Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-90-02091/USCOURTS-ca10-90-02091-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Luis Fernando Sepulveda-Gomez
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

'• FILED 

U nit«l States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS ,r,...,H, ,,: .. ,.,,it, 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

LUIS FERNANDO SEPULVEDA-GOMEZ 

Defendant-Appellant. 

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JUN 121991 

ROBERT L. HOE·8KER 

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No. 90-2091 

(D.C. No. CR-89-507-HB) 

(D. New Mexico) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before ANDERSON, SETH, and EBEL, Circuit Judges. 

Appellant pled guilty to possession of more than 50 kilograms 

of marijuana with the intent to distribute in violation of 21 

U.S.C. § 841(a)(l) and 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(l)(C). At the time of 

the offense, appellant was returning from Mexico on a family 

visit. Before leaving Mexico, however, appellant had received an 

offer, which he accepted, to transport the marijuana across the 

border into the United States. Thereafter, appellant was 

apprehended by Customs Inspectors. 

Appellant's offense level was determined to be 24. This, 

coupled with his criminal history category of I, led to a sentence 

of between 51 and 63 months in prison. At the sentencing hearing, 

appellant and his attorney requested that the district court 

depart downward to reflect the fact that appellant had a family 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall not 

be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, except 

for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of the case, 

res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 36.3. 

Appellate Case: 90-2091 Document: 010110119406 Date Filed: 06/12/1991 Page: 1 
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and, especially, that the conviction could result in appellant's 

deportation because of his resident alien status. In response, 

the district court stated that 

I am sorry if I can't go along with your recommendation, 

your perception. If I did that in this case, as you can 

see, I would have to do it in every case that came here. 

I just can't do it. 

The district court sentenced appellant to the minimum of 51 

months, and this appeal followed. Appellant argues that the 

district court believed that it did not have discretion under the 

Sentencing Guidelines to depart downward because of appellant's 

potential deportation allegedly a "factor[] not taken into 

consideration by the Guidelines." See Appellant's Br. at 4. We 

disagree with appellant, and affirm the district court. 

Appellant avers that the district court was in error because 

its "remark[s] indicate[] that the judge believed he lacked the 

authority to depart below [the] guideline range on the grounds 

[appellant] presented." Id. at 6. In fact, the district court did 

lack the authority to depart downward in consideration of 

appellant's possible deportation. This court has recently ruled 

that 

[b]ecause Congress clearly reserved drug-related 

deportation decisions to the Attorney General, see [8 

U.S.C.] § 1251(a)-(b), a sentencing court shall not 

consider the possible deportation of an alien resident 

for a drug conviction in deciding whether to depart 

downward from the sentencing guidelines. 

See United States v. Soto, 918 F.2d 882, 885 (10th Cir. 1990). 

Therefore, the district court was correct in its holding that it 

could not "go along with (appellant's] recommendation." 

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Appellate Case: 90-2091 Document: 010110119406 Date Filed: 06/12/1991 Page: 2 
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We also find support for this conclusion in the Sentencing 

Guidelines itself, which finds consideration of race and national 

origin "not relevant in the determination of a sentence," United 

States Sentencing Commission Guidelines Manual at§ 5Hl.10, and 

which states that "[f]amily ties and responsibilities ••• are 

not ordinarily relevant in determining whether a sentence should 

be outside the guidelines." Id. at§ 5Hl.6. 

Finally, we see no indication that appellant's case falls 

under the very limited rule of United States v. Lowden, 905 F.2d 

1448 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 111 s.ct. 206 (1990); United 

States v. Davis, 900 F.2d 1524 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 111 

S.Ct. 155 (1990); and United States v. Lowden, 900 F.2d 213 (10th 

Cir. 1990). The district court in this case did not demonstrate 

an erroneous belief that it could not depart downward. Instead, 

the district court simply disagreed with appellant's perception 

that his circumstances warranted such a departure. Thus, the 

district court properly exercised its discretion, and we will not 

review that decision on appeal. 

The district court is AFFIRMED. 

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Entered for the Court, 

David M. Ebel 

Circuit Judge 

Appellate Case: 90-2091 Document: 010110119406 Date Filed: 06/12/1991 Page: 3