Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca1-23-01304/USCOURTS-ca1-23-01304-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Roberto Carlos Recarey-Salas
Appellant
United States
Appellee

Document Text:

Not for Publication in West's Federal Reporter

United States Court of Appeals

For the First Circuit

No. 23-1304

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

v.

ROBERTO CARLOS RECAREY-SALAS,

Defendant, Appellant.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

[Hon. Aida M. Delgado-Colón, U.S. District Judge] 

Before

Barron, Chief Judge, 

Thompson and Gelpí, Circuit Judges.

Leigh Ann Webster, with whom Strickland Webster, LLC was on 

brief, for appellant.

Gabriella S. Paglieri, Assistant United States Attorney, with 

whom W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney, Mariana E. BauzáAlmonte, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate 

Division, and Jeniffer Veléz Perez, Assistant United States 

Attorney, were on brief, for appellee. 

January 2, 2025

Case: 23-1304 Document: 00118231289 Page: 1 Date Filed: 01/02/2025 Entry ID: 6690722
- 2 -

THOMPSON, Circuit Judge. Roberto Carlos Recarey-Salas 

("Recarey") was serving a term of supervised release when he was 

involved in a car accident. According to motions filed by his 

probation officer, information gathered at the scene of the 

accident showed that Recarey had violated the conditions of his 

release by possessing a firearm, ammunition, and controlled 

substances. At his sentencing hearing, Recarey admitted to 

possessing ammunition. On appeal, he says that the district court 

incorrectly treated him as admitting to all of the violations 

asserted by probation in its revocation motion, and, also,

improperly imposed a ten-month, top-of-the-guidelines-range 

sentence because it considered non-ammunition-related violations. 

As we explain below, we vacate both the district court's judgment 

and its sentence as to revocation of supervised release, and remand 

for further proceedings with instructions to correct the basis for 

revoking release and clarify the grounds for imposing sentence. 

We keep our discussion short, as we write solely for the parties.

To set the stage, we begin with the violative conduct 

identified by Recarey's probation officer. As stated in 

probation's first motion to the district court, a paramedic,

following his (or her) arrival at the accident scene, discovered 

Recarey in the driver's seat of the vehicle with a firearm between 

his legs. The paramedic then alerted a nearby police officer of 

the discovery, but by the time the officer and paramedic returned 

Case: 23-1304 Document: 00118231289 Page: 2 Date Filed: 01/02/2025 Entry ID: 6690722
- 3 -

to the vehicle the gun had disappeared. The police, however, 

seized two loaded magazines (ammunition, not reading material) and 

four cell phones from the car. The probation officer moved for 

revocation on the basis that Recarey had violated conditions of 

his release related to possession of firearms and ammunition (as 

well as to commission of a crime). In a second motion, the 

probation officer reported that he had reviewed data extracted 

from one of the recovered cell phones, which included (1) a video 

showing Recarey "filming what appears to be a large bag of 

Marihuana[,] . . . manipulating the drug and describing some of 

its features" and (2) photos depicting Recarey "with large 

quantities of Marihuana" and drug paraphernalia. The second motion 

charged Recarey with additional violations related to the 

possession of controlled substances. 

In addition to the revocation motions filed by his 

probation officer, Recarey was separately charged with being a 

felon in possession of ammunition in violation of 18 U.S.C. 

§ 922(g)(1) and, in due course, pled guilty to that charge. The 

district court combined the sentencing hearing on the new 

conviction with the revocation proceedings. The probation officer 

did not testify at the hearing. After imposing a sentence of 30 

months for the new conviction, the district court turned to 

revocation, summarized the contents of the two probation motions, 

and engaged in the following exchange with defense counsel: 

Case: 23-1304 Document: 00118231289 Page: 3 Date Filed: 01/02/2025 Entry ID: 6690722
- 4 -

THE COURT: . . . In essence, here what we have 

is that we are dealing with a prior conviction 

for the ammunition possession as the strongest 

basis for revocation. So I am asking Defense 

Counsel here, is the Defendant challenging or 

accepting? 

