Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca5-14-50002/USCOURTS-ca5-14-50002-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Tommy Garcia
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-50002

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff–Appellee,

versus

TOMMY GARCIA,

 Defendant–Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Western District of Texas

No. 3:13-CR-1512-1

Before HIGGINBOTHAM, SMITH, and GRAVES, Circuit Judges.

JERRY E. SMITH, Circuit Judge:*

Tommy Garcia appeals his 63-month sentence for importing and possessing marihuana with intent to distribute. He urges that the court plainly erred 

* 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

January 8, 2015

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

 

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in assessing criminal history points for convictions that occurred more than 

ten years before the instant offense and therefore should not have been considered. Because the circumstances do not qualify for plain-error relief, we affirm.

I.

In May 2003, Garcia pleaded guilty of assault and domestic violence and 

was sentenced to 180 days in jail, suspended in favor of one year of probation. 

Later that month, he pleaded guilty of driving while impaired and was sentenced to another suspended 180 days. In September 2006, both probationary 

terms were revoked, and Garcia received concurrent 90-day jail terms.

Garcia committed the instant offense in June 2013. The presentence 

investigation report included four criminal history points for the 2003 convictions, yielding a guidelines range of 63 to 78 months. At sentencing, Garcia 

did not challenge the assessment of those points. The court imposed concurrent 63-month sentences. In explaining its decision, the court made the following comments regarding Garcia’s criminal history:

 The problem is that when you decided to come down here―and this 

offense was committed down here and it’s a federal offense—it puts you 

in a position of being a long distance from your mother, from your 

family.

 And you know, all I can do—though I appreciate the difficulties—

and hopefully, while you’re incarcerated, you’ll get some help, and I’m 

going to recommend that—you know, various kinds of help. But I I—

hopefully, you’ll get—and I can recommend a facility close to where 

your mother is located. But you’re looking—I mean, you have a long 

criminal history. The combination of this offense and your long criminal history puts you in a—in a bad situation.

 . . . .

 Based on the information provided, the circumstances of this case, 

your particular circumstances, in keeping with the factors of 3553(a), 

the goals of the sentencing guidelines, . . . a fair and reasonable sentence in this case is . . . 63 months of incarceration.

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Now, I’m going to have it run concurrently on both counts. I know 

there were some objections regarding the criminal history scoring,[1]

but I have to say to you that given your criminal history, given the decision to get involved in this, I certainly think that the 63 months is fair 

and reasonable and appropriate under your circumstances.

II.

Plain-error review applies because Garcia raised his claim for the first 

time on appeal. United States v. Duque-Hernandez, 710 F.3d 296, 298 (5th 

Cir.), cert. denied, 134 S. Ct. 450 (2013). There are four requirements:

(1) there must be an error or defect—some sort of [d]eviation from a 

legal rule—that has not been intentionally relinquished or abandoned; 

(2) the legal error must be clear or obvious, rather than subject to reasonable dispute; (3) the error must have affected the appellant’s substantial rights; and (4) if the above three prongs are satisfied, the court 

of appeals has the discretion to remedy the error—discretion which 

ought to be exercised only if the error seriously affect[s] the fairness, 

integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.[2]

Garcia has satisfied the first prong: A sentence is counted for criminalhistory purposes if, inter alia, it “was imposed within ten years of the defendant’s commencement of the instant offense.” U.S. SENTENCING GUIDELINES 

MANUAL § 4A1.2(e)(2) (2013). In the case of a revocation of probation, the date 

on which the sentence was “imposed” is “the date of the original sentence” 

where the term of imprisonment was one year and one month or less, and the

defendant committed the offense on or after his eighteenth birthday. Id.

§ 4A1.2(k)(2). Because Garcia’s sentences were imposed in May 2003, more 

than ten years before his commission of the instant offense in June 2013, the 

court erred in considering them.

1 The objections mentioned here are unrelated to this appeal.

2 United States v. Escalante-Reyes, 689 F.3d 415, 419 (5th Cir. 2012) (en banc) (alterations in original) (quoting Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 135 (2009)) (internal quotation marks omitted).

