United States v. Elias Morales

Case: 17-11717 Date Filed: 10/04/2017 Page: 1 of 3
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 17-11717
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 8:16-cr-00179-SDM-AAS-1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
ELIAS MORALES,
Defendant - Appellant.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
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(October 4, 2017)
Before JULIE CARNES, JILL PRYOR, and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges.
Case: 17-11717 Date Filed: 10/04/2017 Page: 2 of 3
PER CURIAM:
Elias Morales appeals the district court's imposition of a 14-month term of
imprisonment after the revocation of his supervised release. He contends that his
sentence was procedurally unreasonable because the court considered his need for
drug rehabilitation in fashioning his sentence.
The Supreme Court has held that a sentencing court may not impose or
lengthen a prison term to promote an offender’s rehabilitation. Tapia v. United
States, 564 U.S. 319, 332 (2011). We extended Tapia’s holding, explaining that it
applies “whether a person is initially being sent to prison or being sent back to
prison after a period of supervised release.” United States v. Vandergrift, 754 F.3d
1303, 1309 (11th Cir. 2014). Moreover, in Vandergrift, we said that “Tapia error
occurs where the district court considers rehabilitation when crafting a sentence of
imprisonment,” not merely when it (1) tailors the length of the sentence to permit
completion of a rehabilitation program, or (2) makes rehabilitation the dominant
factor in reaching its sentencing determination. Id. at 1310 (emphasis in original).
“Because it is impermissible to consider rehabilitation, a court errs by relying on or
considering rehabilitation in any way when sentencing a defendant to prison.” Id.
at 1311. But merely discussing rehabilitation opportunities in prison is no error, so
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Case: 17-11717 Date Filed: 10/04/2017 Page: 3 of 3
long as such opportunities are not a deciding factor when the court imposes or
lengthens a sentence. Id.
The sentencing court did not render Morales’s sentence procedurally
unreasonable by violating Tapia and impermissibly considering rehabilitation. The
court’s statement that Morales needed a long prison term to become sober seems
unmotivated by a consideration of his rehabilitation. Instead, the court called him
a “determined abuser” and frequent violator of supervised release and stated that
sending him to a treatment program would be a waste of public resources. The
court imposed the 14-month term of imprisonment as a sanction for Morales’s
repeated violations of supervised release and a way to prevent further violations.
In addition, the district court mentioned Morales’s aggravated criminal history and
rapid return to criminal conduct as § 3553(a) factors that it considered when
imposing Morales’s sentence. Because Morales has not demonstrated that his
sentence was procedurally unreasonable, we affirm.
AFFIRMED.
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