Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca5-14-50930/USCOURTS-ca5-14-50930-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Jose Martinez-Jimenez
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-50930

Summary Calendar

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff−Appellee,

versus

JOSE MARTINEZ-JIMENEZ,

Defendant−Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Texas

USDC No. 2:13-CR-1479-1

Before SMITH, WIENER, and ELROD, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:*

Jose Martinez-Jimenez appeals the 43-month within-guidelines 

sentence imposed for his guilty-plea conviction of illegally reentering the 

United States after deportation. He challenges only the substantive

reasonableness of the sentence, which he contends is greater than necessary to 

* 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.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

March 3, 2015

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

 

Case: 14-50930 Document: 00512955109 Page: 1 Date Filed: 03/03/2015
No. 14-50930

achieve the goals of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). Martinez-Jimenez maintains that the

sentence overstates the seriousness of the offense because it is essentially an 

international trespass; that the illegal-reentry guideline, U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2, is 

not empirically based and results in the double-counting of prior convictions; 

and that the sentence is greater than necessary to provide adequate deterrence 

and to protect the public and fails adequately to account for his personal history and characteristics.

After United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), sentences are ordinarily reviewed for substantive reasonableness under an abuse-of-discretion 

standard. United States v. Johnson, 619 F.3d 469, 471-72 (5th Cir. 2010). 

Although Martinez-Jimenez objected in the district court to his sentence as 

greater than necessary to satisfy the goals of § 3553(a), he failed to mention all 

of the grounds that he raises on appeal. Nevertheless, because the sentence 

can be affirmed under an abuse-of-discretion standard, we need not decide 

whether plain-error review should apply. 

We have rejected the arguments that illegal reentry is merely an international trespass offense that is treated too harshly under § 2L1.2, see United 

States v. Juarez-Duarte, 513 F.3d 204, 212 (5th Cir. 2008), and that a sentence 

imposed pursuant to § 2L1.2 is greater than necessary to meet § 3553(a)’s goals 

as a result of any double-counting inherent in that guideline, see United States 

v. Duarte, 569 F.3d 528, 529-31 (5th Cir. 2009). Additionally, the record does 

not reflect that the within-guidelines sentence fails to “account for a factor that 

should receive significant weight , . . . gives significant weight to an irrelevant 

or improper factor, or . . . represents a clear error of judgment in balancing 

sentencing factors.” United States v. Cooks, 589 F.3d 173, 186 (5th Cir. 2009).

For these reasons, the judgment of sentence is AFFIRMED.

2

Case: 14-50930 Document: 00512955109 Page: 2 Date Filed: 03/03/2015