Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-14-03022/USCOURTS-caDC-14-03022-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 24, 2015 Decided October 27, 2015 

No. 14-3022 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

APPELLEE

v. 

OSCAR RAMIRO ORTEGA-HERNANDEZ, ALSO KNOWN AS 

OSCAR RAMIRO ORTEGA, 

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:12-cr-00014-1) 

Marie L. Park, appointed by the court, argued the cause 

and filed the briefs for appellant. 

James A. Ewing, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the 

cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Ronald C. 

Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney at the time the brief was filed, 

Elizabeth Trosman, John P. Mannarino, Alessio Evangelista, 

and George Varghese, Assistant U.S. Attorneys. 

Before: HENDERSON, KAVANAUGH and PILLARD, Circuit 

Judges. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD. 

USCA Case #14-3022 Document #1580117 Filed: 10/27/2015 Page 1 of 9
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PILLARD, Circuit Judge: Oscar Ramiro OrtegaHernandez pleaded guilty to injuring a dwelling and placing 

lives in jeopardy, 18 U.S.C. § 1363, and discharging a firearm 

during a crime of violence, id. § 924(c)(1)(A). As part of a 

plea bargain, he agreed to waive his right to appeal his 

sentence. That sentence includes a twenty-five year term of 

imprisonment, which falls within the applicable Sentencing 

Guidelines range, and sixty months of supervised release. 

The district judge indicated—inadvertently, it appears—on 

the written judgment of conviction, but not in the oral 

pronouncement of the sentence, that Ortega-Hernandez must 

register as a sex offender as a condition of his supervised 

release. The government never asked the district court to 

require that Ortega-Hernandez register as a sex offender, and 

it has not identified facts that would support such a 

registration. The parties agree that the district court erred in 

checking the “sex offender” box on the pre-printed judgment 

form. 

On appeal, Ortega-Hernandez challenges two aspects of 

his sentence. First, he contends that he should not be subject 

to the sex-offender registration condition of supervised 

release. The government agrees. Because the government 

has not asked us to enforce the appeal waiver with respect to 

that condition, we address on its merits Ortega-Hernandez’s 

challenge to that condition and remand to the district court to 

conform the written judgment to the oral sentence. Second, 

Ortega-Hernandez contends that, given Ortega-Hernandez’s 

mental health history, the sentencing judge committed 

procedural and substantive error in setting such a long term of 

imprisonment. The government counters that OrtegaHernandez validly waived his right to appeal that aspect of his 

sentence. We agree with the government on that point. We 

therefore dismiss Ortega-Hernandez’s challenge to his term of 

imprisonment. 

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I. 

On November 11, 2011, Ortega-Hernandez aimed a highpowered rifle at the White House and fired at least eight shots. 

Several bullets hit the part of the building where the President 

and his family live. No one was injured. According to people 

who know him, Ortega-Hernandez harbored paranoid beliefs 

about the federal government. He believed that President 

Obama was the anti-Christ and that it was OrtegaHernandez’s mission, as “the modern day Jesus Christ,” to 

“take out Obama.” Gov’t App. 106-07. 

The United States charged Ortega-Hernandez with 

nineteen counts related to the shooting, including attempting 

to assassinate the President. Shortly before his trial was set to 

begin, Ortega-Hernandez pleaded guilty to, and was convicted 

of, two counts. As part of the plea deal, he agreed to a 

terrorism adjustment that significantly raised his estimated 

offense level under the Sentencing Guidelines, resulting in an 

estimated guideline range of 288 to 330 months of 

imprisonment. The plea agreement stipulates that a sentence 

within that range “would constitute a reasonable sentence in 

light of all of the factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).” 

Pub. App. 29. 

Ortega-Hernandez’s plea agreement includes a waiver of 

his right to appeal. The appeal waiver states that OrtegaHernandez waived “the right to appeal the sentence in this 

case, including any term of imprisonment, fine, award of 

restitution, term of supervised release, and the manner in 

which the sentence was determined, except to the extent the 

Court sentences [him] above the statutory maximum or 

applicable guidelines range . . . .” Pub. App. 32. 

