United States Court of Appeals 

For the First Circuit 

No. 15-2275 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Appellee, 

v. 

JAYSON RENTAS-MUÑIZ, 

Defendant, Appellant. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO 

[Hon. Aida M. Delgado-Colón, U.S. District Judge] 

Before 

Lynch, Selya and Kayatta, Circuit Judges. 

 Maria Soledad Ramirez-Becerra and Maria Soledad-Ramirez 

Becerra Law Office on brief for appellant. 

 Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez, United States Attorney, Mariana 

E. Bauzá-Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, 

Appellate Division, and John A. Mathews II, Assistant United States 

Attorney, on brief for appellee. 

April 3, 2018 
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SELYA, Circuit Judge. Defendant-appellant Jayson 

Rentas-Muñiz pleaded guilty to conspiring to possess with intent 

to distribute cocaine base (crack cocaine) and to possessing a 

firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime. The district 

court sentenced him to a 202-month term of immurement on the drugconspiracy charge and a sixty-month term of immurement on the 

firearms charge, stipulating that those prison terms would run 

consecutive to one another and to the undischarged portions of 

multiple Puerto Rico sentences that he was then serving. Before 

us, the appellant primarily challenges the district court's 

determination to run the federal sentences consecutive to the 

Puerto Rico sentences previously imposed. After careful 

consideration, we affirm. 

I. BACKGROUND 

Since this appeal follows a guilty plea, we draw the 

relevant facts from the plea agreement (the Agreement), the changeof-plea colloquy, the undisputed portions of the presentence 

investigation report (PSI Report), and the sentencing transcript. 

See United States v. Nuñez, 852 F.3d 141, 143 (1st Cir. 2017); 

United States v. Dávila-González, 595 F.3d 42, 45 (1st Cir. 2010). 

The appellant is no stranger to the judicial system. 

Going back in time, he was convicted in Puerto Rico of attempted 

aggravated burglary in 2000, robbery and unlicensed use of a weapon 

in 2002, and conspiracy against a judicial officer in 2006. He 
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continued to operate on the wrong side of the law and, by 2012, 

had become engaged in a conspiracy to distribute cocaine, crack 

cocaine, heroin, and marijuana in and around Ponce, Puerto Rico. 

During this phase of his criminal career, the appellant sold drugs, 

served as an enforcer for the drug ring, and assisted in the 

storage of contraband. Separately, he was involved (on November 

30, 2012) in the premeditated murder of a high-school student, 

Juan Ruiz-Vega. 

These chickens ultimately came home to roost: the 

appellant was charged in the Puerto Rico courts and convicted of 

a laundry list of crimes. He was sentenced to multiple terms of 

imprisonment,1 including ninety-nine years for murder, ten years 

for attempted murder, thirty years for the unlawful use of 

firearms, and one year for the unlawful distribution and possession 

of controlled substances. These sentences were ordered to run 

consecutive to one another. 

On September 4, 2013, a federal grand jury in the 

District of Puerto Rico charged the appellant — who was then 

incarcerated in consequence of his state crimes — with conspiring 

 1 Although Puerto Rico is not a state, sentences imposed by 

Puerto Rico courts are treated the same as sentences imposed by 

state courts for most federal sentencing purposes. See United 

States v. Román-Díaz, 853 F.3d 591, 594 n.1 (1st Cir. 2017); United 

States v. Carrasco-De-Jesús, 589 F.3d 22, 24-25, 27 (1st Cir. 

2009). For ease in exposition, we henceforth refer to the 

appellant's Puerto Rico sentences as state sentences. 
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to possess with intent to distribute in excess of 280 grams of 

cocaine base and detectable amounts of cocaine, heroin, and 

marijuana, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 846 (count 

1) and possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking 

crime, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (count 2). About two 

months later, the appellant pleaded guilty to both counts pursuant 

to the Agreement. As part of the Agreement, the appellant 

stipulated to having handled between 112 and 196 grams of crack 

cocaine, and both sides agreed that the appellant's drugdistribution convictions in the Puerto Rico courts should be 

considered overt acts with respect to the federal drug-conspiracy 

charge. The parties jointly recommended a sixty-month sentence on 

count one to run consecutive to a sixty-month mandatory minimum 

sentence on count two. The Agreement did not address whether the 

federal sentences should run consecutive to or concurrent with the 

state sentences. 

