Opinion ID: 166822
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sentencing under Booker

Text: We evaluate next Mr. Alvarez-Pasillas’s request for re-sentencing in light of the Supreme Court’s remedial opinion in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005). The error which Mr. Alvarez-Pasillas claims is non-constitutional Booker error. Non-constitutional Booker error occurs when a district court applies the guidelines in a mandatory, as opposed to discretionary, fashion. GonzalezHuerta, 403 F.3d at 731-32. Because Mr. Alvarez-Pasillas did not object to the mandatory imposition of the sentencing guidelines, we review his claim for plain error. We will correct an error not raised at trial only if it is plain, affects substantial rights, and seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Id. at 732. Mr. Alvarez-Pasillas claims that the district court committed nonconstitutional Booker error by imposing his 210-month sentence, which was at the -7- bottom of the guidelines range of 210 to 260 months, pursuant to the thenmandatory guidelines. The government concedes that this mandatory application of the guidelines constitutes error that is plain, but contends that Mr. AlvarezPasillas cannot demonstrate that the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Mr. Alvarez-Pasillas claims that he is entitled to reversal because non-constitutional Booker error is structural, thus eliminating any need for a showing of prejudice. His structural error claim, however, is directly foreclosed by this Court’s en banc decision in GonzalezHuerta, 403 F.3d at 734. We therefore turn to the fourth prong of plain error review: whether the mandatory application of the Sentencing Guidelines in Mr. Alvarez-Pasillas’s case “seriously affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” See id. at 736. This Court will notice a non-constitutional Booker error only if it is “particularly egregious” and “failure to notice the error would result in a miscarriage of justice.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Mr. Alvarez-Pasillas bears the burden of satisfying this demanding standard. Id. at 737. Affirming the sentence imposed by the district court would not result in a miscarriage of justice. Mandatory application of the guidelines is not particularly egregious or a miscarriage of justice where a defendant receives a sentence that -8- falls within the national norm, the record is devoid of mitigating evidence that would warrant a departure, and there is no evidence that the district court felt constrained by the Guidelines or was displeased with the sentence. Id. at 738; United States v. Treto-Martinez, 421 F.3d 1156, 1161 (10th Cir. 2005). Mr. Alvarez-Pasillas has not argued that his sentence is outside the national norm, but merely claims that the sentence was imposed pursuant to mandatory application of the sentencing guidelines. Nor is there mitigating evidence warranting a lower sentence. At sentencing, defense counsel stated that he did “not see any basis for a downward departure motion” and simply requested a sentence “to the low end of the guidelines.” R. Supp. 5. Finally, the transcript of the sentencing hearing does not indicate that the district court judge was displeased with the sentence imposed or would have imposed a lower sentence had the guidelines been discretionary. Under our holding in Gonzalez-Huerta, Mr. Alvarez-Pasillas has failed to establish that mandatory application of the guidelines was “particularly egregious” or resulted in a “miscarriage of justice.” Accordingly, we must deny Mr. Alvarez-Pasillas’s request for resentencing.