Opinion ID: 3022701
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The 1995 conviction was a crime of violence.

Text: Gomez-Fonseca argues that his 1995 conviction for false imprisonment with the use of a knife was not a “crime of violence” because no one was injured during the commission of the crime. Accordingly, he claims that the district court erred by applying a 16-level increase for being a previously deported alien convicted of a crime of violence.2 The claim warrants little discussion. Application Note 1(B)(iii) of U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2 indicates that a “crime of violence” can be “any offense under federal, state or local law that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another.” In evaluating a prior conviction when imposing a sentence, the district court may look to “the terms of the charging document, the terms of a plea agreement or transcript of colloquy between judge and defendant in which the factual basis for the plea was 2 Whether an offense is a “crime of violence” is a legal determination. United States v. Trala, 386 F.3d 536, 547 (3d Cir. 2004). Therefore, our review of the district court’s holding is plenary. Gibbs v. Cross, 160 F.3d 962, 964 (3d Cir. 1998). 4 confirmed by the defendant, or to some other comparable judicial record of this information.” United States v. Shepard, U.S. , 125 S.Ct. 1254, 1263 (2005). Gomez-Fonseca’s California conviction encompassed two statutes – Cal. Penal Code § 236, False Imprisonment, and Cal. Penal Code § 12022(b), Use of Deadly or Dangerous Weapon. Using a deadly or dangerous weapon to falsely imprison someone obviously fits into the category of a “crime of violence” because it involves a substantial risk of physical force. Therefore, the 16-level increase in the criminal offense level was appropriate, and arguing the contrary approaches frivolity. B. The district court’s interpretation of the guidelines. Gomez-Fonseca argues that the district court abused its discretion by following the guidelines as if they were mandatory. We disagree that a sentence that coincides with the applicable guideline range somehow morphs the guidelines back into a mandatory sentencing scheme. Under the post-Booker sentencing framework, district courts consider the applicable advisory guidelines range in addition to the factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). 125 S.Ct. at 764-765. We review the sentences for unreasonableness. Id. at 765. Here, it is abundantly clear that the district court was well aware that the guidelines were only advisory and that it considered all of the factors under § 3553(a) in imposing the sentence of 77 months. At the sentencing hearing, after considering the various arguments about what sentence would be appropriate, the district court stated, “the [c]ourt finds [] the sentence of 77 months to be reasonable in view of the 5 considerations expressed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).” App. 59. The district court recognized that Gomez-Fonseca was a repeat offender who “did not seem to be deterred by prior deportations.” Id. at 44. The court considered, and ultimately rejected, the argument that the criminal history level exaggerated the seriousness of his prior convictions. Given this record, the sentence of 77 months was reasonable. It was at the lowend of the advisory guideline range. Although the court was not confined to that range, it was not obligated to venture outside of it as Gomez-Fonseca’s argument suggests. C. The district court’s denial of a downward departure. In a related argument, Gomez-Fonseca contends that the district court erred by not granting him a downward departure because his criminal history level over-represented the seriousness of his past crimes. Pre-Booker, we had no jurisdiction to review a district court’s discretionary refusal to depart downward. See, e.g., United States v. Denardi, 892 F.2d 269, 272 (3d Cir. 1989). We recently held that the Supreme Court’s decision in Booker “does not compel us to reverse this precedent.” United States v. Cooper, 437 F.3d 324, 333 (3d Cir. 2006). Here, it is clear that the district court was well aware that it had the authority to depart downward. It did not choose to do so. D. The separate sentence for violating supervised release. Gomez-Fonseca argues that the additional sentence of six months for the supervised release violation punished him twice for the same offense. That argument ignores that his illegal reentry was a new criminal conviction and also violated the 6 previously imposed term of supervised release. It would be a novel principle of law that precluded a court from sentencing a recidivist for a new crime as well as for the violation of any probation, parole, or supervised release that the criminal conduct may have violated.