The parties agree that the November 2014 edition of the 

sentencing guidelines applies in this case. Using that version of 

the guidelines, the PSI Report recommended that the appellant's 

base offense level be adjusted upward to reflect his involvement 

in Ruiz-Vegas's murder — an adjustment that would have yielded a 

guideline sentencing range of 360 to 480 months. See USSG §§2A1.1, 

2D1.1(d)(1). At the disposition hearing, the district court 

declined to treat the Ruiz-Vega murder as relevant conduct, see 
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id. §1B1.3, and therefore eschewed the murder cross-reference. 

But since the appellant had at least two prior felony convictions 

for crimes of violence, the court concluded that he was a career 

offender, see id. §4B1.1 — a determination that resulted in a 

guideline range of 262 to 327 months. The court proceeded to 

impose a below-the-range sentence of 202 months on count one and 

a mandatory minimum sentence of sixty months on count two, with 

these sentences to run consecutive to one another and to the 

undischarged portions of the state sentences. 

This timely appeal ensued. Although the Agreement 

contains a waiver-of-appeal provision, the government concedes — 

as it must — that this appeal falls outside the margins of that 

provision. 

II. ANALYSIS 

The appellant does not challenge the district court's 

finding that he was a career offender, nor does he challenge any 

other aspect of the district court's calculation of his guideline 

sentencing range. He trains his fire instead on the district 

court's decision to run his federal sentences consecutive to his 

undischarged state sentences. 

The appellant's challenge to the district court's 

imposition of a consecutive sentence on the firearms offense is 

easily dispatched. Although a sentencing court often has 

discretion to determine whether to run a sentence consecutively or 
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concurrently, see 18 U.S.C. §§ 3553(a), 3584; see also USSG §5G1.3, 

that is not true with respect to the appellant's firearms offense. 

The statute of conviction underlying that offense requires a 

consecutive sentence. See 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). This statutory 

requirement "removes the discretion to run sentences 

concurrently." Dean v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 1170, 1177 

(2017). Accordingly, the court below had no choice but to run the 

term of imprisonment on the firearms count consecutive to any other 

term of imprisonment, whether state or federal. See United States 

v. Gonzales, 520 U.S. 1, 11 (1997). 

This leaves the federal sentence on the drug-conspiracy 

charge. The appellant claims that it was procedural error for the 

district court to run that sentence consecutive to the undischarged 

state sentences. Because this claim of error was not raised below, 

our review is for plain error.2 See United States v. Ruiz-Huertas, 

792 F.3d 223, 226 (1st Cir. 2015). Under this rigorous standard, 

the appellant must show "(1) that an error occurred (2) which was 

clear or obvious and which not only (3) affected [his] substantial 

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

 2 Based on certain statements made at the sentencing hearing, 

the government invites us to find that the appellant waived this 

claim of error. See United States v. Washington, 434 F.3d 7, 11 

(1st Cir. 2006) (holding that waived arguments cannot be considered 

on appeal); United States v. Rodriguez, 311 F.3d 435, 437 (1st 

Cir. 2002) (same). We decline to take up this invitation: even 

assuming that the claim of error was not waived, it nonetheless 

fails. 
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or public reputation of judicial proceedings." United States v. 

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

In this instance, we discern no error, plain or 

otherwise. With respect to offenses like the offense underlying 

the drug-conspiracy count, Congress left open the question of 

whether a particular sentence should run concurrent with, 

partially concurrent with, or consecutive to an undischarged state 

sentence. See 18 U.S.C. § 3584(a). In making such a 

determination, the district court must give consideration to the 

factors enumerated in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), including the applicable 

sentencing guidelines and policy statements. See id. § 3584(b); 

United States v. Carrasco-De-Jesús, 589 F.3d 22, 27 (1st Cir. 

2009). Of particular pertinence for present purposes is USSG 

§5G1.3, which addresses situations (like this one) where the 

defendant is subject to undischarged state sentences. 

This guideline provision advises that a federal sentence 

be imposed to run concurrent with an undischarged state sentence 

when the state sentence is for an offense that constitutes 

"relevant conduct" with respect to the offense of conviction. See 

USSG §5G1.3(b)-(c); United States v. Román-Díaz, 853 F.3d 591, 598 

(1st Cir. 2017). In drug-trafficking cases, "relevant conduct" 

includes all acts and omissions "that were part of the same course 

of conduct or common scheme or plan as the offense of conviction." 

