UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 16-4252

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

LEOPOLDO ORTIZ-VELASCO, a/k/a Cesar Francisco Castillo,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of North Carolina, at Greenville. James C. Fox, Senior

District Judge. (4:15-cr-00078-F-1)

Submitted: December 16, 2016 Decided: January 4, 2017

Before MOTZ, DUNCAN, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Thomas P. McNamara, Federal Public Defender, Jennifer C. 

Leisten, Research and Writing Attorney, Raleigh, North Carolina, 

for Appellant. John Stuart Bruce, United States Attorney, 

Jennifer P. May-Parker, Barbara D. Kocher, Assistant United 

States Attorneys, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

Leopoldo Ortiz-Velasco pled guilty to unlawful reentry 

after deportation following conviction of an aggravated felony, 

in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a), (b)(2) (2012), and was 

sentenced to 24 months in prison. He now appeals, contending 

that his sentence is procedurally and substantively 

unreasonable. We disagree.

We review the reasonableness of a sentence “under a 

deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.” Gall v. United 

States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007). Procedural errors include the 

district court’s “fail[ure] to adequately explain the chosen 

sentence — including an explanation for any deviation from the 

[Sentencing] Guidelines range.” United States v. Carter, 564 

F.3d 325, 328 (4th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). Although the court need not “robotically tick through 

[18 U.S.C.] § 3553(a)’s every subsection,” United States v. 

Johnson, 445 F.3d 339, 345 (4th Cir. 2006), it “must adequately 

explain the chosen sentence to allow for meaningful appellate 

review and to promote the perception of fair sentencing,” Gall, 

552 U.S. at 50. Even if the court imposes a within-Guidelinesrange sentence, “it must place on the record an individualized 

assessment based on the particular facts of the case before it.” 

Carter, 564 F.3d at 330 (internal quotation marks omitted).
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“Where the defendant or prosecutor presents nonfrivolous 

reasons for imposing a different sentence than that set forth in 

the advisory Guidelines, a district [court] should address the 

party’s arguments and explain why [it] has rejected those 

arguments.” Id. at 328 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

While “[t]he context surrounding a district court’s explanation 

may imbue it with enough content for [us] to evaluate both 

whether the court considered the § 3553(a) factors and whether 

it did so properly,” United States v. Montes-Pineda, 445 F.3d 

375, 381 (4th Cir. 2006), we “may not guess at the district 

court’s rationale, searching the record for statements by the 

Government or defense counsel or for any other clues that might 

explain a sentence,” Carter, 564 F.3d at 329-30.

Only if there are no significant procedural errors do we 

consider the substantive reasonableness of the sentence, taking 

into account “the totality of the circumstances.” Gall, 552 

U.S. at 51. We presume that a sentence within a properly 

calculated Guidelines range is substantively reasonable, and 

this presumption may be rebutted only “by showing that the 

sentence is unreasonable when measured against the 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3553(a) factors.” United States v. Louthian, 756 F.3d 295, 

306 (4th Cir. 2014).

The record establishes that the district court considered 

and rejected Ortiz-Velasco’s arguments for a downward variance 
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and sufficiently touched on the most relevant § 3553(a) factors 

in fashioning the chosen sentence. Thus, we conclude that the 

sentence imposed was procedurally reasonable. Additionally, 

having reviewed the record, we hold that Ortiz-Velasco has not 

made the showing necessary to rebut the presumption that his 

within-Guidelines-range sentence is substantively reasonable. 

Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court. We 

dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal 

contentions are adequately presented in the materials before 

this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED