Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca5-14-11023/USCOURTS-ca5-14-11023-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Gerardo Preciado-Delacruz
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-11023

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff−Appellee,

versus

GERARDO PRECIADO-DELACRUZ, 

Defendant–Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Texas

Before JONES, SMITH, and SOUTHWICK, Circuit Judges.

JERRY E. SMITH, Circuit Judge:

Gerardo Preciado-Delacruz appeals his sentence for possession with 

intent to distribute marihuana. First, he complains that the district court violated his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by denying him a 

downward adjustment for acceptance of responsibility after he refused to speak 

openly about relevant conduct. Second, he claims that the above-guidelines 

sentence was substantively unreasonable. We affirm. 

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

September 15, 2015

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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No. 14-11023

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I.

In October 2013, acting on a confidential source’s tip, DEA officers staked 

out Cesar Loma’s house in Fort Worth, Texas, to investigate marihuana trafficking. On October 11, officers saw Preciado-Delacruz and an associate, Pedro 

Lopez-Maya, arrive in a truck, enter the house with a box, meet with Loma for 

a short time, and exit with a grocery bag. Officers stopped the truck after it 

left, and Lopez-Maya as the driver consented to a search. Inside, the officers

found about seven pounds of marihuana and the bag containing over $14,000. 

A later search of the house uncovered a gun and fourteen more pounds of marihuana; Preciado-Delacruz’s fingerprints were discovered on the packaging. 

Preciado-Delacruz pleaded guilty of one count of possession with intent to distribute marihuana in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). 

A probation officer met with Preciado-Delacruz to compile his presentence investigation report (“PSR”). Applying the 2013 U.S. Sentencing Guidelines (the “Guidelines”), the PSR reflected a base offense level of 18, assessed 

a two-level increase because Loma possessed a dangerous weapon during the 

drug deal, and concluded that the criminal-history category was I. Importantly, the PSR advised the district court against awarding a two-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility under U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1. The probation 

officer provided several reasons why: Preciado-Delacruz initially had said that 

“he just wants to serve his time for the offense and go home, rather than 

answer questions about his involvement.” When he did agree to answer questions, he was hesitant to talk about the offense and minimized his involvement 

in the drug deliveries, evidence of which indicated that his involvement was 

much greater. He first said that he had touched the marihuana only to see 

what it was, then revised that to say he loaded the packages into the truck. 

Otherwise, he refused to discuss any details other than those specifically 

related to the charged crime. 

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Without the adjustment under § 3E1.1, the PSR correctly calculated the

advisory sentencing range as 33 to 41 months. Preciado-Delacruz filed timely 

objections, including one for withholding the acceptance-of-responsibility 

adjustment.

At sentencing, the district court adopted the PSR’s factual findings.

Preciado-Delacruz renewed his objection to the withholding of the acceptanceof-responsibility adjustment, and the court overruled it. The court then correctly calculated the Guidelines’ range but indicated afterwards that it 

intended to impose an outside-the-guidelines sentence. After hearing from 

defense counsel and reviewing the file, the court concluded that it would depart 

upward. 

Accounting for the statutory factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), the court 

explained that it was imposing an above-guidelines sentence in light of

Preciado-Delacruz’s extensive history of illegal entry into the United States: 

Border Patrol agents had apprehended him seven times for illegally entering 

the country, and he was present illegally at the time of the offense. But in 

describing that history, the court misstated two facts. First, it mistakenly 

stated that Preciado-Delacruz had been convicted earlier of illegal reentry; in 

fact, his conviction was for illegal entry, for which he served 120 days. Second, 

the court noted that he had been forcibly removed from the United States a 

number of times. But in truth, the government had removed him only once; on 

six other occasions, Preciado-Delacruz was granted voluntary departure. 

Defense counsel raised no objection nor offered any correction. 

The court imposed a sentence of sixty months—the statutory 

maximum—and two years’ supervised release. It then described the standard 

conditions of supervised release, informed Preciado-Delacruz of the right to 

appeal, and answered a few requests from counsel. Finally, just before the 

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sentencing hearing adjourned, defense counsel stated the following objection: 

“And for the record, my client respectfully objects to the sentence as substantively unreasonable.” 

II.

Ordinarily, “[t]his court reviews a district court’s refusal to reduce a 

defendant’s offense level for acceptance of responsibility under USSG § 3E1.1 

with a standard ‘even more deferential than a purely clearly erroneous standard.’” United States v. Washington, 340 F.3d 222, 227 (5th Cir. 2003) (citing 

United States v. Maldonado, 42 F.3d 906, 913 (5th Cir. 1995)). We will not 

second-guess the decision unless it is without foundation. Id. But when faced 

with a preserved constitutional challenge to the Guidelines’ application, our 

review is de novo. See United States v. Hernandez, 633 F.3d 370, 373 (5th Cir. 

2011); United States v. Flores-Alejo, 531 F. App’x 422, 424 & n.1 (5th Cir. 2013). 

On the challenge to substantive reasonableness, we normally review for 

abuse of discretion, accounting for the totality of the circumstances. See Gall 

v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). But that standard does not apply here 

because Preciado-Delacruz failed properly to preserve his claim. “To preserve 

error, an objection must be sufficiently specific to alert the district court to the 

nature of the alleged error and to provide an opportunity for correction.” 

United States v. Neal, 578 F.3d 270, 272 (5th Cir. 2009). Defense counsel’s 

generic objection to substantive reasonableness does not meet that standard

because it failed to cite any of the specific grounds now raised on appeal. See

United States v. Dunigan, 555 F.3d 501, 506 (5th Cir. 2009); United States v.

Mondragon-Santiago, 564 F.3d 357, 361 (5th Cir. 2009). Thus, our review is 

for plain error.1

 

1 The government’s failure to urge for plain-error review does not obviate our duty to 

apply the appropriate standard. United States v. Pierre, 958 F.2d 1304, 1311 n.1 (5th Cir. 

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III.

A.

Preciado-Delacruz asks us to answer in his favor a question the Supreme 

Court deliberately has left unresolved: whether, consistently with the Fifth 

Amendment, a court may rightfully consider a defendant’s silence or refusal to 

answer questions about relevant conduct when deciding whether to grant 

§ 3E1.1’s downward adjustment for acceptance of responsibility. See Mitchell 

v. United States, 526 U.S. 314, 330 (1999). Binding precedent of this court, 

however, dooms Preciado-Delacruz’s theory.

In United States v. Mourning, 914 F.2d 699, 706 (5th Cir. 1990), we faced 

the same claim raised here under an earlier version of the Guidelines.2 We 

held that rewarding a defendant who expresses contrition and cooperates with 

the government is not the same as compelling him to incriminate himself. Id.

at 706–07. “To hold the acceptance of responsibility provision unconstitutional 

would be to say that defendants who express genuine remorse for their actions 

can never be rewarded at sentencing. This the Constitution does not require.” 

Id. at 707 (quoting United States v. Henry, 883 F.2d 1010, 1012 (11th Cir. 

1989)). 3 That holding applies squarely here.4 Consequently, any inference 

that the district court drew from the defendant’s silence for purposes of § 3E1.1 

was permissible. That, coupled with the other behaviors described in the PSR 

that are inconsistent with the acceptance of responsibility, suggests that the 

 

1992) (en banc).

2 Mourning was statutorily overruled on other grounds as explained in United States 

v. Stewart, 93 F.3d 189, 195 (5th Cir. 1996). 

3 Indeed, a contrary rule would run counter to the principles undergirding all plea 

agreements, which are themselves offers of a benefit in exchange for waiving constitutional 

rights.

4 See White v. Woodall, 134 S. Ct. 1697, 1703 n.3 (2014) (noting that the Court has yet 

to resolve the issue and that courts of appeals appear divided). 

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decision to withhold the downward adjustment was not without foundation.

B.

Preciado-Delacruz relies on the district court’s apparent factual mistakes as rendering his sentence substantively unreasonable. Those errors, 

however, could have been corrected during sentencing, yet Preciado-Delacruz 

raised no objection. “Questions of fact capable of resolution by the district court 

upon proper objection at sentencing can never constitute plain error.” United 

States v. Lopez, 923 F.2d 47, 50 (5th Cir. 1991). Thus they are no basis for 

overturning the sentence. Further, Preciado-Delacruz claims that the court 

failed properly to weigh the sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). But upon 

review of the sentencing hearing, we see no clear or obvious error in how the

court determined and explained the sentence. See United States v. Peltier, 505 

F.3d 389, 392–93 (5th Cir. 2007). The court considered the § 3553(a) factors, 

and the sentence does not exceed the statutory maximum. As a result, the 

above-guidelines sentence was not plainly erroneous. See id. at 393–94; United 

States v. Whitelaw, 580 F.3d 256, 265 (5th Cir. 2009). 

AFFIRMED.

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