USSG §1B1.3(a)(2). Where the acts or omissions comprise unrelated 
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conduct, the district court enjoys discretion to run the federal 

sentence "concurrently, partially concurrently, or consecutively 

to the prior undischarged [state] term of imprisonment to achieve 

a reasonable punishment for the instant offense." Id. §5G1.3(d). 

The appellant contends that section 5G1.3(b) applies 

here. To prevail on this contention, he must show "that [he] 

satisfies each and every element of the guideline." United States 

v. Vélez-Soto, 804 F.3d 75, 78 (1st Cir. 2015) (alteration in 

original) (quoting Carrasco-De-Jesús, 589 F.3d at 27). This means, 

among other things, that he must show that the undischarged state 

sentences resulted from an offense or offenses that constitute 

relevant conduct with respect to the federal offense of conviction. 

See United States v. Figueroa-Figueroa, 791 F.3d 187, 192 (1st 

Cir. 2015) (citing USSG §5G1.3 cmt. n.2(A)). 

In an effort to make this showing, the appellant submits 

that all of his undischarged state sentences relate to offenses 

comprising relevant conduct with respect to his federal drugconspiracy conviction. To this end, he relies heavily on the fact 

that the Agreement denominates the state drug crimes as overt acts 

in the federal conspiracy. 

But this proves too little: the drug crimes form only a 

tiny part of the underpinnings of the state sentences that the 

appellant is currently serving. They account for only one year of 

the 140 years to which the appellant was sentenced. With respect 
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to the non-drug crimes, the Agreement is silent; it does not 

specify any of those crimes as overt acts of the federal drug 

conspiracy. Moreover, the record offers no convincing explanation 

as to why any, let alone all, of the non-drug crimes should be 

regarded as part of the same course of conduct, common scheme, or 

plan as the federal offense of conviction. The appellant had the 

burden of proof on this issue, and he did not carry it. 

The bottom line is that the appellant's situation cannot 

be viewed as a seamless whole but, rather, demands the application 

of two different rules. While the state drug crimes constitute 

relevant conduct vis-á-vis the federal offense of conviction, the 

same cannot be said for the state non-drug crimes (the murder, 

attempted murder, and firearms offenses). Simply put, the 

appellant has not carried his burden of showing that the state 

non-drug crimes come within the relevant conduct rubric. 

Consequently, the state sentences based on the latter crimes 

dictate the application of a different rule. See USSG §5G1.3(d). 

The Sentencing Commission has anticipated this type of 

hybrid scenario. An application note to the relevant guideline 

instructs that when "a defendant may be subject to multiple 

undischarged terms of imprisonment that seemingly call for the 

application of different rules," the sentencing court "may 

exercise its discretion in accordance with subsection (d) to 

fashion a sentence of appropriate length and structure it to run 
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in any appropriate manner to achieve a reasonable punishment for 

the instant offense." Id. §5G1.3 cmt. n.4(D); see, e.g., United 

States v. Rogers, 521 F.3d 5, 12 (1st Cir. 2008) (applying this 

instruction). Because this is such a case, our inquiry thus 

reduces to whether the district court's decision to run the federal 

drug-conspiracy sentence consecutive to the undischarged state 

sentences was within the compass of the court's discretion. 

Here, the sentencing court accurately determined the 

applicable guideline range and analyzed the section 3553(a) 

factors with scrupulous care. Among other things, the court 

considered the appellant's age, his sordid criminal history, the 

length of the sentences imposed by the Puerto Rico courts, the 

nature and seriousness of the federal offense of conviction, the 

appellant's multiple roles in the drug ring, and the concomitant 

federal firearms conviction.3 After weighing these and other 

relevant factors, the court opted to impose a below-the-range 

sentence, but decreed that this downwardly variant sentence should 

run consecutive to the undischarged state sentences (which were 

almost exclusively for unrelated conduct). Given the sprawling 

nature of the drug ring, the appellant's versatile roles as a 

 3 It is of no moment that the district court did not explicitly 

reference section 5G1.3. "What counts is not whether a sentencing 

court explicitly mentions a guideline provision but, rather, 

whether the court correctly applied that provision." Román-Díaz, 

853 F.3d at 598 n.7. 
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seller of narcotics, an enforcer, and a warehouseman, the violence 

that characterized the drug-trafficking activities and what the 

district court described as the drug ring's "war" for territorial 

dominance, the appellant's career offender status (which included 

convictions for murder and attempted murder), the obvious need for 

incapacitation and deterrence, and the complexities inherent in 

this sentencing determination, we cannot say that the district 

court's decision to impose a consecutive sentence was an abuse of 

discretion. 

