Opinion ID: 155993
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Departure for Over-Representation of Criminal History

Text: 50 Finally, Mr. Florez contends that even if the mischievous conduct conviction was properly included in his criminal history, the court misunderstood its authority to depart for over-representation of his criminal history category pursuant to USSG § 4A1.3, p.s. As discussed above, we have jurisdiction to review a district court's discretionary decision not to depart from the guideline range if we find that the court's decision was based on its erroneous belief that the Guidelines deprived it power to depart. Rowen, 73 F.3d at 1063. 51  '[U]nless the judge's language unambiguously states that the judge does not believe he has authority to downward depart, we will not review his decision.'  Belt, 89 F.3d at 715 (quoting United States v. Rodriguez, 30 F.3d 1318, 1319 (10th Cir.1994)). Defendant alleges that the following question by the judge indicates he did not believe he had the authority to depart: I don't understand your argument there. Are you asking me to ignore that as part of the history? R. Vol. IV at 4. However, this was in response to defense counsel's vague statement that the mischievous conduct conviction was a rather minor matter, but it does make some difference or could make some difference to him if the Court were to look upon that favorably. Id. We are unconvinced that the Court misunderstood its authority to depart on a ground that is so firmly established. See United States v. Sanders, 18 F.3d 1488, 1491 (10th Cir.1994).