Opinion ID: 171132
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Age, Employment, Criminal Record

Text: Mr. Jarvi also argues that the district court failed to adequately weigh or discuss the relevance of some of his personal characteristics: his age (Mr. Jarvi is 49), his employment history (he worked for fifteen years as an aircraft inspector after serving in the army), or his criminal record (he has only two misdemeanor convictions, nearly twenty years old). We have now held that district courts have broad discretion to consider individual characteristics like age, employment, and criminal history in fashioning an appropriate sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), even when disfavored under the Guidelines or already accounted for in another part of the calculation. See, e.g., Gall v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 586, 601, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007) (courts may consider age despite its being a disfavored factor); United States v. Huckins, 529 F.3d 1312, 2008 WL 2514460, No. 07-3220,  (10th Cir. June 25, 2008) ([A] district court may weigh a defendant's lack of a criminal record, even when the defendant has been placed into a criminal history category of I, in its § 3553(a) analysis); United States v. Muñoz-Nava, 524 F.3d 1137, 1148-49 (10th Cir.2008) (courts may consider employment). The government responds that because Mr. Jarvi failed to raise these issues adequately below, the district court did not need to consider them in any detail. Gov't Br. 33-35. We do not disagree. But because Mr. Jarvi may raise these grounds for mitigation during allocution, and `[t]he sentencing judge must address the substance' of a defendant's nonfrivolous argument for a below-guidelines sentence, United States v. Angel-Guzman, 506 F.3d 1007, 1017 (10th Cir.2007) (quoting United States v. Traxler, 477 F.3d 1243, 1250 (10th Cir.2007)), it would be premature to address the relevance of these characteristics now.