Court Opinion

ID: 9555067
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-10 18:00:41.05363+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:41:05.935086
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-40720        Document: 00516853023             Page: 1      Date Filed: 08/10/2023

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

                                     ____________                                      FILED
                                                                                 August 10, 2023
                                      No. 22-40720                                   Lyle W. Cayce
                                     ____________                                         Clerk

   United States of America,

                                                                     Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                            versus

   Alejandro Recio-Rosas,

                                              Defendant—Appellant.
                     ______________________________

                     Appeal from the United States District Court
                         for the Southern District of Texas
                              USDC No. 7:22-CR-547-1
                     ______________________________

   Before Richman, Chief Judge, and Jones and Ho, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam: *
                                              I.
         Recio-Rosas, a citizen of Mexico, has been deported from the United
   States repeatedly over the past three decades. The list of crimes he has
   committed in the United States is extensive. He has been convicted of two
   felony burglaries. He has been convicted of theft multiple times, on dates
   ranging from 1995 to 2016. He has been convicted of assault—for domestic

         _____________________
         *
             This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-40720      Document: 00516853023           Page: 2    Date Filed: 08/10/2023

                                     No. 22-40720

   violence toward a woman.        This is not to mention his other assorted
   convictions, ranging from a false claim of U.S. citizenship, to tampering with
   a government record, to evading arrest, and beyond.
          Most recently, Recio-Rosas pleaded guilty to illegally reentering the
   United States after a prior deportation, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326. At
   the time of this offense, Recio-Rosas was 51 years old, but had only spent one
   year of his adult life in Mexico, his country of citizenship.
          Under the Sentencing Guidelines, Recio-Rosas’s recommended
   range spanned from 3 years and 10 months (46 months) to 4 years and 9
   months (57 months). But “[c]onsidering the need to promote respect for the
   law and to deter further criminal conduct,” and in light of Recio-Rosas’s
   extensive criminal history, the district court sentenced Recio-Rosas to 6 years
   (72 months).
          Recio-Rosas now challenges his sentence as procedurally and
   substantively unreasonable. As Recio-Rosas concedes, the district court
   correctly calculated the Guidelines range as 46 to 57 months. He nonetheless
   objects to the upward departure from the Guidelines range.
          Although Recio-Rosas raises other objections to that upward
   departure, he chiefly objects to two misstatements by the district judge: (1)
   During the spoken sentencing colloquy, the district judge remarked:
   “Altogether I counted six—six theft offenses, you know.” Yet, with the two
   burglaries excluded, Recio-Rosas was only convicted of four theft offenses.
   (2) Likewise, the district judge remarked: “You violate your probation.
   Because even though you’re deported, you come right back. And you end up
   having to serve a sentence of seven years in connection with that case.” But,
   although Recio-Rosas was sentenced to 7 years for that offense, he did not
   ultimately serve the entire 7-year sentence.
          We reject Recio-Rosas’s challenges. We thus affirm his sentence.

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                                         II.
          As Recio-Rosas concedes, he failed to raise his procedural
   reasonableness challenge in district court. So we review the procedural
   reasonableness of the sentence for plain error. See United States v. Coto-
   Mendoza, 986 F.3d 583, 585 (5th Cir. 2021) (“[I]f the defendant failed to
   object to a procedural error, we review only for plain error.”).
          Plain error review has four prongs. See Puckett v. United States, 556
   U.S. 129, 135 (2009). There must be (1) an error that (2) is clear or obvious,
   that (3) has affected the appellant’s substantial rights, and that also
   (4) “seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial
   proceedings.” Id.
          The Government concedes that the district court mistakenly counted
   six prior theft convictions when there were only four, and mistakenly
   suggested that Recio-Rosas had served 7 years for a 1991 vehicle burglary
   conviction, when he actually served 10 months of the 7-year sentence. These,
   the Government admits, were obvious errors.
          Yet the Government argues, and we agree, these misstatements did
   not affect Recio-Rosas’s substantial rights. Nor did they impugn the fairness,
   integrity, or reputation of the proceedings.
                                         A.
          We conclude that the two isolated misstatements did not affect Recio-
   Rosas’s substantial rights. The two misstatements were unimportant and did
   not form the basis of the district court’s decision to depart upward from the
   Guidelines range.
          In sentencing Recio-Rosas, the district court detailed his extensive
   criminal history—and did so accurately, apart from the two conceded
   misstatements. Although he had been deported in March 2021, he illegally

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   re-entered in March 2022. Recio-Rosas had, at various points, committed
   theft, evaded arrest, tampered with government records, and committed
   assault. Moreover, when Recio-Rosas had initially entered the country at age
   twenty, he immediately committed burglary of a vehicle. The district judge
   went on to explain:
          I believe, considering all the 3553(a) factors, that it is necessary to
          sentence you to something above the Guideline range. Because
          looking at the history here, you have, throughout the period of time
          that you have been in our country, engaged in conduct that has landed
          you before a Court.
          You have numerous convictions here. And even, despite a sentence
          of 70 months for a reentry charge, as well as a sentence of 63 months,
          here you are once again.
          I believe it would send the wrong message to sentence you to
          something less than the 63 months. The Court believes it is necessary
          to sentence you to something more than that. Considering the need
          to promote respect for the law and to deter further criminal conduct,
          I am going to sentence you to a term of 72 months in custody.
          The district court also adequately explained its variance from the
   Guidelines in its written statement of reasons:
          The Court found that a variance above the guideline imprisonment
          range was warranted due to the defendant’s continued disregard of
          the law. Specifically, while in the U.S. the defendant has continued to
          engage in criminal conduct and has two prior illegal reentry
          convictions.
   The two misstatements that Recio-Rosas highlights simply did not affect the
   district court’s bottom-line conclusion.

