United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Argued October 9, 2014

     Decided November 6, 2014

Before

WILLIAM J. BAUER, Circuit Judge

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

No. 14‐1973

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff‐Appellee,

v.

ALEJANDRO JORGE JIMENEZ,

Defendant‐Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern

Division.

No. 13 CR 493‐1

Charles P. Kocoras,

     Judge.

O R D E R

Alejandro Jorge Jimenez appeals his 77‐month sentence forillegally reentering the United

States without permission. 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a); 6 U.S.C. § 202(4). He argues on appeal that his

within‐guidelines sentence is substantively unreasonable because the reentry guideline

overrepresented his criminal history and impermissibly double‐counted his prior convictions.

Because the district court concluded that Jimenez was a recidivist whose conduct warranted

a within‐guidelines sentence to deter him from future reentries, we affirm.

Jimenez, a native and citizen of Mexico, entered the United States sometime before 1996.

He spent the next nine years committing a variety of crimes including retail theft, driving

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
No. 14‐1973                      Page  2

without a valid driver’s licence, escaping from a police officer, violating numerous orders of

protection, domestic battery, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. In 2005,

Immigrationauthorities removedJimenez afterhe servedhis sentence for an aggravatedfleeing

and eluding conviction.

Jimenez returnedto theUnitedStates sometime before February 2012.Thatmonth Jimenez

drove into his ex‐girlfriend’s car and beat her car and her male passenger with a baseball bat;

he was charged and convicted of armed violence in October 2012. A month later Immigration

officials discovered Jimenez, and in June 2013, charged him with reentering the United States

after a previous removal. Six months later he pleaded guilty. Jimenez sought to withdraw the

guilty plea in December, but the court denied the motion and the case proceeded to sentencing.

The probation officer recommended a guidelines range of 77 to 96 months’ based on

Jimenez’s total offense level of 21 and criminal‐history category of VI.Jimenez initially objected

to the criminal‐history calculation, but withdrew his objection at sentencing.Atthehearing,the

court adopted the guidelines range recommended in the report. The government argued that

a within‐guidelines sentence was appropriate to deter Jimenez from coming back to and

committing additional crimes in the United States.

Jimenez urged the district court to impose a below‐guidelines sentence because the vast

majority of his offenses that accrued criminal‐history points occurred more than a decade

earlier. He also argued that he was not a violent offender and that his conviction for domestic

violence, which triggereda 16‐level enhancementunderU.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii), wasmuch

less severe thanother crimes thattypically triggerthe enhancementlikemurder, manslaughter,

robbery, or forcible‐sex offenses. Finally he argued that he had a difficult childhood during

which he was a victim of domestic violence and received a limited education.

Thedistrict courtrecognized thatJimenez had a difficult childhood, but concludedthat his

childhood circumstances did not excuse his criminal conduct in the United States. The court

listed Jimenez’s numerous convictions and found that his criminal‐history category actually

underrepresented his criminality because Jimenez had ten convictions that received no

criminal‐history points. Because Jimenez was a recidivist “of the first order,” the district court

found that the guidelines were independently reasonable and imposed a 77‐month sentence.

Jimenez argues that his sentence is substantively unreasonable because it is unduly harsh.

To succeed on a claim of substantive unreasonableness, Jimenez must rebut the presumption

that his within‐guidelines sentence is reasonable. See Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 341

(2007); see also United States v. Cheek, 740 F.3d 440, 456 (7th Cir. 2014) (stating that a “within

guidelines sentence will almost never be unreasonable”) (internal citations omitted).
No. 14‐1973                      Page  3

Jimenez first argues thatthe reentry guidelines overrepresenthispast andpresent criminal

history because they give too much weight to stale convictions—i.e., five of his fourteen

criminal‐historypoints stem from convictions that occurredadecade before his arrestforillegal

reentry. But Jimenez is wrong. He properly accrued three points for his 18‐month sentence in

2002 for aggravated fleeing and eluding, see U.S.S.G. §§ 4A1.1(a), 4A1.2(e)(1), and two points

for his 120‐day sentence in 2003 for escaping a peace officer and driving with a revoked license,

seeid. § 4A1.1(b). Neither conviction is stale because both occurred within ten years of his illegal

reentry. See id. § 4A1.2(e)(2).