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Garcia has also satisfied the second prong. We have held that this type 

of miscalculation constitutes plain error,3 and those precedents control.

Garcia has not satisfied the third prong, however. “A sentencing error 

affected a defendant’s substantial rights if there is a ‘reasonable probability 

that, but for the district court’s misapplication of the Guidelines, he would have 

received a lesser sentence.’”4 “Where . . . the sentence . . . falls inside both the 

correct and incorrect guidelines ranges, ‘we have shown considerable reluctance in finding a reasonable probability that the district court would have 

settled on a lower sentence.’”5 In that situation, “we do not assume, in the 

absence of additional evidence, that the sentence affects a defendant’s substantial rights.” Id. Although such evidence exists if the court “indicat[ed] that the 

Guidelines range calculated . . . was a primary factor in the selection of the . . .

sentence,”6 mere “casual statements,”7 “vague and ambiguous” comments,8 or 

“evidence . . . of ambiguous or uncertain effect”9 is insufficient.

The 63-month sentence is within both the correct range of 57 to 71 

months and the incorrect range of 63 to 78 months. Accordingly, Garcia must 

show that the court indicated the range was a primary factor in its decision; he 

has not done so, nor could he: The court told him that “[t]he combination of 

3 United States v. Avalos-Martinez, 700 F.3d 148, 153 (5th Cir. 2012) (per curiam), 

cert. denied, 133 S. Ct. 1276 (2013); United States v. Arviso-Mata, 442 F.3d 382, 385 (5th Cir. 

2006).

4 Avalos-Martinez, 700 F.3d at 153 (quoting United States v. John, 597 F.3d 263, 285 

(5th Cir. 2010)).

5 United States v. Blocker, 612 F.3d 413, 416 (5th Cir. 2010) (per curiam) (quoting 

United States v. Campo-Ramirez, 379 F. App’x 405, 409 (5th Cir. 2010) (per curiam)).

6 United States v. Pratt, 728 F.3d 463, 482 (5th Cir. 2013), cert. denied, 134 S. Ct. 1328 

(2014).

7 Id.

8 United States v. Mudekunye, 646 F.3d 281, 290 (5th Cir. 2011) (per curiam).

9 Campo-Ramirez, 379 F. App’x at 409.

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this offense and your long criminal history puts you in a—in a bad situation” 

and that “given your criminal history, given the decision to get involved in this, 

I certainly think that the 63 months is fair and reasonable and appropriate 

under your circumstances.” Those comments demonstrate that the court considered Garcia’s criminal history, but they do not clearly show that the range 

was a primary factor. Instead, they are similar to the ambiguous statements 

that we have found inadequate.10

The same is true of the other evidence Garcia identifies: the court’s 

consideration of mitigating circumstances and the fact that the sentence was 

at the bottom of the incorrect range. Garcia is correct that “sentences falling 

at the absolute minimum of the Guidelines provide the strongest support for 

the argument that the judge would have imposed a lesser sentence.” United 

States v. Rodriguez-Gutierrez, 428 F.3d 201, 205 (5th Cir. 2005). But 

“[a]lthough we do not hold that this fact alone will establish that the . . . error 

affected the defendant’s substantial rights, we do consider it to be highly probative, when taken together with relevant statements by the sentencing judge indicating disagreement with the sentence imposed.” Id. (emphasis added). 

There is no suggestion of such a disagreement here. The court analyzed 

the mitigating circumstances and imposed a sentence at the low margin of the 

identified range, but it also emphasized Garcia’s criminal history and decision 

to commit yet another crime. That evidence does not clearly show that the 

guideline range was a primary factor, so Garcia has not established that the 

error affected his substantial rights.

AFFIRMED.

10 See, e.g., Blocker, 612 F.3d at 416 (in which court noted it was sentencing defendant 

to “about the middle of the guidelines range”); Campo-Ramirez, 379 F. App’x at 407 (explaining “that a sentence at the low end of the range is appropriate”).

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