Opinion ID: 2973889
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Emanuel Bustos

Text: On appeal, Bustos challenges the following findings by the district court: (1) that he was responsible for 119.07 kilograms of marijuana (this total includes the cocaine, see USSG § 2D1.1 Drug Equivalency Tables); and (2) that he had obstructed justice by physically assaulting Delgado in prison in order to intimidate him and prevent him from cooperating with authorities. The finding of the specific drug quantity resulted in an increase in Bustos’s base offense level, from 12 to 26, under USSG § 2D1.1(c)(7) and the finding of obstruction of justice under USSG § 3C1.1 resulted in both a two-point enhancement to Bustos’s sentence along with rendering him ineligible for a twopoint reduction for acceptance of responsibility. Bustos claims that these factual findings by the -2- Nos. 05-5297, 05-5342 United States v. Bustos & Lugo district court violated the principles set out in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), since they were neither found by a jury nor admitted by him. Despite Bustos’s claims of judicial fact-finding, the Supreme Court stated in Booker that the Sixth Amendment would not be implicated where the Guidelines were merely advisory. 543 U.S. at 233. As the Court stated, “when a trial judge exercises his discretion to select a specific sentence within a defined range, the defendant has no right to a jury determination of the facts that the judge deems relevant.” Id. Moreover, this court has repeatedly noted that “Booker did not eliminate judicial fact-finding in sentencing in cases where a defendant plead[s] guilty.” United States v. Williams, 411 F.3d 675, 678 (6th Cir. 2005). In this case, the district court clearly recognized that the Guidelines were only advisory. Bustos acknowledged in both his petition to enter a plea of guilty and his plea hearing that under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C) the statutory maximum for the charge under Count One was up to 30 years in prison. Based upon Booker, any judicial fact-finding within that legislatively-mandated range does not implicate the Sixth Amendment. See 543 U.S. at 233. Turning to Bustos’s sentence, Booker set out a framework of reasonableness review. 543 U.S. at 261. An appellate court “may conclude that a sentence is unreasonable when the district judge fails to consider the applicable Guidelines range or neglects to consider the other factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), and instead simply selects what the judge deems an appropriate sentence without such required consideration.” United States v. Richardson, 437 F.3d 550, 553 (6th Cir. 2006) (citations omitted). Here, the district court sentenced Bustos to 120 months’ imprisonment on Count One and 60 months’ imprisonment on Count Two, to run consecutively. The 120 months -3- Nos. 05-5297, 05-5342 United States v. Bustos & Lugo for Count One was within the Guidelines range of 97-121 months and the 60 months for Count Two was the mandatory minimum for that charge. Since the sentence is within the properly calculated Guidelines range, it is credited with a rebuttable presumption of reasonableness. See United States v. Williams, 436 F.3d 706, 708 (6th Cir. 2006). The district court in this case stated that it had considered the relevant § 3553(a) factors, although, as in Williams, this consideration is not evidenced explicitly. In any event, Bustos “fails to point to any indication that the district court ignored those factors” and “identifies no factor from § 3553(a) that would render his sentence unreasonable.” Id. Moreover, the district court expressly stated why it chose a sentence at the upper end of the Guidelines range on Count One – that the court was concerned about Bustos’s assault on a co-defendant in an attempt to intimidate. In the end, “the district court articulated its reasoning sufficiently to permit reasonable appellate review.” Id. at 709. There is nothing to suggest the sentence was unreasonable.