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Parties Involved:
Rolando Antonio Escamilla-Romero
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 16-50269

Summary Calendar 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee 

v. 

ROLANDO ANTONIO ESCAMILLA-ROMERO, 

Defendant-Appellant 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Western District of Texas 

USDC No. 2:15-CR-596-1 

Before JONES, WIENER, and CLEMENT, Circuit Judges. 

PER CURIAM:*

 Defendant-Appellant Rolando Antonio Escamilla-Romero appeals the 

within-guidelines, 57-month sentence imposed for his guilty-plea conviction for

illegal reentry. He contends that his sentence is substantively unreasonable 

and greater than necessary to meet the sentencing goals of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). 

We review the substantive reasonableness of the sentence for abuse of 

discretion. See Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). Escamilla-

 

* 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 9, 2017

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

 Case: 16-50269 Document: 00513826873 Page: 1 Date Filed: 01/09/2017
No. 16-50269

2 

Romero’s arguments fail to rebut the presumption of reasonableness that we 

apply to his within-guidelines sentence. See United States v. Cooks, 589 F.3d 

173, 186 (5th Cir. 2009); United States v. Campos-Maldonado, 531 F.3d 337, 

338 (5th Cir. 2008). The district court, which was “in a superior position to 

find facts and judge their import under § 3553(a),” was aware of EscamillaRomero’s mitigating contentions, but it imposed a sentence within the 

guidelines range. Campos-Maldonado, 531 F.3d at 339. We have rejected the 

argument that U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2’s double-counting of a prior conviction in the 

calculation of a defendant’s offense level and criminal history score necessarily 

renders a sentence unreasonable. United States v. Duarte, 569 F.3d 528, 529-

31 (5th Cir. 2009). We have also rejected challenges based on substantive 

reasonableness grounded in alleged lack of seriousness of illegal reentry. 

United States v. Juarez-Duarte, 513 F.3d 204, 212 (5th Cir. 2008); United 

States v. Aguirre-Villa, 460 F.3d 681, 683 (5th Cir. 2006). Finally, as 

Escamilla-Romero concedes, his argument that the presumption of 

reasonableness should not be applied to his sentence because § 2L1.2 lacks an 

empirical basis is foreclosed. See Duarte, 569 F.3d at 530-31; United States v. 

Mondragon-Santiago, 564 F.3d 357, 366-67 (5th Cir. 2009).

The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. 

 Case: 16-50269 Document: 00513826873 Page: 2 Date Filed: 01/09/2017