United States Court of Appeals 

For the First Circuit 

No. 14-1335 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Appellee, 

v. 

RAYMON VARGAS-GARCÍA, 

Defendant, Appellant. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO 

[Hon. Juan M. Pérez-Giménez, U.S. District Judge] 

Before 

Kayatta, Selya and Lipez, 

 Circuit Judges. 

Irma R. Valldejuli on brief for appellant. 

Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez, United States Attorney, Nelson 

Pérez-Sosa, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate 

Division, and Juan Carlos Reyes-Ramos, Assistant United States 

Attorney, on brief for appellee. 

July 16, 2015 
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SELYA, Circuit Judge. Disappointed by a sentence that 

was six months longer than he had hoped, defendant-appellant Raymon 

Vargas-García appeals on two grounds: that the sentence lacks 

adequate explanation and that it is substantively unreasonable. 

While his disappointment is understandable, his claims of error 

are without merit. Accordingly, we affirm. 

 I. 

Background

"Since this appeal trails in the wake of a guilty plea, 

we draw the facts from the plea agreement, the change-of-plea 

colloquy, the undisputed portions of the presentence investigation 

report (PSI Report), and the transcript of the disposition 

hearing." United States v. Rivera-González, 776 F.3d 45, 47 (1st 

Cir. 2015). In July of 2013, the defendant was arrested after a 

search of his residence in Ponce, Puerto Rico, turned up 79 "decks" 

of heroin, a marijuana cigarette, $7,757 in cash, two loaded guns, 

and an assortment of ammunition. The defendant admitted his 

ownership of the seized items and asserted that he possessed the 

firearms to protect himself "from rival gang members." 

A federal grand jury subsequently returned a two-count 

indictment against the defendant. One count charged him with 

possession with intent to distribute controlled substances. See 

21 U.S.C. § 841(a). The other charged him with possession of 

firearms in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime. See 18 U.S.C. 
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§ 924(c). The latter count carried a five-year mandatory minimum 

and a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, to run consecutively 

to any sentence imposed for the underlying drug-trafficking 

offense. See id. § 924(c)(1)(A), (D)(ii). 

Although the defendant initially maintained his 

innocence, he later had a change of heart and entered into a plea 

agreement with the government (the Agreement). Under the 

Agreement, the defendant agreed to plead guilty to the firearms 

count, and the government agreed to drop the drug-trafficking 

count. The parties jointly agreed to recommend a sentence of 84 

months' imprisonment. 

The district court accepted the defendant's guilty plea. 

When received, the PSI Report did not contain a recommended 

guideline sentencing range but, rather, simply noted that section 

924(c) mandated a minimum term of imprisonment of five years. The 

PSI Report also explained that, in 2010, the defendant had been 

convicted of three violations of Puerto Rico law arising out of 

his illegal possession of a charged semiautomatic weapon. In 2013, 

while serving a 15-year probationary term for those convictions, 

the defendant was arrested for possession of a controlled substance 

and counterfeiting a license.1 Those charges are still pending, 

but the probationary term on the earlier charges was revoked and 

 1 That arrest antedated the defendant's arrest for the crimes 

charged in this case. 
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a Commonwealth court sentenced the defendant to serve not only his 

original 15-year incarcerative term but also an additional 17 

months. 

At the disposition hearing, defense counsel urged the 

court to hew to the agreed 84-month term of immurement and to run 

the sentence concurrently with the unexpired portion of the 

defendant's Puerto Rico sentence. The prosecutor, too, 

recommended the 84-month sentence but suggested that it should run 

consecutively to the Puerto Rico sentence. After acknowledging 

the parties' positions, the district court stated: 

The Court will consider the 

seriousness of the offense, the need to 

promote respect for the law, as well as 

the other factors contemplated in [18 

U.S.C. § 3553(a)]. Before the Court is 

a 24-year-old individual with two 

dependents, he has a high school diploma. 

He is in good health and has no history 

of illegal drug use. However, he has a 

history of mental health. He has two 

prior criminal arrests, one that resulted 

in a criminal conviction and one that is 

pending resolution. 

The court proceeded to impose a 90-month term of immurement, to 

run consecutively to any other sentence then being served. This 

timely appeal followed.2 

 2 Although the Agreement contains a waiver-of-appeal clause, 

that clause conditioned the waiver on the imposition of a sentence 

in "accordance with the terms and conditions set forth in the 

Sentence Recommendation provisions of [the Agreement]." The 

sentence imposed by the district court was longer than that 

envisioned by the parties and, thus, was not within the compass of 
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 II. 

