Opinion ID: 3149039
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Reentry Offense

Text: Although the Guidelines are merely advisory, “[t]he sentencing court must give consideration to the applicable guideline sentence.” Gantt, 679 F.3d at 1247. Mr. Gonzalez-Lopez does not argue that the district court failed to properly calculate the applicable sentencing range under the Guidelines. By calculating and acknowledging the advisory guideline sentence, the court satisfied its obligation to consider the Guidelines. See id. at 1248 (“To consider is not necessarily to adopt.”). 6 Contrary to Mr. Gonzalez-Lopez’s argument on appeal, the record as a whole makes clear that the court did not outright disregard the Guidelines. Further, in spite of the court’s statement that it would not follow the Guidelines, the sentence it imposed is within the Guidelines imprisonment range. When a court imposes a sentence falling within the range suggested by the Guidelines, it must give “only a general statement of the reasons for its imposition of the particular sentence.” Chavez, 723 F.3d at 1232. Here, the district court gave much more than a general statement and specifically described its reasons, based explicitly on the § 3553(a) factors, for imposing a 40-month sentence. We see no clear or obvious error. To the extent Mr. Gonzalez-Lopez argues that the court erred by stating that his motion for a variant sentence was “moot,” the record reflects that at that point in the hearing the court had already denied the motion and that its reasons for declining to vary downward from the Guidelines range were based on the § 3553(a) factors.