Court Opinion

ID: 9930517
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-07 01:00:38.350571+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:19:04.005338
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-10142        Document: 00517057872             Page: 1      Date Filed: 02/06/2024

             United States Court of Appeals
                  for the Fifth Circuit
                                     ____________                             United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                       Fifth Circuit

                                       No. 23-10142
                                                                                     FILED
                                                                               February 6, 2024
                                     ____________
                                                                                 Lyle W. Cayce
   United States of America,                                                          Clerk

                                                                      Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                            versus

   Joe Luis Guzman,

                                              Defendant—Appellant.
                     ______________________________

                     Appeal from the United States District Court
                         for the Northern District of Texas
                               USDC No. 4:16-CR-91-1
                     ______________________________

   Before Stewart, Clement, and Ho, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam: *
         Joe Luis Guzman appeals his 24-month revocation sentence. Because
   Guzman has not shown plain error in the district court’s decision, we
   AFFIRM.
                                               I.
         On June 3, 2021, Guzman began a three-year term of supervised
   release after four years of federal incarceration. A condition of Guzman’s
         _____________________
         *
             This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 23-10142      Document: 00517057872          Page: 2   Date Filed: 02/06/2024

                                    No. 23-10142

   release was that he “not commit another federal, state, or local crime.” But
   less than two months after his release, Guzman was named as a suspect for
   assault with a deadly weapon. According to police records, on July 25, 2021,
   Guzman broke into the residence of his ex-girlfriend—who was pregnant
   with his child—and repeatedly punched, kicked, and pistol-whipped her,
   pointed a gun at her head, and threatened to kill her. Then, on or about
   August 12, 2021, Guzman again broke into his ex-girlfriend’s home, but she
   was not there. So, Guzman sent her text messages with photos of himself
   inside the home and threatened to harm her and burn the residence to the
   ground. Guzman was arrested while trying to flee the premises. The door to
   the house had been kicked in, and a red gas can was found perched on a
   window ledge.
          Based on these events, Guzman’s probation officer petitioned for a
   violator’s warrant. And based on Guzman’s August actions, Guzman was
   named in a three-count indictment in Texas state court for (1) burglary of a
   habitation with intent to commit arson, (2) assault with a deadly weapon, and
   (3) burglary of a habitation with intent to commit assault. In November 2022,
   Guzman pled guilty to a reduced charge of burglary of a habitation—a
   second-degree felony—on count three of the indictment. He was sentenced
   to five years in prison, and the State agreed to waive prosecution on the other
   two counts of the indictment. Guzman’s federal probation officer filed an
   addendum to the petition in December 2022 updating the federal district
   court on Guzman’s guilty plea.
          Guzman’s revocation hearing occurred on February 2, 2023 and
   proceeded as follows. To start the hearing, the district court asked the
   government to clarify whether it was “proceeding on both the petition and
   the addendum,” to which the government responded that the petition and
   addendum “came out of the same course of conduct in one single incident.”
   It appears that this statement was incorrect. As explained above, the petition

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                                    No. 23-10142

   concerned two separate incidents—the July 25 assault and the August 12
   burglary—while the addendum concerned only the latter event. Moreover,
   the facts surrounding the August 12 burglary were laid out solely in the
   petition; the addendum stated only that Guzman had pled guilty to burglary
   of a habitation. Nonetheless, based on the government’s statement, the
   district court asked, “So we can proceed then only on the addendum?” to
   which the government responded, “Yes.” The court then asked Guzman
   how he pled to the allegation that he “violated a state law of burglary of a
   habitation, in violation of Texas Penal Code Section 30.02(c)(2), a second
   degree felony,” and Guzman pled “True.” When the court asked the
   government if it had anything else to present to the court, the government
   responded, “Nothing in addition to the addendum” but noted that “the
   underlying offense conduct [was] extraordinarily violent.” The court
   sentenced Guzman to 24 months in prison, Guzman’s counsel stated that she
   had no objections, and the hearing was adjourned. Guzman now appeals his
   revocation sentence.
                                         II.
          Because Guzman did not object to his revocation sentence below, we
   review only for plain error. United States v. Fuentes, 906 F.3d 322, 325 (5th
   Cir. 2018). To satisfy this “difficult” standard, Guzman bears the burden of
   demonstrating (1) “an error” (2) that is “clear or obvious, rather than subject
   to reasonable dispute” and (3) that affected Guzman’s “substantial rights,”
   which means it “affected the outcome of the district court proceedings.”
   Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 135 (2009) (citations and quotation
   marks omitted). Even if Guzman satisfies all three prongs, we have “the
   discretion to remedy the error—discretion which ought to be exercised only
   if the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of
   judicial proceedings.” Id. (cleaned up).

