United States v. Zavala-Marti

Not for Publication in West's Federal Reporter
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 13-2408
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
JOSÉ MANUEL ZAVALA-MARTÍ,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Francisco A. Besosa, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Thompson, Kayatta, and Barron,
Circuit Judges.
Peter Goldberger and Pamela A. Wilk on brief for appellant.
Rosa Emilia Rodriguez-Velez, 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.
February 4, 2015
KAYATTA, Circuit Judge. After the first day of witness
testimony in his jury trial, José Manuel Zavala-Martí ("Zavala")
pled guilty without a plea agreement to all nine counts in the
superseding indictment related to his role in a large scale heroin,
crack-cocaine, and marijuana trafficking operation, including his
attempt to intimidate and bribe a government witness. The district
court sentenced Zavala to a general sentence of life imprisonment
unsupportable by reference to any particular count in the
indictment, and in doing so failed to uphold its obligation to
individually consider the appropriate sentence for each count.
United States v. Zavala-Martí, 715 F.3d 44, 51—52, 54 (1st Cir.
2013). On plain error review, we vacated that sentence and
remanded for resentencing before a different judge. Id. at 52,
56—57.
After a new sentencing hearing, the district court re-
calculated Zavala's total offense level based on the United States
Sentencing Guidelines and announced a sentence for each individual
count. The court sentenced the thirty-six year old Zavala to a
total imprisonment term of fifty years, which fell within the
guidelines range of 360 months to life. Zavala subsequently
appealed his second sentence, which we now affirm.
I. Discussion
Zavala's challenge to his fifty year sentence rests on
three main grounds: 1) the district court violated 18 U.S.C.
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§ 3553(c)(1) by failing to sufficiently explain in open court its
reasons for selecting the sentence; 2) the sentence is
substantively unreasonable because the guidelines calculation
included a four point leadership enhancement that was based upon
clearly erroneous factual findings; and 3) the sentence was
substantively unreasonable due to the disparity between Zavala's
sentence and those of similarly situated defendants.
Our review of a district court's sentencing determination
includes a bifurcated inquiry into: 1) whether there was
"significant procedural error," and 2) whether the sentence was
substantively unreasonable. United States v. Martin, 520 F.3d 87,
92 (1st Cir. 2008); see also United States v. Clogston, 662 F.3d
588, 590 (1st Cir. 2011). Both prongs of the inquiry are conducted
"under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard." Martin, 520
F.3d at 92 (quoting Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007))
(internal quotation marks omitted). For the following reasons,
none of Zavala's arguments persuades us that the district court
abused its discretion in imposing the fifty year sentence.
A. Open Court Explanation
Zavala argues that the district court violated 18 U.S.C.
§ 3553(c)(1) by failing to adequately explain his sentence in open
court. That statute requires the district court to state "the
reason for imposing a sentence at a particular point within the
[guidelines] range" if the range, measured from the low end to the
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high end, exceeds twenty-four months (as it did here for the range
of 360 months to life imprisonment). See United States v. Dávila-
González, 595 F.3d 42, 49 (1st Cir. 2010). Our own case law makes
clear that such an explanation need not be exhaustive or expressly
touch on every point. See United States v. Zapata, 589 F.3d 475,
487 (1st Cir. 2009) ("A sentencing court is not obliged . . . to
specifically address all of the section 3553(a) factors in its
explanation, nor to give each of the factors equal prominence in
its determination." (internal quotation marks omitted)). Here, the
district court articulated its reasoning, specifically citing the
activities giving rise to the leadership enhancement and the
defendant's actions in obstructing justice. The court also stated
that it considered all of the relevant factors, and "[t]he fact
that the court imposed a within-the-range sentence helps . . .
reach this conclusion: such a sentence requires less explanation
than one that varies from the [guidelines range]." Clogston, 662
F.3d at 592. Therefore, the district court's open-court
explanation was sufficient, and there was no procedural error in
this regard.
B. Leadership Enhancement
Zavala cannot show that the district court abused its
discretion when it found by a preponderance of the evidence that
Zavala had a leadership role in a drug operation that involved five
or more persons. See U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(a) (instructing courts to
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increase the offense base level by four points "[i]f the defendant
was an organizer or leader of a criminal activity that involved
five or more participants"). The district court concluded that
Zavala qualified for the leadership enhancement because, inter
alia, "[h]e was identified as an organizer or leader of the
organization," and "[h]e assisted the leader by overseeing,
coordinating, and supervising the operations of the . . . drug
points." Those findings were based upon the judge's review of
witness testimony describing Zavala's role in the organization.