The appellant proffers one last claim of error: he 

attempts to challenge the substantive reasonableness of his 

sentence. The standard of review for unpreserved claims of 

substantive reasonableness is "somewhat blurred." Ruiz-Huertas, 

792 F.3d at 228. Here, however, we can safely bypass this 

uncertainty and assume, favorably to the appellant, that abuse of 

discretion review applies. See, e.g., United States v. MárquezGarcía, 862 F.3d 143, 147 (1st Cir. 2017); Ruiz-Huertas, 792 F.3d 

at 228. 

In the case at hand, the district court imposed a 

sentence on the drug-conspiracy count (202 months) that fell below 

the bottom of the guideline range.4 We have made pellucid that 

 4 Although the appellant's challenge is undifferentiated, we 

limit our discussion to the sentence imposed on the drug-conspiracy 

count. After all, the sixty-month sentence imposed on the firearms 

count was a mandatory minimum sentence required by statute. See 
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"[i]t is a rare below-the-range sentence that will prove vulnerable 

to a defendant's claim of substantive unreasonableness." United 

States v. King, 741 F.3d 305, 310 (1st Cir. 2014). This is not so 

rare a case: the 202-month sentence seems modest when measured 

against the gravity of the offense and the appellant's historical 

involvement in criminal activity. 

The appellant implicitly concedes this point. He does 

not so much as hint that the length of his downwardly variant 

federal drug-conspiracy sentence is unreasonable. Instead, he 

focuses narrowly on the fact that the court chose to run the drugconspiracy sentence consecutive to the undischarged state 

sentences. He was 35 years old when sentenced, and in his view 

there is no actuarial likelihood that he will survive the state 

sentences. Building on this foundation, he contends that running 

the federal drug-conspiracy sentence consecutive to the state 

sentences renders the former substantively unreasonable. 

As we have explained, the court below was authorized to 

impose the drug-conspiracy sentence concurrent with, partially 

concurrent with, or consecutive to the undischarged state 

sentences. See 18 U.S.C. § 3584; USSG §5G1.3(d). Typically, the 

exercise of such authority is reviewed for abuse of discretion. 

United States v. Rivera-González, 776 F.3d 45, 48 (1st Cir. 2015); 

 

18 U.S.C. § 924(c). So, too, running that sentence consecutive to 

the state sentences was dictated by statute. See id. 
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Carrasco-De-Jesús, 589 F.3d at 26. In this instance, we already 

have determined that the district court did not abuse its 

discretion in choosing to run the drug-conspiracy sentence 

consecutive to the undischarged state sentences. Seen in this 

light, a challenge for lack of substantive reasonableness is an 

awkward fit: it is difficult to imagine how a decision to run a 

sentence consecutively can be a proper exercise of a sentencing 

court's discretion, yet render the sentence substantively 

unreasonable under section 3553(a).5 Cf. United States v. Berry, 

565 F.3d 332, 342 (6th Cir. 2009) (noting that a challenge to a 

sentencing court's decision to impose a consecutive sentence is 

not easily classified under the rubric of substantive 

reasonableness). 

When all is said and done, though, we need not tackle 

the question of whether the decision to impose a consecutive 

sentence may ever be within the sentencing court's discretion and 

still render the sentence substantively unreasonable. A party who 

challenges the substantive reasonableness of a sentence bears the 

burden of persuasion. See United States v. Clogston, 662 F.3d 

 5 In some instances, of course, the imposition of a consecutive 

sentence may implicate Eighth Amendment concerns. See United 

States v. Rivera-Ruperto, 884 F.3d 25, 26 (1st Cir. 2018) (Barron, 

J., concurring in order denying rehearing en banc). Inasmuch as 

the appellant makes no claim that his sentence was so 

disproportionate as to render it unconstitutional, we need not 

address this issue. 
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588, 593 (1st Cir. 2011). The appellant has not carried this 

burden: it is evident that the district court wanted to ensure 

that the drug-conspiracy sentence produced a long period of 

incapacitation, and (on this record) the status of the state 

sentences is largely unknown. We cannot tell, for example, whether 

any of those sentences are still under judicial review or are open 

to petitions for post-conviction relief. Nor do we know what 

prospects there may be for parole or commutation. We therefore 

reject the claim of substantive unreasonableness as unproven. 

III. CONCLUSION 

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

the judgment of the district court is 

Affirmed.