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            Moreover, these misstatements go more to style than to substance.
   The district court imprecisely referred to Recio-Rosas’s six theft convictions:
   “Altogether I counted six—six theft offenses, you know.” But this was likely
   just a colloquial way of adding his four theft convictions to his two burglary
   convictions.
            Many English speakers do not carefully distinguish between “theft”
   and “burglary.” Cf. Merriam-Webster Thesaurus, s.v. theft (listing
   “burglary” as a synonym of “theft”); id. s.v. burglary (listing “theft” as a
   synonym of “burglary”). District judges are not necessarily any different,
   especially when, as here, they are speaking rather than writing. Substantial
   rights don’t require linguistic pedantry.
            Similarly, the district court’s misstatement about the 7 years did not
   go to Recio-Rosas’s substantial rights. “You violate your probation. Because
   even though you’re deported, you come right back. And you end up having
   to serve a sentence of seven years in connection with that case.” The
   imprecision was that, although Recio-Rosas was sentenced to 7 years, he only
   served part of that time.
            Taken in its colloquial context, however, the district judge’s
   statement need not literally mean that Recio-Rosas spent 7 years in prison.
   When he was originally sentenced, he was told he would “have[] to” serve 7
   years.    And the history of repeated violations—“even though you’re
   deported, you come right back”—is what’s important to the district court’s
   analysis, not the precise length of the sentence initially given or ultimately
   served.
            Circuit precedent is also clear that these isolated misstatements did
   not affect Recio-Rosas’s substantial rights. In United States v. Johnson, 943
   F.3d 735 (5th Cir. 2019), the district judge made a misstatement during
   sentencing: “In 2006 . . . you had dope and you were carrying a weapon.” Id.

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   at 739. Yet the record showed that the 2006 arrest was for unlawfully
   carrying a gun in a school zone, with no apparent drug involvement. Id. at
   740. The panel held that this “single misstatement, when considered in the
   context of the record as a whole, did not affect Johnson’s substantial rights.”
   Id. This was especially so given that the district court “relied on and adopted
   the [Presentencing Report], which correctly reflects that Johnson’s 2006
   conviction was only gun-related.” Id. at 739.
          Similarly here, the isolated misstatements do not affect Recio-Rosas’s
   substantial rights when considered against his extensive criminal record.
   And there’s no reason to think that the misstatements were anything more
   than that—isolated misstatements—given that the district court expressly
   adopted the Presentencing Report. As incorporated into the district court’s
   statement of reasons, the Presentencing Report accurately summarized
   Recio-Rosas’s criminal history.
          We conclude that the two isolated misstatements Recio-Rosas points
   to did not affect his substantial rights.
                                           B.
          Although that is enough to reject Recio-Rosas’s procedural
   reasonableness challenge to his sentence, we also conclude that Recio-Rosas
   fails on the fourth prong of plain error review. The misstatements do not
   seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial
   proceedings. As the Government argues, Recio-Rosas’s extensive three-
   decade criminal history amply warrants the 6-year sentence, which departs
   upward from the maximum Guidelines sentence by just 1 year and 3 months.
          Because Recio-Rosas fails on both the third and the fourth prongs of
   plain error review, we reject his procedural reasonableness challenge to his
   sentence.

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                                        III.
          Recio-Rosas also challenges the substantive unreasonableness of the
   sentence.   As the Government concedes, Recio-Rosas preserved this
   objection in district court. Still, we review the substantive reasonableness of
   the sentence only for abuse of discretion. See Gall v. United States, 552 U.S.
   38, 51 (2007). “Appellate review of the substantive reasonableness of a
   sentence is highly deferential.” United States v. Hoffman, 901 F.3d 523, 554
   (5th Cir. 2018) (cleaned up).
          Recio-Rosas argues that the sentence is substantively unreasonable
   because it overweighs—or double-counts—his criminal history, which was
   already factored into the Guidelines calculation. This argument is foreclosed
   by precedent. United States v. Zarco-Beiza, 24 F.4th 477, 480 (5th Cir. 2022)
   (“[W]e have rejected the contention that the district court may not rely on
   factors already encompassed within the guidelines to support a non-
   guidelines sentence.”) (cleaned up); United States v. Key, 599 F.3d 469, 475
   (5th Cir. 2010) (“[G]iving extra weight to circumstances already
   incorporated in the guidelines . . . is within the discretion of the sentencing
   court.”)
          Recio-Rosas also contends that the sentence is substantively
   unreasonable because his criminal history included a past sentence that had
   been inflated by a now-obsolete enhancement. Yet Recio-Rosas cites no
   authority, and we are aware of none, establishing that a district court may not
   consider a sentence that resulted from a subsequently-abolished
   enhancement. We therefore reject this argument.
          Finally, Recio-Rosas contends that the sentence is substantively
   unreasonable because it is outside of the norm for illegal reentry offenders.
   But this argument is foreclosed by precedent. See United States v. Hernandez,
   633 F.3d 370, 379 (5th Cir. 2011) (“[A]n argument premised primarily on

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   sentencing disparity is insufficient to render a sentence substantively
   unreasonable.”).
          And we have previously affirmed the substantive reasonableness of a
   72-month sentence for illegal re-entry. See United States v. Lopez-Velasquez,
   526 F.3d 804, 807 (5th Cir. 2008) (“[The criminal defendant] has not shown
   his seventy-two-month sentence is substantively unreasonable.”).         We
   conclude that this sentence was substantively reasonable, as well.
                                       ***
          We accordingly affirm the sentence.

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