms." Id. at 36. Here, the
district court found that Fernández had an intent to distribute
drugs because of the presence of drug paraphernalia, including
eight-ball wrappings, small zip-top bags bearing drug trafficking
insignia, cutting agents, and digital scales; and the presence of
a gun and ammunition. The district court also noted that a jury
could infer from the fact that Fernández was caught "wet-handed"
next to the torn eight-ball wrappers that he flushed a greater
quantity of drugs before the police managed to get in the house.
Fernández's arguments on appeal focus exclusively on the
amount of drugs found in his home, but he has no rejoinder to the
district court's overall assessment of the distribution charge.
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Not only was Fernández's claim of innocence "not credible," but it
also "contradicted the change-of-plea colloquy in which he
acknowledged that he committed the charged offenses." Gates, 709
F.3d at 69. The court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting
Fernández's quantity-based defense.
ii. The Gun Possession Charge
That leaves Fernández's second innocence argument: he
is legally innocent of possessing a firearm in furtherance of a
drug trafficking crime, he says, because he did not own the gun.
But ownership is not an element of the charge of possessing a gun
in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1);
United States v. Negrón-Narváez, 403 F.3d 33, 40 (1st Cir. 2005);
see United States v. Robinson, 473 F.3d 387, 399 (1st Cir. 2007)
(possession requires that defendant "knowingly have the ability
and intent to exercise dominion and control of the firearm or area
where it is located"). So, this argument doesn't create a legally
cognizable defense, either.
4. Conclusion
In the end, none of the relevant plea-withdrawal factors
weigh in Fernández's favor. The Rule 11 colloquy provides strong
evidence that Fernández pled guilty knowingly, intelligently, and
voluntarily. United States v. Chambers, 710 F.3d 23, 29 (1st Cir.
2013). Fernández's gripes about the explanation of the charges
against him and his allegedly-ineffective counsel give us no reason
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to think otherwise. He moved to withdraw his plea two months after
getting a new lawyer (and seven months after pleading guilty), so
his timing weighs against him, too. Finally, his drug-quantity
and gun-ownership arguments do not amount to a colorable claim of
innocence, so these arguments do nothing to tilt the scales.
Because none of these factors weigh in favor of granting
Fernández's motion to withdraw his guilty plea, we do not have to
address any prejudice the government might face if the motion were
granted. See Caramadre, 807 F.3d at 366. The district court did
not abuse its discretion in finding Fernández presented no fair
and just reason to withdraw his plea, or in denying his motion.
B. Sentencing
We turn now to Fernández's second claim on appeal, that
the district court erred by imposing a consecutive sentence for
violating his term of supervised release. Remember, at the time
Fernández committed the three crimes we discussed above, he was on
supervised release for a previous drug crime. After he pled
guilty, Fernández, like we said, was sentenced to sixteen months,
to run concurrently, for Counts One and Three (possessing cocaine
with intent to distribute, and being a felon in possession of a
firearm). He also got five years, to run consecutively to the
sixteen-month term, for Count Two (possessing a firearm in
furtherance of a drug trafficking offense under § 924(c)). The
total sentence for the three Counts was seventy-six months. A
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half an hour later, he was sentenced a second time for violating
the terms of his supervised release. The district court calculated
a Guidelines range of twelve to eighteen months for the revocation
sentence. But, the court gave Fernández the statutory-maximum
sentence--two years--to be served consecutively to his seventy-
six-month term. It's the consecutive nature of the revocation
sentence he takes issue with here.
Fernández argues that his sentence is procedurally
unreasonable and should be vacated. The district court had the
discretion to run the sentences concurrently, he claims, but it
erred because it believed it was required to run his twenty-four-
month revocation sentence consecutively. And the court's error
was prejudicial because his sentence "became [twenty-four] months
longer" as a result of this mistaken belief. The government argues
that the district court did not err because it knew it had the
discretion to run the sentences concurrently, it just chose not
to. Even if the district court erred, the government stresses
that Fernández cannot show that his sentence was any longer as a
result.
Fernández did not raise these arguments below, so we
review them for plain error.8 Favorably to Fernández, even if we
8That means Fernández must show "(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
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assume--without deciding--that the district court committed an
error that was clear or obvious in imposing a consecutive
revocation sentence, Fernandez cannot succeed.9 See United States
v. Duarte, 246 F.3d 56, 61 (1st Cir. 2001) (bypassing first two
proceedings." United States v. Marchena-Silvestre, 802 F.3d 196,
200 (1st Cir. 2015) (quoting United States v. Duarte, 246 F.3d 56,
60 (1st Cir. 2001)).