MR. CARRION: Your Honor, as it relates to the 

most serious allegation, the Defendant, Mr. 

Recarey, is accepting. 

THE COURT: So that's a grade B violation.

MR. CARRION: Grade B violation, based on his 

conviction, Your Honor.

Although defense counsel's reference to "the most serious 

allegation" below was perhaps somewhat ambiguous, both parties 

agree that Recarey admitted to violations related to his possession 

of ammunition, but not to any other violations. In other words, 

the parties agree that Recarey did not admit to possessing a gun 

or drugs in violation of his conditions. 

On appeal, Recarey asserts that the district court

nevertheless treated all violations as admitted, and thus revoked 

his supervised release and sentenced him on account of conduct

that was neither admitted to nor proven by a preponderance of the 

evidence. In particular, Recarey points to the court's written 

judgment issued after the hearing, which stated that Recarey 

"admitted guilt to" a list of violations that included all 

conditions identified in the two motions by his probation officer. 

He asks us to vacate the district court's judgment and sentence 

and remand the case for resentencing. We easily dispatch with 

Case: 23-1304 Document: 00118231289 Page: 4 Date Filed: 01/02/2025 Entry ID: 6690722
- 5 -

Recarey's request to vacate the judgment. At oral argument, the 

government conceded that it was "not contesting" that "Recarey 

would be entitled to an amended judgment" correctly reflecting 

which violations he actually admitted to.1 Given the parties'

agreement, it seems clear to us that the written judgment of 

revocation of supervised release ought to be vacated.

We turn then to the more difficult question posed by 

Recarey's appeal: whether the district court's ten-month, topof-the-guidelines-range sentence (in excess of the parties' joint 

recommendation of four months) should also be vacated. To support 

his argument that the sentence was tainted by the district court's 

consideration of conduct he had not admitted to, Recarey highlights 

this portion of the district court's explanation for its sentence: 

[I]t appears that Mr. Recarey has shown that 

he was unable to comply with the conditions of 

supervised release and remain within a lawabiding frame.

Certainly, the offense for which he was 

charged, as I mentioned, we have already 

discussed, and the circumstances under which 

1 The government's concession is not surprising in light of 

its assertion that "the district court's expressed words" during 

the revocation proceeding demonstrate that it only revoked on the 

ammunition conviction. As the government acknowledged during oral

argument, when "a district court's oral sentence materially 

conflicts with its subsequent written expression," the oral 

expression generally prevails. United States v. Ortiz-Torres, 449 

F.3d 61, 74 (1st Cir. 2006) (recognizing general rule in light of 

criminal defendant's right to be present at sentencing). Thus, 

even under the government's interpretation, the written judgment 

contains an error.

Case: 23-1304 Document: 00118231289 Page: 5 Date Filed: 01/02/2025 Entry ID: 6690722
- 6 -

he was arrested, as well as the type of 

evidence that was found on his cell phone.

According to Recarey, the district court's reference to the "cell 

phone" evidence indicates that the controlled substance 

violations, which the district court believed had been admitted 

to, tainted the district court's sentence. He points out that, 

absent his admission, the only source of information regarding the 

contents of the cell phone was the description in the probation 

officer's second motion, which he characterizes as "bare 

allegations" in a "charging document."2 The government responds 

that, regardless of any misunderstanding that the district court 

may (or may not) have had regarding the basis for revoking release, 

during sentencing the district court, in its non-discretionary 

procedural determination, applied the correct grade B guidelines 

range and thereafter, was entitled to consider information about 

the contents of the cell phone because it was sufficiently 

reliable. 

In rendering its sentence, we observe the district court 

made no express finding regarding the reliability of the "cell 

2 Recarey appeared to accept the government's assertion that 

because he did not object to the court's consideration of the cell 

phone evidence, his arguments were not preserved, and plain error 

review applies. At oral argument, however, Recarey backtracked 

and asserted that he did not have sufficient opportunity to object 

below, especially as to the revocation proceeding, and thus plain 

error did not apply. As we explain, given our inability to glean 

the district court's revocation and sentencing rationale, we need 

not referee this standard-of-review jockeying at this time.

Case: 23-1304 Document: 00118231289 Page: 6 Date Filed: 01/02/2025 Entry ID: 6690722
- 7 -

phone evidence" (or more precisely, the probation officer's motion 

recounting what had been discovered on the cell phone). See United 

States v. Lacouture, 835 F.3d 187, 191 (1st Cir. 2016) (vacating 

sentence and remanding for clarification where district court's 

"sparse discussion" at sentencing did not make clear whether court 

found out-of-court statements reliable and why). Absent a 

definitive statement by the district court as to the evidentiary 

support for its sentence, the written judgment's indication that 

all violations were admitted to suggests that the district court's 

sentencing calculus may have incorporated information whose 

reliability had not been established. See United States v. 

Serrano-Berríos, 38 F.4th 246, 251 (1st Cir. 2022) (explaining 

that district court's reference to state law violations in its 

written judgment "renders unreliable [the] otherwise controlling 

assumption that the court excluded from its thinking the express 

comments it made [about the state law violations] right before 

formally explaining its sentence"). 

In an effort to fill in the missing inquiry, the 

government, on appeal, cites to cases in which we upheld the 

district court's apparent reliance on information contained in 

probation officer's motions and presentence investigation reports

("PSRs"). See, e.g., United States v. Delgado, 106 F.4th 185, 

192-94 (1st Cir. 2024); United States v. Ramirez-Ayala, 101 F.4th 

80, 88 (1st Cir. 2024); United States v. Portell-Márquez, 59 F.4th 

Case: 23-1304 Document: 00118231289 Page: 7 Date Filed: 01/02/2025 Entry ID: 6690722
- 8 -

533, 538-40 (1st Cir. 2023). And it says we should do the same 

here. But setting aside any other potentially relevant 

distinctions between those cases and the present one,3 the problem 

here is that we cannot tell on the record before us what the 

district court relied on in the first place or why it concluded 

such evidence was reliable. For instance, the government offers 

that the district court could have relied on the unobjected-to PSR 

for information about the violations Recarey did not admit to. 

But as Recarey noted at oral argument, the PSR only states that 

cell phones were found in Recarey's vehicle and importantly, it 

does not describe the contents of the phone. 

From this record, it is certainly possible that the 

district court did as the government says: i.e., revoked supervised 

release only on the ammunition violation and then considered the 

"cell phone" evidence at sentencing because it thought that 

probation's motions were sufficiently reliable. But it is also 

plausible that the district court considered probation's motions 

3 For instance, we are not convinced that this case is exactly 

like Portell-Márquez. The defendant there "admitted to violating" 

Puerto Rico's domestic violence law, but then argued he "did not 

admit to any specific conduct in violation of" that same law. 59 

F.4th at 538. Recarey's position, by contrast, is that he admitted 

to some violations, but not others. Nor, to give another example, 

does it appear that Recarey, like the defendant in Delgado,

"provided a broad, unqualified statement that he was not contesting 

the violations described in the Probation Motions." 106 F.4th at 

192. Because we cannot discern on what basis the district court 

believed it was relying, we say no more. 