 Analysis 

 Appellate review of federal criminal sentences employs 

a binary mechanism: a reviewing court must first examine claims 

relating to the procedural aspects of the sentence and then examine 

claims relating to its substantive reasonableness. See United 

States v. Clogston, 662 F.3d 588, 590 (1st Cir. 2011); United 

States v. Martin, 520 F.3d 87, 92 (1st Cir. 2008). Throughout, 

review is for abuse of discretion. See Clogston, 662 F.3d at 590. 

 1. Procedural Reasonableness. In the case at hand, the 

defendant begins with a procedural attack alleging that the 

district court did not adequately explain the rationale for the 

sentence. Because no contemporaneous objection was interposed at 

sentencing, "the plain error standard supplants the customary 

standard of review." United States v. Dávila-González, 595 F.3d 

42, 47 (1st Cir. 2010). To prevail under plain error review, the 

defendant must show "(1) that an error occurred (2) which was clear 

or obvious and which not only (3) affected the defendant's 

substantial rights, but also (4) seriously impaired the fairness, 

integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings." United 

States v. Duarte, 246 F.3d 56, 60 (1st Cir. 2001). 

 

the Sentence Recommendation provision. Consequently, the waiverof-appeal clause does not pretermit this appeal. See, e.g., 

Rivera-González, 776 F.3d at 49. 
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Our appraisal of the defendant's procedural challenge 

starts with 18 U.S.C. § 3553(c), which provides that "[t]he court, 

at the time of sentencing, shall state in open court the reasons 

for its imposition of the particular sentence[.]" This statute 

obliges a sentencing court to "adequately explain the chosen 

sentence to allow for meaningful appellate review and to promote 

the perception of fair sentencing." Gall v. United States, 552 

U.S. 38, 50 (2007). The adequacy of a sentencing court's 

explanation must be judged case by case, but this requirement 

consistently has been "read in a practical, common-sense way." 

Dávila-González, 595 F.3d at 48. 

One overarching principle can be gleaned from the case 

law. It is clear beyond peradventure that the sentencing court 

need only identify the main factors behind its decision. See 

United States v. Turbides-Leonardo, 468 F.3d 34, 40-41 (1st Cir. 

2006). The court need not "be precise to the point of pedantry." 

Id. at 40. 

In this instance, there is no applicable guideline 

sentencing range; instead, the statutory mandatory minimum 

sentence is the guideline sentence. See Rivera-González, 776 F.3d 

at 49. Under those circumstances ─ that is, when application of 

the sentencing guidelines yields a single guideline sentence 

rather than a guideline sentencing range ─ a sentence in excess of 

the guideline sentence is treated as an upward variance. See 
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United States v. Oquendo-Garcia, 783 F.3d 54, 56 (1st Cir. 2015); 

Rivera-González, 776 F.3d at 49. It follows that the sentence 

imposed here constitutes an upward variance of 30 months over the 

guideline sentence of 60 months. See 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i); 

USSG §2K2.4(b). This may be significant because an upwardly 

variant sentence typically requires a fuller explanation than a 

guideline sentence. See Gall, 552 U.S. at 50; Turbides-Leonardo, 

468 F.3d at 41. 

In this case, the explanation for the imposed sentence 

is admittedly skimpy. Nevertheless, we think it not clearly 

insufficient: at the disposition hearing, the district court took 

pains to reference the defendant's significant criminal history, 

the seriousness of the offense of conviction, and the need to 

promote respect for the law.3 Given the facts of this case 

(including the absence of any contemporaneous objection), no more 

was exigible. After all, "[w]here the record permits a reviewing 

court to identify both a discrete aspect of an offender's conduct 

and a connection between that behavior and the aims of sentencing, 

the sentence is sufficiently explained to pass muster under section 

3553(c)." United States v. Fernández-Cabrera, 625 F.3d 48, 54 

 3 The district court also took into account potentially 

mitigating factors, such as the defendant's youth and his history 

of mental health problems. 
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(1st Cir. 2010). We conclude, therefore, that no clear or obvious 

"lack of explanation" error occurred. 

Nor was the district court obliged to explain why it 

rejected the parties' joint recommendation for an 84-month 

sentence. See United States v. Ruiz-Huertas, __ F.3d __, __ (1st 

Cir. 2015)[No. 14-1038, slip op. at 9]. Though a sentencing court 

may have a duty to explain why it chose a particular sentence, it 

has "no corollary duty to explain why it eschewed other suggested 

sentences." United States v. Vega-Salgado, 769 F.3d 100, 104 (1st 

Cir. 2014). 

