Opinion ID: 2966320
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Substantive Claim.

Text: Finally, the appellant contends that his twenty-one month sentence is substantively unreasonable. We review the substantive reasonableness of a sentence for abuse of discretion. See United States v. Gall, 552 U.S. 38, 46 (2007); United States v. King, 741 -12- F.3d 305, 307 (1st Cir. 2014). Applying that standard of review, we reject the appellant's contention. There will rarely, if ever, be a single perfect sentence in any given case. Rather, there will be a range of reasonable sentences for a particular subset of criminal activity. See United States v. Santiago-Rivera, 744 F.3d 229, 234 (1st Cir. 2014). Within this range, district courts have wide discretion to fashion specific sentences. See United States v. Gallardo-Ortiz, 666 F.3d 808, 811 (1st Cir. 2012). In this case, the appellant's sentence is at the nadir of a properly calculated GSR. Consequently, demonstrating that the sentence is substantively unreasonable requires an especially steep uphill climb. See United States v. Deppe, 509 F.3d 54, 62 (1st Cir. 2007). As long as the sentence imposed is grounded in a plausible view of the circumstances and its duration is defensible, the defendant cannot scale the required heights. See United States v. Carrasco-De-Jesús, 589 F.3d 22, 30 (1st Cir. 2009); United States v. Martin, 520 F.3d 87, 96 (1st Cir. 2008). Here, the district court articulated a plausible rationale and arrived at a defensible result. The appellant's conduct was serious: it included using stolen materials to orchestrate the production of a large number of bogus money orders, valued at more than $100,000. It also included recruiting accomplices to cash the bogus money orders. The duration of the -13- sentence — twenty-one months — is commensurate with the seriousness of the offenses. Because the punishment comfortably fits the crime, there is no principled way to call this sentence substantively unreasonable. See Santiago-Rivera, 744 F.3d at 234. In other words, there was no abuse of discretion.