Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-06-02540/USCOURTS-ca8-06-02540-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Alejandro Garduno-Gonzalez
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

1

The Honorable Carol E. Jackson, Chief Judge, United States District Court for

the Eastern District of Missouri.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 06-2540

___________

United States of America, *

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Eastern District of Missouri.

Alejandro Garduno-Gonzalez, *

* [UNPUBLISHED]

Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: May 24, 2007

Filed: May 29, 2007

___________

Before WOLLMAN, MURPHY, and BYE, Circuit Judges.

___________

PER CURIAM.

Alejandro Garduno-Gonzalez pleaded guilty to illegal reentry into the United

States after deportation subsequent to an aggravated felony conviction, in violation

of 8 U.S.C. § 1326. Having calculated a Guidelines imprisonment range of 46-57

months, the district court1

 sentenced him to 46 months. He appeals, contending his

sentence is unreasonable. We disagree. See United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220,

261-62 (2005) (appellate court reviews sentence to determine whether it is

Appellate Case: 06-2540 Page: 1 Date Filed: 05/29/2007 Entry ID: 3313650
-2-

unreasonable in light of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors); United States v. Mathis, 451

F.3d 939, 941 (8th Cir. 2006) (reasonableness review is akin to abuse-of-discretion

review). 

The record does not support Garduno-Gonzalez’s argument that the district

court either misapprehended the advisory nature of the Guidelines or applied an

excessively stringent standard to his request for a non-Guidelines sentence. At

sentencing, the court properly considered the applicable Guidelines range, the nature

of the offense, the defendant’s history and his proffered reasons for returning to the

United States, as well as sentencing objectives, and determined that a sentence within

the Guidelines range was reasonable under the circumstances. See United States v.

Hawk Wing, 433 F.3d 622, 631 (8th Cir. 2006) (sentencing involves three-step

process of calculating Guidelines range, determining if Guidelines departure is

warranted, and considering § 3553(a) factors to decide whether to impose Guidelines

sentence or non-Guidelines sentence). The Guidelines use of a prior felony conviction

to increase both the offense level and the criminal history category was not

impermissible double counting, see United States v. Dyck, 334 F.3d 736, 740 (8th Cir.

2003), and did not warrant special treatment in the court’s section 3553(a) analysis.

We also reject Garduno-Gonzalez’s sentence-disparity argument. See United States

v. Batchelder, 442 U.S. 114, 123-24 (1979) (government is free to exercise

non-discriminatory prosecutorial discretion to select statute under which to charge

defendant); United States v. Sebastian, 436 F.3d. 913, 916 (8th Cir. 2006)

(recognizing both Congress’s policymaking power and Attorney General’s

prosecutorial discretion, and stating it is within province of “policymaking branches

of government to determine that certain disparities are warranted, and thus need not

be avoided”). Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is affirmed. 

______________________________

Appellate Case: 06-2540 Page: 2 Date Filed: 05/29/2007 Entry ID: 3313650