Moreover, the district court appropriately found that the guidelines actually

underrepresented Jimenez’s criminal history. The court determined that Jimenez’s past criminal

record was not an aberration and that he was a recidivist “ofthe first order” with 13 convictions

receiving criminal‐historypoints (includingdomestic battery and armedviolence) and10 extra

convictions failing to incur any criminal‐history points (either because the convictions were too

old to consider, or because Jimenez received fines, restitution, probation, or negligible terms

of imprisonment for which the guidelines did not award criminal‐history points). A bottom‐

range sentence is not substantively unreasonable when a defendant has multiple convictions

and removals. See United States v. Castro‐Alvarado, 755 F.3d 472, 478 (7th Cir. 2014); United States

v. Marin‐Castano, 688 F.3d 899, 905 (7th Cir. 2012).

Jimenez’s remaining two complaints that his sentence is unreasonable are equally

unpersuasive, and he forfeited each of them by failing to argue them before the district court.

Thus, our review is for plain error. See United States v. Jaimes‐Jaimes, 406 F.3d 845, 847 (7th Cir.

2005).

First, Jimenez argues that the district court failed to consider that the reentry guidelines

are overly harsh because they sentence him akin to violent offenders. But Jimenez is a violent

offender. His most recent conviction was two years ago for taking a bat to his ex‐girlfriend’s

car andhermalepassenger’s leg.Eight years earlier,Jimenez was convicted of domestic battery

and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after he punched one woman in the face and

struck another woman in the back with a metal pipe after pointing a gun at her.

Second, Jimenez argues that the guideline creates a disparity between those who enterthe

United States with a criminal record and those who do not. This is a routine complaint about

the guidelines. It is not plain error for a court to overlook stock arguments. See United States v.

Moreno‐Padilla, 602 F.3d 802, 814 (7th Cir. 2010); United States v. Aguilar‐Heurta, 576 F.3d 365,

367–68 (7th Cir. 2009); United States v. Martinez, 520 F.3d 749, 753 (7th Cir. 2008). In any case it

is not unreasonable to treat people who enter the United States illegally but do not commit

additional crimes differently from those who do.
No. 14‐1973                      Page  4

Third, Jimenez complains that the court did not analyze whether the guidelines unfairly

double counted his prior convictions by increasing both his criminal‐history score and his

offense level. But double counting is permissible unless expressly prohibited by the guidelines,

see United States v. Vizcarra, 668 F.3d 516, 519 (7th Cir. 2012), and it cannot be plain error to do

exactly as the guidelines direct. Here the guidelines specifically contemplate the use of prior

offenses in calculating both offense level and criminal history category, see U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2;

United States v. Cerna, 219 F. App’x 513, 516 (7th Cir. 2007); United States v. Ruiz‐Terrazas, 477

F.3d 1196, 1204 (10th Cir. 2007); United States v. Pereira, 465 F.3d 515, 522 (2d Cir. 2006), because

the provisions punish different things. “The criminal history section is designed to punish

likely recidivistsmore severely while the enhancement under § 2L1.2 isdesignedtodeter aliens

who have been convicted of a felony from re‐entering the United States.” United States v.

Adeleke, 968 F.2d 1159, 1161 (11th Cir. 1992).

The district court determined that Jimenez was a recidivist with an extensive criminal

history and found that he “earned” the guidelines sentence because of his history of criminal

activity in the United States after a previous removal. Thus, there was no error, plain or

otherwise,in including Jimenez’sprior convictions inhis offense‐level calculationandcriminal‐

history score.

Because Jimenez’s appellate arguments do not rebut the presumption of reasonableness

that attached to his within‐guidelines sentence, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.