Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca11-15-14720/USCOURTS-ca11-15-14720-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Juan Gutierrez
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 15-14720

Non-Argument Calendar

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 4:08-cr-10070-KMM-1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff-Appellee,

 versus

JUAN GUTIERREZ, 

 Defendant-Appellant. 

________________________

No. 15-14791

Non-Argument Calendar

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 4:08-cr-10068-KMM-2

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff-Appellee, 

 versus

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2

JUAN GUTIERREZ, 

 Defendant -Appellant. 

________________________

No. 15-15533

Non-Argument Calendar

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 4:07-cr-10049-KMM-1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff-Appellee,

 versus

JUAN ANTONIO GUTIERREZ ARENCEBIA, 

a.k.a. Juan Antonio Arencebia, 

 Defendant-Appellant. 

________________________

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

________________________

(December 16, 2016)

Before MARTIN, JULIE CARNES, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

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In this consolidated appeal, Defendant Juan Gutierrez Arencebia appeals his 

total 72-month sentence, imposed upon revocation of supervised release in three 

separate cases. This is the second time Defendant asks us to review his sentence. 

The first time this appeal was before us, we vacated Defendant’s 72-month 

sentence, concluding that the district court had committed procedural error in 

sentencing Defendant by considering conduct involving alien smuggling that had 

not been proved by a preponderance of the evidence. 

On remand, the district court once again sentenced Defendant to 72 months’ 

imprisonment. Defendant now appeals, arguing that his sentence is procedurally 

and substantively unreasonable. After careful review, we affirm. 

I. BACKGROUND

Defendant, a Cuban national, is a repeat violator of federal immigration 

laws. In our previous decision, we provided a detailed description of the multiple 

human-smuggling attempts, arrests, deportation orders, and prosecutions that lay 

the foundation for this appeal. See United States v. Arencebia, 613 Fed. App’x 

882, 883–888 (11th Cir. 2015) (unpublished). We therefore provide only a brief 

synopsis of the facts and procedural history necessary for resolution of the present 

appeal. 

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A. Defendant’s Underlying Convictions

In June 2008, Defendant was sentenced to 24 months’ imprisonment 

followed by three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to conspiracy to 

induce aliens to enter the United States, in violation of 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1324(a)(1)(A)(v)(I), and illegal reentry, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a). 

Later, in February 2009, Defendant pleaded guilty in two separate cases to 

conspiracy to induce aliens to enter the United States. In one of the cases, he was 

sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment to run consecutively to his 24-month 

sentence imposed in June 2008. As to the other case, he was sentenced to 30 

months’ imprisonment to run concurrently with his other sentences. He received 

three years of probation in each case. 

B. Supervised Release Violation and First Revocation Hearing

Defendant began his term of supervised release in all three cases in August 

2011. Approximately two years later and before the terms of supervised release 

expired, the probation officer filed separate, but identical, petitions seeking 

revocation of Defendant’s supervised release in each of the three cases. According 

to the petitions, Defendant was arrested on October 23, 2013, for committing the 

offenses of alien smuggling and illegal reentry. Defendant had thus violated 

mandatory conditions of his supervised release by: (1) committing two new 

criminal offenses; and (2) leaving the judicial district without seeking permission 

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from the probation officer. Defendant admitted to leaving the judicial district 

without permission, but denied committing the offenses of alien smuggling and 

illegal reentry. Given Defendant’s admission, the Government dismissed the 

violations related to alien smuggling and illegal reentry. 

In anticipation of the revocation hearing, the probation officer prepared three 

nearly identical written reports and recommendations. The probation officer 

indicated that Defendant’s underlying convictions for conspiracy to induce aliens 

to enter the United States were Class C felonies, and therefore the maximum term 

of imprisonment that could be imposed was 24 months’ imprisonment for each 

violation. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3). Because Defendant’s supervised release 

violation was a Grade C violation and Defendant’s criminal history category was I, 

Defendant’s guideline range for the first case was three to nine months’ 

imprisonment. For the second case, Defendant’s guideline range was four to ten 

months’ imprisonment. For the third case, Defendant’s criminal history category 

was III, which resulted in a guideline range of 5 to 11 months’ imprisonment. 