For example, another drug dealer in the organization testified
that:
[B]esides [sic] from being [Robert Belleza's]1
right-hand man, [Zavala] would be like an
order sergeant. Like if there was a problem
at another housing project . . . or in the
other drug points . . . it was like if
somebody had failed at something . . . he
would you know, go . . . to dole it out. He
would go hit people.
Witnesses also stated that Zavala was "in charge of all
of [Belleza's] [drug] businesses," and described Zavala as
Belleza's "right-hand man," one of "the bosses," an
"administrator," and a "lieutenant" of the organization. According
to one witness, "when something, you know, had run out or when
something happened, the one that they'd mention the most was
1
Belleza was identified at trial as the "owner" of the
organization's drug points, i.e., the group's top leader. The
parties do not dispute Belleza's role.
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[Zavala]." This testimony provides us with a sufficient basis to
uphold the judge's application of the leadership enhancement.
C. Sentencing Disparity
18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6) instructs sentencing judges to
consider "the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among
defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of
similar conduct." Although section 3553(a)(6)'s instruction
"primarily targets disparities among defendants nationally," United
States v. McDonough, 727 F.3d 143, 165 (1st Cir. 2013), "district
courts have discretion . . . to align codefendants' sentences
somewhat in order to reflect comparable degrees of culpability,"
Martin, 520 F.3d at 94.
Zavala argues that there is an unwarranted disparity
between his sentence and that of his co-conspirators. In
particular, he notes that two of the organization's higher-level
associates, Omar and "Bam-Bam," received forty and twenty year
sentences, respectively. In response to this argument, the
district court pointed to Zavala's role as the "chief of staff" to
the organization's top leader, in addition to "everything else that
he did that we've mentioned during today's hearing." Considering
the evidence of Zavala's leadership role as described in the prior
section of this opinion, and his actions in obstructing justice
while incarcerated by intimidating a government witness, the
district court's imposition of a higher sentence than those of
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Zavala's co-conspirators falls within the "wide latitude in
sentencing" granted to the district court. Zapata, 589 F.3d at
488.
Zavala, in cursory fashion, also argues that there is an
unwarranted disparity between his sentence and those of other drug
trafficking defendants in the District of Puerto Rico. However,
aside from simply listing five lead drug trafficking defendants'
sentences of ten to sixteen years, he does not explain why his
higher sentence is "conspicuous and threaten[s] to undermine
confidence in the criminal justice system." Martin, 520 F.3d at
94. The fact that other defendants in drug conspiracies have
received shorter sentences is insufficient to show that the overall
distribution of sentences renders this one such an outlier as to be
the product of an abuse of discretion, especially considering the
facts that Zavala: 1) threatened a witness while in prison on these
charges, and 2) did not plead guilty until he was fingered by the
government's witnesses on the first day of testimony. Cf. United
States v. Rodríguez-Lozada, 558 F.3d 29, 46 (1st Cir. 2009)
(finding no abuse of discretion in a life sentence for a leader of
a drug organization where a guidelines range of 360 months to life
imprisonment (identical to Zavala's) applied).
Finally, Zavala argues that his sentence is "greater than
necessary to fulfill the purposes of sentencing." He lists his
"lack of criminal record, his compelling person [sic] history, his
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strong and supportive family, [and] the absence of any murders" as
potential justifications for a more lenient sentence. In response
to a similar argument made by the defendant in Zapata, we stated
that "[t]he court's decision to emphasize the nature of the crime
over the mitigating factors was a choice of emphasis that is not a
basis for a founded claim of sentencing error." Zapata, 589 F.3d
at 488 (internal quotation marks omitted). Clearly, the district
court here decided that the available facts, including those
already discussed above, outweighed any of the potential factors
favoring a lower sentence. We cannot say that this decision
constituted an abuse of discretion so as to remove Zavala's
sentence from "the expansive boundaries of [the] universe" of
reasonable sentences. Martin, 520 F.3d at 92.
II. Conclusion
We affirm Zavala's sentence, as imposed by the district
court.
So ordered.
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