Court Opinion

ID: 9396085
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-19 15:00:34.869431+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:13.988601
License: Public Domain

22-614
United States v. Garcia
                          UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                              FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

                                   SUMMARY ORDER

Rulings by summary order do not have precedential effect. Citation to a summary order
filed on or after January 1, 2007, is permitted and is governed by Federal Rule of Appellate
Procedure 32.1 and this court’s Local Rule 32.1.1. When citing a summary order in a
document filed with this court, a party must cite either the Federal Appendix or an
electronic database (with the notation “summary order”). A party citing a summary order
must serve a copy of it on any party not represented by counsel.

       At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit,
held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the
City of New York, on the 19th day of May, two thousand twenty-three.

       PRESENT:           Amalya L. Kearse,
                          Dennis Jacobs,
                          Steven J. Menashi,
                                 Circuit Judges.
____________________________________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                 Appellee,

          v.                                                   No. 22-614

WALTER GARCIA, also known as Campi Lnu,

                 Defendant-Appellant.
____________________________________________
For Appellee:                         DANIELLA KUDLA, Assistant United States
                                      Attorney (Danielle R. Sassoon, Assistant
                                      United States Attorney, on the brief), for
                                      Damian Williams, United States Attorney
                                      for the Southern District of New York, New
                                      York, NY.

For Defendant-Appellant:              AVROM ROBIN, Law Offices of London &
                                      Robin, New York, NY.

      Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern
District of New York (Rakoff, J.).

      Upon due consideration, it is hereby ORDERED, ADJUDGED, and
DECREED that the order of the district court is AFFIRMED.

      Defendant-Appellant Walter Garcia appeals the district court’s denial of his
third motion for a sentence reduction. We presume the parties’ familiarity with the
facts and procedural history.

      In 2012, a jury convicted Garcia of kidnapping, kidnapping conspiracy, and
conspiracy to distribute five kilograms of cocaine. Garcia was sentenced to 280
months of incarceration, five years of supervised release, and a special assessment.
Since then, he has moved for a sentence reduction three times. Garcia’s first motion
was filed pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2); the district court denied the motion
because Garcia had not shown that an amendment to the Sentencing Guidelines,
had it been in effect at the time of his sentencing, would have resulted in a lower
Guidelines calculation. Garcia’s second motion was brought under 18 U.S.C.
§ 3582(c)(1)(A); Garcia argued that the pandemic, in conjunction with his age and

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health condition, presented extraordinary circumstances warranting a reduced
sentence. The district court agreed and granted the second motion after consulting
the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors and noting that “the sentence Garcia is now serving
looks materially different from the sentence the Court envisioned.” App’x 99. The
district court reduced Garcia’s sentence by forty months.

      This appeal concerns Garcia’s third motion for a sentence reduction, which
he filed in March 2022. Like the first motion, the third motion was made pursuant
to § 3582(c)(2). In the third motion, Garcia identified no facts that explained why
§ 3553(a) warranted a reduction in sentence as § 3582(c)(2) requires. The district
court denied the third motion, noting that Garcia presented no new facts. But in
so doing, the district court evaluated the third motion under § 3582(c)(1)(A), not
§ 3582(c)(2). Presumably the district court did that because Garcia proceeded pro
se and the argument raised in his first motion—brought pursuant to § 3582(c)(2)—
had been rejected.

      On appeal, Garcia concedes that he was mistaken to file the third motion
pursuant to § 3582(c)(2) and that the district court was correct to evaluate it under
§ 3582(c)(1)(A). The question, then, is whether the district court erred when it
denied the motion under § 3582(c)(1)(A).

      We think it did not. “We review the denial of a motion for compassionate
release for abuse of discretion and underlying matters of statutory interpretation
de novo.” United States v. Halvon, 26 F.4th 566, 569 (2d Cir. 2022). Section
3582(c)(1)(A) requires the district court to “consider[] the factors set forth in section
3553(a) to the extent they are applicable.” 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). We have
recently said that a district court may deny a § 3582(c)(1)(A) motion based solely
on its evaluation of the § 3553(a) factors. United States v. Keitt, 21 F.4th 67, 73 (2d
Cir. 2021) (“[The district court] denied relief solely in light of the § 3553(a) factors.
That was not an error.”).

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         Here, the district court observed that Garcia’s third motion “d[id] not raise
… either any new information or any additional arguments that would change the
Court’s analysis” from when it ruled on the second motion. App’x 121. The district
court therefore “incorporated by reference” its opinion and order resolving the
second motion into the order resolving the third motion. App’x 121. The opinion
resolving the second motion explicitly evaluated the § 3553(a) factors. In effect,
then, the district court denied Garcia’s third motion “in sole reliance on the
applicable § 3553(a) factors,” which is not an abuse of discretion. Keitt, 21 F.4th at
73. On appeal, Garcia identifies no new information that would lead us to conclude
that the district court’s evaluation of the § 3553(a) factors was an abuse of
discretion.

                                     *     *      *

         We have considered Garcia’s remaining arguments, which we conclude are
without merit. For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district
court.

                                         FOR THE COURT:
                                         Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court

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