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                                          III.
          The Sentencing Guidelines set forth “three grades of probation and
   supervised release violations.” U.S.S.G. § 7B.1.1(a). As relevant here,
   “Grade A Violations” include “conduct constituting” (1) “a federal, state,
   or local offense punishable by a term of imprisonment exceeding one year
   that [] is a crime of violence,” or (2) “any other federal, state, or local offense
   punishable by a term of imprisonment exceeding twenty years.” Id. §
   7B.1.1(a)(1). “Grade B Violations” are “conduct constituting any other
   federal, state, or local offense punishable by a term of imprisonment
   exceeding one year.” Id. § 7B.1.1(a)(2). For an individual like Guzman with
   a Criminal History Category of IV, the Guidelines call for a revocation
   sentence of 24 to 30 months for a Grade A violation and 12 to 18 months for
   a Grade B violation. U.S.S.G. § 7B.1.4(a).
          Guzman contends that the district court plainly erred because it
   applied a Grade A sentence (24 months) to a Grade B violation (burglary of
   a habitation). To be sure, Guzman pled guilty to a second-degree felony,
   which carries a maximum punishment of 20 years’ incarceration under Texas
   law and would therefore qualify as a Class B violation under the Guidelines.
   See Tex. Penal Code § 12.33(a) (“An individual adjudged guilty of a
   felony of the second degree shall be punished by imprisonment in the Texas
   Department of Criminal Justice for any term of not more than 20 years or less
   than 2 years.”). But “[t]he grade of violation does not depend upon the
   conduct that is the subject of criminal charges or of which the defendant is
   convicted in a criminal proceeding.” U.S.S.G. § 7B.1.1(a) cmt. n.1. “Rather,
   the grade of the violation is to be based on the defendant’s actual conduct.”
   Id. And Guzman’s “actual conduct” constitutes a Grade A violation even
   though he pled to a lesser offense.

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          Guzman does not dispute that his August 2021 conduct, as set out in
   the revocation petition, would constitute a Grade A violation for revocation
   purposes. Instead, Guzman argues that because the government elected to
   proceed only on the addendum, not the petition, none of the facts from the
   petition were properly before the district court and, in any event, they were
   not sufficiently reliable revocation evidence. In Guzman’s view, the district
   court could only base its revocation sentence on the factual information
   contained in the addendum, which stated in full:
          On November 28, 2022, Mr. Guzman appeared before the
          Honorable Mike Thomas in Criminal District Court No. 4,
          Tarrant County, Texas, and pled guilty to the charge of
          Burglary of a Habitation (in violation of Texas Penal Code §
          30.02(c)(2), a Second Degree felony) in Case No. 1696478D.
          Mr. Guzman was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment in the
          Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal
          Justice for the felony offense.
          But plain error exists only when the mistake is “clear or obvious,
   rather than subject to reasonable dispute.” Puckett, 556 U.S. at 135. And here,
   reasonable minds could differ as to the effect of the district court’s exchange
   with the government at the start of the revocation hearing. To be sure,
   Guzman’s suggestion—that the government “chose to proceed on the
   Addendum only at revocation,” abandoning any reliance on the allegations in
   the petition—is one possible interpretation of that colloquy. But another
   reasonable understanding of the discussion is that the government
   considered the petition and addendum to be part-and-parcel, so by telling the
   court it could proceed “only on the addendum,” the government believed it
   was proceeding on Guzman’s guilty plea to burglary of a habitation (as set
   forth in the addendum) including the factual allegations supporting that
   conviction (even though those facts were set forth in the petition). Indeed, it
   appears that the district court was operating under the latter interpretation

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   since the court later stated that it was “adopt[ing] the statements contained
   in the Supervised Release Petition” before finding that Guzman had violated
   his supervised release and sentencing him to 24 months in prison.
          As for Guzman’s argument that the factual information contained in
   the petition was not sufficiently reliable revocation evidence, he again cannot
   show plain error because he has pointed to no binding “precedent directly
   supporting [his] contention.” United States v. Miller, 406 F.3d 323, 330 (5th
   Cir. 2005). Instead, he points to two unpublished decisions: United States v.
   Perez, 460 F. App’x 294 (5th Cir. 2012) and United States v. Standefer, No.
   95-50043, 1996 WL 46805 (5th Cir. Jan. 15, 1996). But we explained in United
   States v. Foley that Perez and Standefer stand only for the proposition that “a
   district court errs when it relies on a bare allegation of a new law violation
   contained in a revocation petition,” i.e., where the petition “refers to the
   mere fact of an arrest—[such as] the date, charge, jurisdiction and
   disposition—without corresponding information about the underlying facts
   or circumstances regarding the defendant’s conduct that led to the arrest.”
   946 F.3d 681, 686–87 (5th Cir. 2020) (emphasis added) (cleaned up). There
   is no plain error where, as here, the petition “contains other indicia of
   reliability, such as the factual underpinnings of the conduct giving rise to the
   arrest.” Id. at 687.
          The bottom line is that Guzman failed to take issue with the way his
   revocation hearing was conducted when he had the chance. The very
   “purpose of plain error review is to instill in litigators the importance of
   preparing adequately before appearing in the trial court and, as necessary,
   clarifying issues to that court. Timely, adequate objections allow the trial
   court to rule in the first instance and, if necessary, correct itself without
   spawning an appeal . . . of [a potential] error that was unwittingly committed,
   because not brought to [the district court’s] attention.” United States v.
   Chavez-Hernandez, 671 F.3d 494, 497 (5th Cir. 2012). Moreover, “[c]lose

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   calls do not cut it for plain-error review” because “[b]y definition, a close call
   cannot be the obvious or plain error a defendant needs to show when
   asserting an error he did not give the district court a chance to fix.” United
   States v. McNabb, 958 F.3d 338, 341 (5th Cir. 2020).
          AFFIRMED.

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