At the revocation hearing, Defendant admitted that he left the judicial 

district on October 23, 2013, and had traveled to international waters without 

permission from his probation officer. He also admitted that he was subsequently 

arrested for alien smuggling and illegal reentry. Based on his admitted departure 

from the judicial district without permission, the district court adjudicated him 

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guilty of violating the terms of his supervised release in all three cases. The 

district court reiterated the probation officer’s guidelines calculations in each of the 

three cases. Concluding that Defendant had shown “utter contempt and disrespect 

for the laws of the United States” and “appears to be unable or unwilling to 

conform his behavior to the requirements of the law . . . that this kind of smuggling 

activity is prohibited,” the district court sentenced Defendant to a total of 72 

months’ imprisonment, consisting of 24 months’ imprisonment in each case, to run 

consecutively to one another. 

C. First Appeal

On appeal, we concluded that the district court committed procedural error 

by relying on Defendant’s conduct involving alien smuggling, which had not been 

sufficiently proven by a preponderance of the evidence. Arencebia, 613 Fed. 

App’x at 891–92. We explained that to the extent the district court relied on an 

affidavit that described Defendant’s arrest for alien smuggling, the district court 

had not provided Defendant an opportunity to contest the reliability of that 

evidence. Id. at 892. Accordingly, we vacated Defendant’s sentence and 

remanded for a new sentencing hearing. Id. We stated that on remand, “the 

district court shall allow Defendant the opportunity to contest any information that 

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the court is considering as a sentencing factor and at which the court shall consider 

only such conduct as is proved by a preponderance of reliable evidence.”1

 Id.

D. Resentencing Hearing for Violations of Supervised Release 

At the outset of the resentencing hearing, the parties agreed that the 

guidelines calculations remained unchanged. To meet its burden of establishing 

that Defendant’s October 2013 arrest involved alien smuggling, the Government 

called Lieutenant Morgan Roy, a pilot with the U.S. Coast Guard, to testify. 

Lieutenant Roy stated that while on duty on October 23, 2013, she was directed to 

relieve an aircraft that was overhead a vessel in the body of water between the 

Florida Keys and Cuba. When she arrived on scene, she observed that the vessel 

was overloaded with people. The vessel appeared to be having engine trouble and 

eventually stopped at an abandoned island within the territory of the Bahamas, 

where all but two people got off of the boat. The vessel then headed north, 

eventually stopped, and the two remaining people on board took out fishing gear. 

The Government also called Pablo Milian, a special agent with the 

Department of Homeland Security. Agent Milian interviewed Defendant 

following his arrest in October 2013, after the Coast Guard interdicted his vessel 

 1

 In the meantime, while Defendant’s first appeal was pending in our Court, a jury convicted 

him of attempted illegal reentry, in violation of § 1326(a), for the conduct stemming from his 

October 2013 arrest. Id. at 888. Defendant was sentenced to 92 months’ imprisonment to be 

served consecutively to the sentences imposed for the violations of supervised release. Id. We 

later affirmed Defendant’s conviction and sentence. United States v. Gutierrez, 626 Fed. App’x 

923, 926 (11th Cir. 2015) (unpublished). 

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off of the Florida Keys. At first, Defendant told Agent Milian that he had 

borrowed a boat from a friend for a fishing trip, but they encountered engine 

trouble and headed back to the United States. When Agent Milian showed 

Defendant a photograph of Defendant’s vessel filled with people on it, Defendant 

changed his story. Defendant told Agent Milian that he encountered a stranded 

boat and he had picked up those passengers and dropped them off on an island. 

Agent Milian further testified that this was not the first time he had 

interviewed Defendant, as he had first encountered Defendant in 2005 under 

similar circumstances. In 2005, the Coast Guard interdicted a vessel that 

Defendant was the master of, and which contained a large number of 

undocumented Cuban nationals. When Agent Milian interviewed Defendant at 

that time, Defendant told him the same story—he was fishing off of the Florida 

Keys when he discovered a group of stranded people and took them on board his 

vessel. Agent Milian testified that the investigation in 2005 resulted in one of the 

alien-smuggling convictions underlying the current supervised release revocation 

proceeding. 

