United States v. Paulino Loera-Zepeda

Case: 11-50578 Document: 00511819614 Page: 1 Date Filed: 04/12/2012
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
April 12, 2012
No. 11-50578
Summary Calendar Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
PAULINO LOERA-ZEPEDA, also known as Lorenzo Avila-Dominguez, also
known as Paulino Zepeda, also known as Lorenzo Avila, also known as Paulino
Lorea-Zepeda,
Defendant - Appellant
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Texas
USDC No. 3:11-CR-615-1
Before BARKSDALE, STEWART, and PRADO, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
Paulino Loera-Zepeda challenges the sentence of, inter alia, 60-months’
imprisonment imposed following his guilty-plea conviction for illegal reentry.
He maintains his sentence is unreasonable because it is greater than necessary
to meet the sentencing goals of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). Specifically, he contends the
*
Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not
be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR.
R. 47.5.4.
Case: 11-50578 Document: 00511819614 Page: 2 Date Filed: 04/12/2012
No. 11-50578
Guidelines sentencing range did not adequately reflect his cultural assimilation
or his substance-abuse issues resulting from his largely unsupervised childhood.
Post-Booker, the Sentencing Guidelines are advisory only, and an ultimate
sentence is reviewed for reasonableness under an abuse-of-discretion standard.
Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). A sentence within the properly
calculated Guidelines sentencing range is presumptively reasonable. E.g.,
United States v. Alonzo, 435 F.3d 551, 554 (5th Cir. 2006).
Loera has not rebutted the presumption that his within-Guidelines
sentence is reasonable. Moreover, as he concedes regarding one of his bases for
challenging his sentence, his contention that the presumption should not apply
because the Guideline at issue is not empirically based is foreclosed. United
States v. Mondragon-Santiago, 564 F.3d 357, 366-67 (5th Cir. 2009). He
presents it only in order to preserve it for possible further review.
AFFIRMED.
2