9
Fernández's sentencing arguments are murky. We think his
point is that the court misunderstood its discretion to run his
revocation sentence concurrently with his sentence for "counts one
and three of the new indictment." If so, Fernández is wrong. The
court's last word on the subject: "the revocation must be
consecutive to the 924(c) count. It need not be consecutive to
the drug count, but it must be consecutive to the 924(c) count."
(The "drug count" is the sixteen-month sentence on Count One, which
ran concurrently with Count Three.) The court didn't think the
revocation had to run consecutively to Counts One and Three, so it
didn't misunderstand its discretion.
But as we said, his arguments are murky. Earlier in his brief
he claimed the district court had the discretion to run his
revocation concurrently with "the new charges," which include the
§ 924(c) sentence from Count Two. (Understood this way, his
prejudice argument makes more sense: his sentence could only be
"[twenty-four] months longer" because of the error if the error
was thinking the twenty-four-month revocation had to be
consecutive to all three Counts.)
The district court thought the revocation had to be
consecutive to Fernández's § 924(c) sentence, but we aren't so
sure that's an error. District courts normally have the discretion
to run a revocation sentence concurrently. United States v.
Carrera-González, 280 F. App'x 11, 13 (1st Cir. 2008). But, 18
U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(D)(ii) provides that "no term of imprisonment
imposed on a person under this subsection shall run concurrently
with any other term of imprisonment imposed on the person." See
also United States v. Gonzales, 520 U.S. 1, 9-11 (1997) (holding
that a later-sentencing federal court must run a § 924(c) sentence
consecutively to any other undischarged state or federal term).
Fernández does not develop this argument at all. So, we don't
decide the issue.
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prongs of plain-error review under similar circumstances). That
is so because we find that Fernández has not shown that the error-
-if any--had any impact on his substantial rights. Resultantly,
he cannot pass the plain-error test.
On the third prong of plain-error review, Fernández
bears the burden of showing a "reasonable probability that the
district court would impose a different" and "more favorable"
sentence but for the error. United States v. Serrano-Beauvaix,
400 F.3d 50, 55 (1st Cir. 2005). Fernández posits that his overall
sentence was twenty-four months longer because the revocation was
imposed consecutively. But "[i]t is not enough for a defendant
merely to argue that his sentence might have been different" if
not for the error. United States v. Yeje-Cabrera, 430 F.3d 1, 19
(1st Cir. 2005) (quoting United States v. Sanchez-Berrios, 424
F.3d 65, 80 (1st Cir. 2005)). He must point to something in the
record that indicates the district court might have acted
differently if it did not harbor its mistaken belief.
The record gives us no reason to believe that things
would have been different for Fernández but for the alleged error.
Indeed, the district court recognized that the Guidelines-
recommended revocation sentence for Fernández is twelve to
eighteen months. (And Fernández concedes that the court's
calculation was correct.) Nevertheless, the judge chose to
sentence Fernández to the statutory maximum of two years. See 18
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U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3). The judge's statement of reasons for giving
Fernández the statutory-maximum sentence, over his lawyer's
request for a sentence at the lowest end of the range, shows he
thought the maximum possible punishment was merited by Fernández's
crimes and criminal history. The district court explained that
Fernández endangered the minors in his home and proved himself
"unable to comply with the law," so a statutory sentence was
necessary to reflect "the nature and seriousness of the
circumstances of the violation incurred by Mr. Fernández while on
supervised release" and to "protect[] the community from
[Fernández's] further crimes." Even if the district court
mistakenly believed the sentences had to run consecutively, its
decision to impose the maximum sentence and its emphasis on the
"seriousness" of the offense do nothing to show that the court
would have acted differently but for its mistaken belief.
Fernández has not shown that the district court's error,
if any occurred, "affected [his] substantial rights." Marchena-
Silvestre, 802 F.3d at 200. So, he has not shown plain error. We
affirm his sentence.
CONCLUSION
For all the reasons discussed above, we affirm the
district court's ruling and Fernández's sentence, without
prejudice to Fernández's right to raise his ineffective-
assistance-of-counsel claim in a collateral proceeding.
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