The district court confirmed with Defendant that the problem with the prior 

sentencing hearing—the use of unreliable evidence to support the determination 

that Defendant had engaged in alien smuggling—was no longer an issue given the 

evidence presented by the Government during the resentencing hearing. 

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Nevertheless, Defendant maintained that the evidence was not sufficient to 

demonstrate that he had engaged in alien smuggling. Based on the testimony of 

the two witnesses, the district court determined that the Government had 

demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that Defendant attempted illegal 

reentry and attempted to commit alien smuggling. 

Defendant argued that a sentence significantly lower than the 72-month 

sentence imposed at the prior sentencing hearing was appropriate, especially given 

the applicable guideline range and the 92-month sentence Defendant received for 

his most recent attempted illegal reentry conviction. The district court stated that 

Defendant “shows utter disrespect for the law, and the only thing that’s going to 

stop him from continuing to engage in alien-smuggling activity and the danger and 

the risk to the lives of other people is incarceration.” After considering the parties’ 

arguments, the district court revoked Defendant’s supervised release and sentenced 

him to 24 months’ imprisonment in each of the three cases to run consecutively, 

resulting in a total sentence of 72 months’ imprisonment. This appeal followed. 

II. DISCUSSION

Using a two-step process, we review the reasonableness of a district court’s 

sentence for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Cubero, 754 F.3d 888, 892 

(11th Cir. 2014). We first look to whether the district court committed any 

significant procedural error, such as miscalculating the advisory guideline range, 

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treating the Sentencing Guidelines as mandatory, failing to consider the 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3553(a) factors, selecting a sentence based on clearly erroneous facts, or failing 

to adequately explain the chosen sentence. Id. Then we examine whether the 

sentence is substantively reasonable in light of the totality of the circumstances. 

Id. The party challenging the sentence bears the burden of showing that it is 

unreasonable. United States v. Pugh, 515 F.3d 1179, 1189 (11th Cir. 2008). 

When revoking a defendant’s term of supervised release, 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3583(e) instructs courts to consider certain 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors in 

determining an appropriate sentence. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3). In part, 

sentencing courts must consider (1) “the nature and circumstances of the offense 

and the history and characteristics of the defendant,” (2) the need to adequately 

deter criminal conduct, (3) the need “to protect the public from further crimes of

the defendant,” (4) the applicable sentencing range, and (5) any pertinent policy 

statements of the Sentencing Commission. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e), 3553(a)(1), 

(a)(2)(B)-(C), (a)(4)-(5). 

A. Procedural Reasonableness

Defendant argues that the district court committed procedural error by 

basing his sentence on the alien-smuggling conduct, rather than on his actual 

supervised release violation of leaving the judicial district without permission. 

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Under federal law, “[n]o limitation shall be placed on the information 

concerning the background, character, and conduct of a person convicted of an 

offense which a court of the United States may receive and consider for the 

purpose of imposing an appropriate sentence.” 18 U.S.C. § 3661. The Guidelines 

also note that the information a court may consider in formulating a sentence is 

expansive and includes evidence that would not be admissible at trial, so long as 

the information has a “sufficient indicia of reliability” to support its accuracy. 

U.S.S.G. § 6A1.3(a). In other words, the relevant facts at sentencing must be 

established by a preponderance of the evidence. See United States v. Watts, 519 

U.S. 148, 156 (1997). 

Here, Defendant’s sentence is not procedurally unreasonable because the 

district court was permitted to consider Defendant’s alien-smuggling conduct. In 

determining the proper sentence to impose upon revocation of supervised release, 

the district court is not limited solely to the information about the admitted

violation. See 18 U.S.C. § 3661. Instead, the information the court can consider is 

vast, so long as it is supported by a preponderance of the evidence. See Watts, 519 

U.S. at 156. After hearing testimony from two Government witnesses, the district 

court concluded that the Government established by a preponderance of the 

evidence that Defendant engaged in alien smuggling. Moreover, Defendant has 

abandoned any argument that this determination was not supported by a 

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preponderance of the evidence, as he does not raise that argument on appeal. See 

United States v. Jernigan, 341 F.3d 1273, 1283 n.8 (11th Cir. 2003) (explaining 

that issues not raised on appeal are deemed abandoned). But even if Defendant

had not abandoned this argument, any such argument would have been meritless, 

as the testimony of Lieutenant Roy and Agent Milian was sufficient to show by a 

preponderance of the evidence that Defendant engaged in alien smuggling. See 

Watts, 519 U.S. at 156. 

