UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 23-6097

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

ROGELIO VIDAL SANTILLAN,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, at 

Statesville. Kenneth D. Bell, District Judge. (5:18-cr-00048-KDB-DSC-14)

Submitted: May 8, 2023 Decided: May 17, 2023

Before KING and WYNN, Circuit Judges, and MOTZ, Senior Circuit Judge.

Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Rogelio Vidal Santillan, Appellant Pro Se. 

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Rogelio Vidal Santillan appeals the district court’s order denying his motion for 

compassionate release pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), as amended by the First Step 

Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-391, § 603(b)(1), 132 Stat. 5194, 5239. We vacate the district 

court’s order and remand for further proceedings.

We review a district court’s ruling on a motion for compassionate release for abuse 

of discretion. United States v. Kibble, 992 F.3d 326, 329 (4th Cir. 2021). We have held 

that “district courts are empowered to consider any extraordinary and compelling reason 

for release that a defendant might raise.” United States v. McCoy, 981 F.3d 271, 284 (4th 

Cir. 2020) (cleaned up). A district court need not address every argument raised by a 

defendant in a compassionate release motion. United States v. High, 997 F.3d 181, 187 

(4th Cir. 2021). Instead, “the touchstone must be whether the district court set forth enough 

to satisfy our court that it has considered the parties’ arguments and has a reasoned basis 

for exercising its own legal decisionmaking authority, so as to allow for meaningful 

appellate review.” Id. at 190 (cleaned up).

Santillan presented three main arguments in his compassionate release motion: (1) 

health concerns related to Santillan’s long-haul covid symptoms and other ailments; (2) 

family circumstances; and (3) the lack of programming and good-time credits available to 

undocumented immigrants like himself. The district court’s order rejected this third 

argument, but it failed to mention, let alone address, the other two.

In High, we considered several factors in determining that a district court’s 

explanation was adequate. 997 F.3d at 188-89. Particularly significant was that the district 

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judge who ruled on High’s compassionate release motion was the same judge who 

originally sentenced him, but we also observed that the district court had “added to its 

original consideration of” the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors at High’s sentencing hearing by 

discussing his recidivism. Id. at 189. We also contrasted High’s claims with those of the 

defendants in United States v. Martin, 916 F.3d 389, 396 (4th Cir. 2019), and United States 

v. McDonald, 986 F.3d 402, 412 (4th Cir. 2021), noting that High had received no 

disciplinary infractions and had completed educational courses during his one-and-one half 

years of incarceration, while the defendants in Martin and McDonald, who each served 

nearly 20 years, “had presented a significant amount of post-sentencing mitigation 

evidence” that required a more detailed explanation by the district court. High, 997 F.3d 

at 190 (cleaned up). 

Here, as in High, the same district judge who presided over Santillan’s sentencing 

also denied his compassionate release motion. But while Santillan did not present a 

“mountain of new mitigating evidence” for the court to consider, see Martin, 916 F.3d at 

396-97, he offered potentially persuasive arguments. And unlike in High, the district court 

did not engage in any analysis of the § 3553(a) factors, ending its inquiry at the lack of 

extraordinary or compelling reasons. Thus, we conclude that the district court’s 

explanation was inadequate.

Accordingly, we vacate the district court’s order and remand for further 

proceedings. By this disposition, we express no opinion on whether Santillan’s additional 

arguments entitle him to compassionate release, leaving that decision to the district court 

in the first instance. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal 

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contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would 

not aid the decisional process.

VACATED AND REMANDED

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