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At the plea hearing, the district judge reviewed the plea 

agreement with Ortega-Hernandez, as required by Federal 

Rule of Criminal Procedure 11. The judge observed that 

“everybody has agreed that a sentence within the estimated 

guideline range would be a reasonable sentence under the 

law,” and asked Ortega-Hernandez whether he understood 

that. Pub. App. 59. He answered that he did. As to the 

appeal waiver, the judge explained that “normally a defendant 

can appeal his sentence and say it was the wrong sentence, it’s 

too stern. You’ve agreed not to do that as long as you are not 

sentenced above the statutory maximum or higher than the 

guideline range.” Pub. App. 63. She also informed OrtegaHernandez that, notwithstanding the appeal waiver, he would 

retain his right to attack his sentence on the ground that he 

had received ineffective assistance of counsel or that he had 

newly discovered evidence. The judge asked if he understood 

those limitations on his appellate rights, and he replied that he 

did. Ortega-Hernandez further confirmed that he understands 

English, read the plea documents and discussed them with his 

lawyers, and was satisfied with his lawyers’ advice. The 

judge found that Ortega-Hernandez’s decision was informed 

and voluntary and accepted his plea of guilty to the two 

counts.

During sentencing proceedings, Ortega-Hernandez urged 

the district judge to vary from the agreed-upon guideline 

range. Defense counsel argued that Ortega-Hernandez was 

not a terrorist; rather, he was a confused, mentally troubled 

person who had not intended to kill the President. The judge 

acknowledged those arguments and noted that they were 

“well-taken.” She then talked about each of the relevant 

factors under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). She acknowledged 

Ortega-Hernandez’s mental health struggles and granted them 

some mitigating weight, though she ultimately concluded that 

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they were offset by the seriousness of the offense and the 

need for both specific and general deterrence.

The district judge then announced the sentence. She 

imposed a three-hundred-month term of imprisonment, a 

sixty-month term of supervised release, and a restitution 

award. The judge also announced several general and special 

conditions of supervised release to which Ortega-Hernandez 

would be subject, including that he should cooperate with 

DNA collection and must not possess a firearm or other 

dangerous weapon. She said nothing about sex-offender 

registration. 

Three days later, the district judge entered the written 

judgment against Ortega-Hernandez. The judgment form is 

pre-printed, with spaces to enter information and options to 

check boxes. In the section entitled “Supervised Release,” the 

form lists generally applicable conditions of supervised 

release. It also lists five potential additional conditions with 

boxes for the judge to check if those conditions apply. As 

relevant here, the second of the five conditions prohibits the 

defendant from possessing a firearm, ammunition, and other 

weapons. The third condition mandates cooperation with 

DNA collection. The fourth condition orders compliance 

with the requirements of the Sex Offender Registration and 

Notification Act, 42 U.S.C. § 16901, et seq. (SORNA), as 

directed by the appropriate official. Ortega-Hernandez has 

never been convicted of a sex offense. To make the written 

judgment track the oral sentence, the judge should have 

checked the second and third boxes; instead, she checked the 

third and fourth. Ortega-Hernandez’s counsel filed a notice of 

appeal the following business day.

 

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II. 

We have jurisdiction over this appeal, irrespective of the 

validity of the appeal waiver. See United States v. Shemirani, 

No. 13-3080, 2015 WL 5616250, at *2 (D.C. Cir. June 12, 

2015). We review de novo the validity of OrtegaHernandez’s waiver of the right to appeal his sentence. See

United States v. Guillen, 561 F.3d 527, 531 (D.C. Cir. 2009). 

A. 

The parties agree that Ortega-Hernandez should not be 

subject to sex-offender registration as a condition of his 

supervised release. They are correct, and the appeal waiver 

does not prevent us from so holding. Because “waiver of 

appellate rights is not a jurisdictional issue,” Shemirani, 2015 

WL 5616250, at *2, we need not enforce an appeal waiver 

when the government has not asked us to do so, see United 

States v. Jones, 667 F.3d 477, 486 (4th Cir. 2012) (“[T]he 

government does not seek to enforce the [appeal] waiver, and 

we will not sua sponte enforce it.”). By declining to raise the 

argument on appeal, the government may waive the appeal 

waiver’s bar against appellate review. See United States v. 

Story, 439 F.3d 226, 231 (5th Cir. 2006) (“In the absence of 

the government’s objection to [the defendant’s] appeal based 

on his appeal waiver, the waiver is not binding because the 

government has waived the issue.”). That is precisely what 

the government has done in this case. The government has 

not asked us to enforce Ortega-Hernandez’s waiver of his 

right to appeal, at least with respect to the sex-offender 

registration condition imposed on him by the written 

judgment of sentence. The government conceded as much in 

oral argument. See Oral Arg. Rec. 20:05-:10 (“We are not 

asking this court to enforce [the appeal waiver] as to the 

SORNA registration requirement.”). 