Furthermore, we are not persuaded by Defendant’s argument that the district 

court could not consider his alien-smuggling conduct, as we indicated in 

Defendant’s first appeal that the district court could consider the alien-smuggling 

conduct in fashioning his sentence, so long as that conduct was established by a 

preponderance of the evidence. See Arencebia, 613 Fed. App’x at 891–92. At the 

resentencing hearing, the district court provided Defendant the opportunity to 

cross-examine the Government’s witnesses, heard argument from Defendant, and 

then found the alien-smuggling conduct was proved by a preponderance of the 

evidence. Thus, our previous concerns regarding the procedural reasonableness of 

Defendant’s sentence are no longer at issue. 

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B. Substantive Reasonableness

Defendant next argues that his sentence is substantively unreasonable

because the district court varied upward to the statutory maximum sentence based 

on Defendant’s conduct involving alien smuggling. 

We disagree. Although Defendant’s 24-month sentences reflect upward 

variances from the respective guideline ranges for each supervised release 

violation, his sentences to the statutory maximum, were not “outside the range of 

reasonable sentences dictated by the facts of the case.” See United States v. Irey, 

612 F.3d 1160, 1190 (11th Cir. 2010) (en banc). 

Indeed, in determining that an upward variance was necessary as to each 

violation, the district court considered several of the relevant sentencing factors, 

including Defendant’s history and characteristics, the nature and circumstances of 

the offense, and the need for deterrence. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 3583(e), 3553(a)(1), 

(a)(2)(B)-(C), (a)(4)-(5); see also Irey, 612 F.3d at 1186–87 (explaining that when 

a district court imposes a sentence outside of the applicable guideline range, the 

justification must be “‘sufficiently compelling to support the degree of the 

variance’”). In particular, Defendant had three prior convictions for alien 

smuggling during the approximately ten years he had been in the United States. 

Further, the testimony presented at sentencing was sufficient to establish by a 

preponderance of the evidence that Defendant was again attempting to smuggle 

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aliens when he was caught outside the judicial district in October 2013. These 

repeated instances of alien smuggling, including the 2013 instance that occurred 

after Defendant had already served terms of imprisonment for three prior aliensmuggling convictions, suggest that a lengthier sentence was needed to adequately 

deter Defendant. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(B). In addition, Defendant exhibited 

a callous disregard for human life, abandoning the aliens he had smuggled on an 

uninhabitable island, with limited food and water. 

Although Defendant argues that the district court relied too heavily on the 

alien-smuggling conduct surrounding his supervised release violation, instead of 

focusing on the actual admitted violation of leaving the judicial district without 

permission, it was entirely within the district court’s discretion to do so. See 

United States v. Clay, 483 F.3d 739, 743 (11th Cir. 2007) (“The weight to be 

accorded any given § 3553(a) factor is a matter committed to the sound discretion 

of the district court. . . .” (quotations omitted)). And to the extent Defendant still 

maintains that the district court was not permitted to consider the alien-smuggling 

conduct, we have already explained that the district court was permitted to consider 

any information relevant to sentencing, so long as it was proved by a 

preponderance of the evidence. See 18 U.S.C. § 3661; Watts, 519 U.S. at 156. 

Finally, Defendant relies on U.S.S.G. § 5G1.2—the provision governing 

sentencing on multiple counts of conviction—to argue that his consecutive 

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sentences are unreasonable. This argument is without merit, as sentences imposed 

upon revocation of supervised release are governed by Chapter 7 of the Sentencing 

Guidelines, not § 5G1.2. See U.S.S.G. § 5G1.2; U.S.S.G. Chap. 7; See United 

States v. Quinones, 136 F.3d 1293, 1295 (11th Cir. 1998) (concluding that § 5G1.2 

did not limit the district court’s authority to impose consecutive terms of 

imprisonment upon revocation of supervised release, as the policy statements in 

Chapter 7 governed revocation sentences). 

Accordingly, Defendant has not shown that the district court abused its 

discretion by imposing a total sentence of 72 months’ imprisonment. 

AFFIRMED.

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