2. Substantive Reasonableness. This brings us to the 

defendant's contention that the length of the sentence renders it 

substantively unreasonable. Though the defendant did not raise 

this claim below, the standard of review is in doubt. As we 

recently explained, most courts hold that an objection in the 

district court is not needed to preserve a claim that a sentence 

is substantively unreasonable. See Ruiz-Huertas, __ F.3d at __ 

[slip op. at 10] (discussing this question and collecting cases). 

While a pair of First Circuit cases have expressed a contrary view 

(albeit without any analysis of the issue), see id. at __ n.4 [slip 

op. at 10 n.4], we need not resolve this apparent anomaly today. 

Even if we assume, favorably to the defendant, that our review is 

for abuse of discretion, the defendant's claim of error founders. 

We explain briefly. 
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The "touchstone of abuse of discretion review in federal 

sentencing is reasonableness." United States v. Vargas-Dávila, 

649 F.3d 129, 130 (1st Cir. 2011). Reasonableness is itself an 

inherently fluid concept. See Martin, 520 F.3d at 92. Thus, in 

any given case, "[t]here is no one reasonable sentence . . . but, 

rather, a universe of reasonable sentencing outcomes." Clogston, 

662 F.3d at 592. 

When reviewing a challenge to the substantive 

reasonableness of a sentence, substantial deference is due to the 

sentencing court's discretion. See Gall, 552 U.S. at 51; Clogston, 

662 F.3d at 593. This deferential approach recognizes that though 

"[a] sentencing court is under a mandate to consider a myriad of 

relevant factors, . . . the weighting of those factors is largely 

within the court's informed discretion." Clogston, 662 F.3d at 

593. Even when the court imposes a non-guideline sentence, a 

reviewing court must afford "due deference to the district court's 

decision that the § 3553(a) factors, on a whole, justify the extent 

of the variance." Martin, 520 F.3d at 92 (quoting Gall, 552 U.S. 

at 51). Fidelity to this deferential standard requires that a 

challenge based on substantive reasonableness must comprise more 

than a thinly disguised attempt by the defendant "to substitute 

his judgment for that of the sentencing court." Clogston, 662 

F.3d at 593. 
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In the last analysis, a challenge to the substantive 

reasonableness of a sentence turns on whether the sentencing court 

has offered a plausible rationale for the sentence and whether the 

sentence itself represents a defensible result. See United States 

v. Flores-Machicote, 706 F.3d 16, 25 (1st Cir. 2013); Martin, 520 

F.3d at 96. Here, the court's sentencing rationale was plausible: 

as we already have explained, the court's reasoning stressed the 

significant nature of the defendant's criminal history, the 

seriousness of the offense, and the need to promote respect for 

the law. While the defendant points to some mitigating 

considerations, a sentencing court is entitled to conduct an 

appropriate triage and weigh some factors more heavily than others. 

See United States v. Madera-Ortiz, 637 F.3d 26, 32 (1st Cir. 2011). 

We likewise conclude that the challenged sentence 

embodies a defensible result. Sentences are subject to what has 

been called the "parsimony principle." See, e.g., TurbidesLeonardo, 468 F.3d at 41. This principle, enshrined in 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3553(a), directs the court to "impose a sentence sufficient, but 

not greater than necessary" to achieve the legitimate goals of 

sentencing. Given the serious nature of the offense of conviction 

and the tarnished record of the offender, the challenged sentence 

can reasonably be viewed as no greater than necessary to achieve 

such valid sentencing objectives as punishment, deterrence, 
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incapacitation, and the need to promote respect for the law. See 

18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A)-(C). 

To cinch matters, the defendant concedes that some 

upward variance from the guideline sentence — from 60 months to 84 

months — was reasonable. His argument is that even though an 

increase of this magnitude would have been acceptable, a variance 

that went six months further was substantively unreasonable. Yet, 

the defendant has not plausibly explained why an 84-month sentence 

would be substantively reasonable but a 90-month sentence would 

not. In view of the relatively small spread between the sentence 

that the defendant concedes would have been appropriate (84 months) 

and the sentence that he contends was inappropriate (90 months), 

we cannot say that the sentence imposed either falls outside the 

universe of reasonable sentencing outcomes or fails to represent 

a defensible result. 

 III. 

 Conclusion 

We need go no further. For the reasons elucidated above, 

the sentence is 

Affirmed.