United States v. Gallegos-Castro

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS March 26, 2009
TENTH CIRCUIT Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff–Appellee, No. 08-2090
v. (D.C. No. 06-CR-01841-JAP-1)
GENOVEVO GALLEGOS–CASTRO, (D. N.M.)
Defendant–Appellant.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before HARTZ, McKAY, and O’BRIEN, Circuit Judges.
After examining the briefs and the appellate record, this panel has
determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the
determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G).
This case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.
Defendant Genovevo Gallegos-Castro pled guilty to illegally reentering the
United States in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326. The district court imposed a
sentence of seventy-seven months’ imprisonment, at the bottom of the calculated
Guidelines range. On appeal, Defendant argues that this sentence was not
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited,
however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th
Cir. R. 32.1.
procedurally or substantively reasonable.
In reviewing a challenge to the procedural reasonableness of a sentence, we
generally review the district court’s legal conclusions de novo and its factual
findings for clear error. See United States v. Kristl, 437 F.3d 1050, 1055 (10th
Cir. 2006). However, where a party fails to raise a contemporaneous objection to
the district court’s sentencing procedures, we review the appeal on that ground
only for plain error. See United States v. McComb, 519 F.3d 1049, 1054 (10th
Cir. 2007). Here, Defendant did not object to the process by which the guideline
range was calculated, and we thus review his procedural reasonableness argument
only for plain error.
Defendant suggests that his sentence was procedurally unreasonable
because the sixteen-level enhancement the district court imposed for a prior
violent felony was overly punitive and resulted in double-counting. However, the
Guidelines expressly permit the double-counting that occurred here, see U.S.S.G.
§ 2L1.2 n.6, and we have “routinely upheld as reasonable the use of prior
convictions to calculate both the criminal history category and a sentence
enhancement where, as here, the Guidelines authorize it.” United States v. Ruiz-
Terrazas, 477 F.3d 1196, 1204 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 128 S. Ct. 113 (2007).
Moreover, we note that Defendant was convicted of the serious violent offenses
of aggravated assault and shooting at an inhabited house, dwelling, or vehicle.
Under these circumstances, we conclude that the court did not err, much less
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commit plain error, by imposing the sixteen-level enhancement at issue here.
Defendant also suggests that his sentence was procedurally unreasonable
because the court should have departed downward from the Guidelines pursuant
to U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3. However, we do not have jurisdiction to review the district
court’s discretionary refusal to grant a downward departure request. See United
States v. Castillo, 140 F.3d 874, 887 (10th Cir. 1998).
Defendant further argues that the sentence imposed was not substantively
reasonable. We review the substantive reasonableness of a sentence for abuse of
discretion, “afford[ing] substantial deference to [the] district court[].” United
States v. Smart, 518 F.3d 800, 806 (10th Cir. 2008). Where the district court
correctly calculates the applicable sentencing range and sentences the defendant
within that range, the resulting sentence is entitled to a rebuttable presumption of
reasonableness. See Kristl, 437 F.3d at 1054.
Defendant argues that several factors weighed in favor of a below-
Guidelines sentence—his cultural assimilation to the United States, his parents
and siblings’ status as legal residents or citizens of the United States, the fact that
he returned to the United States to visit his family, his intellectual limitations, the
fact that reentry “is a status offense and does not involve violence” (Appellant’s
Br. at 12), the age of the felony conviction that resulted in the sixteen-level
enhancement, and the fact that the majority of his criminal history points
stemmed from immigration offenses. He also again argues that the sixteen-level
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enhancement was overly punitive and resulted in double-counting the prior felony
conviction. We have rejected these or similar arguments in numerous
immigration cases. See, e.g., United States v. Melendez-Dones, 274 F. App’x
726, 728 (10th Cir. 2008) (rejecting substantive reasonableness challenge where
defendant argued that the seriousness of his criminal history was over-
represented, that his criminal history double-counted his prior convictions, that he
was culturally assimilated to the United States, and that he reentered to visit his
terminally ill sister); United States v. Prieto-Chavez, 268 F. App’x 695, 698, 703
(10th Cir. 2008) (rejecting substantive reasonableness challenges based on
double-counting, medical problems, and cultural assimilation); United States v.
Enriquez-Bojorquez, 231 F. App’x 824, 825-26, 828 (10th Cir. 2007) (affirming
within-Guidelines sentence where defendant reentered the country for family and
economic reasons, his prior aggravated assault conviction was fourteen or fifteen
years old, and he argued that reentry is a victimless crime). We similarly
conclude that the factors cited by Defendant in this case are insufficient to
overcome the presumption of reasonableness attached to his properly-calculated
Guidelines sentence on appeal. We cannot say that the district court abused its
discretion by imposing a sentence at the bottom of the Guidelines range here,
where Defendant had prior felony convictions for aggravated assault, shooting at
an inhabited house, dwelling, or vehicle, and possessing a firearm as a felon, and
where his previous fifty-seven month sentence for reentry failed to deter him from
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committing this crime.
For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM Defendant’s conviction and
sentence.
Entered for the Court
Monroe G. McKay
Circuit Judge
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