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The government and Ortega-Hernandez both 

affirmatively request in their briefing to us that we remand 

this case to the district court to conform the written judgment 

to the oral pronouncement of the sentence. See Gov’t Br. 15; 

Appellant’s Br. 22. Because the “pronouncement of the 

sentence constitutes the judgment of the court,” United States 

v. Love, 593 F.3d 1, 9 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (quoting Kennedy v. 

Reid, 249 F.2d 492, 495 (D.C. Cir. 1957)), when the written 

judgment is inconsistent with the pronouncement of the 

sentence, “we will order the judgment corrected to conform to 

the sentence imposed from the bench,” id. It appears that the 

judge was one line off when she checked the two boxes. We 

therefore remand to the district court with instructions to 

conform the written judgment to the oral sentence. 

B. 

Ortega-Hernandez raises a second challenge to his 

sentence: He contends that his within-guidelines term of 

imprisonment is unreasonable. According to OrtegaHernandez, the district judge failed to adequately consider, 

and give appropriate mitigating weight to, his mental health, 

and failed to sufficiently explain her reasons for refusing his 

request for a downward variance from the guideline range. 

The government asserts that Ortega-Hernandez validly 

waived his challenge to the length of a sentence within the 

guideline range and so we should not consider it. We agree 

with the government. 

 The government has waived enforcement of the appeal 

waiver only as to the condition of supervised release requiring 

Ortega-Hernandez to register as a sex offender. It seeks 

enforcement of the appeal waiver as to the procedural and 

substantive reasonableness of Ortega-Hernandez’s term of 

imprisonment. Such partial invocation of the appeal waiver is 

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permissible. See Story, 439 F.3d at 231 (determining that the 

defendant’s “waiver of appeal is enforceable to the extent that 

the government invokes the waiver provision in his plea 

agreement”). Because we are satisfied that Ortega-Hernandez 

made a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary waiver of his right 

to appeal his sentence to a term of imprisonment within the 

guideline range, we will enforce that waiver. See Guillen, 

561 F.3d at 529 (stating that “knowing, intelligent, and 

voluntary” appeal waivers “generally may be enforced”); cf. 

United States v. Andis, 333 F.3d 886, 890 (8th Cir. 2003) (en 

banc) (“The requirement that a plea agreement and waiver be 

entered into knowingly and voluntarily applies to each term of 

an agreement.”). 

Ortega-Hernandez agreed as part of his plea bargain that 

a sentence within the guideline range—as his sentence is—

would be reasonable according the factors set out in 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3553(a). He also specifically waived his right to challenge 

the duration of his term of imprisonment. The district judge 

conducted a plea colloquy in accordance with Federal Rule of 

Criminal Procedure 11, during which Ortega-Hernandez 

confirmed that he had consulted with his lawyers and 

understood the rights he was forgoing. There is no reason to 

doubt that Ortega-Hernandez’s waiver of his right to appeal 

his prison sentence was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. 

Ortega-Hernandez points out that the written judgment 

states that “[t]he defendant has a right to appeal the sentence 

imposed by this Court.” Appellant’s Br. 16 (quoting Pub. 

App. 91). That fact is irrelevant. A judge’s statement made 

at a sentencing hearing “could not have informed (or 

misinformed) [the defendant’s] decision to waive [the] right 

to appeal because that decision was made at the earlier plea 

hearing.” Guillen, 561 F.3d at 531. The same is true of a 

judge’s statement made after a sentencing hearing, as 

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occurred here. Consequently, we will not entertain OrtegaHernandez’s challenge to the reasonableness of his term of 

imprisonment. See id. at 532 (“[B]ecause we hold [the 

defendant’s] waiver was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary, 

we do not consider her arguments that the sentence was 

substantively unreasonable because the district court failed to 

give sufficient weight to her poor health, her personal history, 

and her cooperation with authorities.”). 

* * * 

For the foregoing reasons, we remand the case to the 

district court for correction of the error in Ortega-Hernandez’s 

written sentence misidentifying a condition of supervised 

release, and we dismiss the appeal as to the remaining issue. 

So ordered. 

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