Opinion ID: 169936
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Denial of departure

Text: Under the Guidelines, a district judge may grant a downward departure [i]f reliable information indicates that the defendant's criminal history category substantially over-represents the seriousness of the defendant's criminal history. . . . U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3(b). If Mr. Angel-Guzman's claim is a procedural one, this Court lacks the ability to review it. Even after Booker, `[t]his court has no jurisdiction . . . to review a district court's discretionary decision to deny a motion for downward departure on the ground that a defendant's circumstances do not warrant the departure.' United States v. Fonseca, 473 F.3d 1109, 1112 (10th Cir.2007) (quoting United States v. Sierra-Castillo, 405 F.3d 932, 936 (10th Cir.2005)) (emendation and ellipsis in original). [8] Denial of a departure may only be reviewed if the district court unambiguously states it lacks discretion to grant the departure. Id. Mr. Angel-Guzman makes no such allegation here. In any event, our reading of the sentencing transcript indicates that the judge refused the motion to depart because, having considered the nature of Mr. Angel-Guzman's prior crimes, he simply did not believe a departure to be warranted. Our procedural review of Mr. Angel-Guzman's sentence may therefore come to an end.