Case: 23-1304 Document: 00118231289 Page: 8 Date Filed: 01/02/2025 Entry ID: 6690722
- 9 -

"evidence" of Recarey's violative conduct because it wrongly 

believed that Recarey was admitting to all violations and, from 

there, revoked Recarey's release and sentenced him without needing 

to find that any particular conduct had been reliably proven. The 

conflicting plausible interpretations of the district court's 

reasoning frustrates our ability to conduct meaningful appellate 

review. See United States v. Carrión-Meléndez, 26 F.4th 508, 513 

(1st Cir. 2022) (citing United States v. Gilman, 478 F.3d 440, 

446-47 (1st Cir. 2007)) (concluding that remand for clarification 

was "prudent" where district court did not "clearly stat[e]" 

whether allegation in PSR influenced its decision to apply 

sentencing enhancement).4 

Given the ambiguities in the record, the government's 

concession that Recarey is entitled to at least an amended written 

judgment, and the risk that a possible error impacted Recarey's 

sentence, we vacate the judgment and sentence as to revocation of 

supervised release and remand for the district court to hold 

4 Without understanding what the district court did and why, 

we cannot decide whether that reliance was erroneous or not under 

any lens of appellate review. Indeed, even on plain error review

as the government urges is applicable, the obviousness of the error 

and the potential for prejudice would depend on what error there 

is, if any, in the first place. See United States v. FigueroaRoman, No. 20-1170, 2024 WL 3458104, at *3 (1st Cir. July 18, 2024)

(unpublished) (recognizing that conflicting plausible 

interpretations of the district court's sentencing rationale can 

have "downstream effects . . . on our lens of review"). 

Case: 23-1304 Document: 00118231289 Page: 9 Date Filed: 01/02/2025 Entry ID: 6690722
- 10 -

further proceedings, re-enter a judgment, and resentence Recarey 

based on the existing factual record.5 In doing so, the district 

court is instructed to correct the basis for revocation and clarify 

the grounds supporting the associated sentence. See United States

v. Ramírez, 708 F.3d 295, 310 (1st Cir. 2013) (vacating sentence 

and remanding for clarification where written judgments seemed to 

conflict with district judge's ambiguous statements at hearing); 

United States v. Nuñez-Rodriguez, 92 F.3d 14, 23 (1st Cir. 1996) 

(vacating sentence and remanding for clarification where district 

court's remarks created ambiguity as to whether adjustment was 

disallowed for improper reason). 

To clarify, at this juncture, our only determination is 

that our ability to conduct meaningful review, dependent upon an 

accurate understanding of what the district court did and why, is 

hampered by the current state of the record. Unlike in other 

5 Given the nature of our remand, which is for the purpose of 

clarifying the district court's intent, we do not think that remand 

warrants a second bite at the apple for either party to introduce 

new evidence. See United States v. Coplin, 68 F.3d 455 (1st Cir. 

1995) (per curiam) (unpublished) (declining to allow defendant to 

introduce new evidence at resentencing where defendant "had a full 

opportunity to present mitigating evidence . . . when he was 

initially sentenced" and "[t]he technical nature of our remand did 

not change the nature of the information relevant to sentencing"); 

see also United States v. Reyes-Rivas, 909 F.3d 466, 470 n.3 (1st 

Cir. 2018) (remanding for resentencing on existing record where 

government had incentive and opportunity in first instance to 

ensure district court had evidentiary record to support sentence). 

This is especially so because it does not appear that either party 

lacked adequate incentive and opportunity to introduce evidence 

supporting its position at the original hearing.

Case: 23-1304 Document: 00118231289 Page: 10 Date Filed: 01/02/2025 Entry ID: 6690722
- 11 -

instances in which we are sometimes able to resolve an appeal due 

to our ability to infer the district court's meaning in the absence 

of an explicit explanation, see, e.g., United States v. ColónCordero, 91 F.4th 41, 51 (1st Cir. 2024), we are unable to 

confidently determine what its intention was in this case. We 

take no position on the other issues disputed in the parties' 

briefs, including whether the record before the district court 

provided a sufficiently reliable basis for finding that Recarey 

possessed a gun or marijuana for either revocation or sentencing 

purposes. 

We remand for further proceedings consistent with this 

opinion. This panel retains jurisdiction over this matter.

Case: 23-1304 Document: 00118231289 Page: 11 Date Filed: 01/02/2025 Entry ID: 6690722