Court Opinion

ID: 9944417
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-26 17:00:51.858554+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:59:25.749589
License: Public Domain

Appellate Case: 23-2074     Document: 010111005278      Date Filed: 02/26/2024    Page: 1
                                                                                 FILED
                                                                     United States Court of Appeals
                       UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                        Tenth Circuit

                              FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT                        February 26, 2024
                          _________________________________
                                                                         Christopher M. Wolpert
                                                                             Clerk of Court
  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

        Plaintiff - Appellee,

  v.                                                         No. 23-2074
                                                   (D.C. No. 2:22-CR-01552-MIS-1)
  YELSON ISAAC RODAS-HERNANDEZ,                                (D. N.M.)

        Defendant - Appellant.
                       _________________________________

                              ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
                          _________________________________

 Before HARTZ, BALDOCK, and ROSSMAN, Circuit Judges.
                   _________________________________

       Defendant Yelson Rodas-Hernandez, a citizen of Honduras, was deported on

 January 12, 2022, after being convicted of assaulting a federal employee. On June 22,

 2022, he was again found in the United States. He pleaded guilty to illegal reentry

 after deportation, see 8 U.S.C. § 1326, and was sentenced to 38 months’

 imprisonment. On appeal he argues that the district court abused its discretion in

       *
         After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
 unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of
 this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore
 ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding
 precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral
 estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R.
 App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1
Appellate Case: 23-2074    Document: 010111005278       Date Filed: 02/26/2024       Page: 2

 varying upward from the guideline sentence and that as a result his sentence was

 substantively unreasonable. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm.

       I.     BACKGROUND

       The presentence investigation report (PSR) assigned Defendant three criminal-

 history points for his assault conviction and an additional two points for committing

 his reentry offense while serving a term of supervised release. His base offense level

 was 8, which was increased by 6 under U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(2)(C) because of his

 assault conviction, and reduced by 2 for pleading guilty. His resulting guideline

 sentencing range was 15 to 21 months.

       At Defendant’s sentencing hearing the district court announced it was

 considering an upward variance “given Mr. Rodas’ criminal history” and invited

 comments from the parties before making any decisions. Aplt. App. at 93. The

 government requested a sentence at the high end of the guideline range. Defense

 counsel asked the court to consider that Defendant’s assault was committed when he

 was only 17. Counsel further noted that Defendant came from one of the most

 dangerous parts of Honduras and had a troubled family life growing up there, that he

 reentered the United States to reunite with his mother, and that deterrence would not

 be served by a higher sentence. When Defendant was given an opportunity to speak,

 the court expressed its concern about the assault he committed. Defendant responded

 that the accusations against him were false, essentially saying that the female victim

 had been pursuing him. Before imposing sentence, the district court said that it had

 considered the statements by Defendant and his attorney and then addressed the

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Appellate Case: 23-2074     Document: 010111005278        Date Filed: 02/26/2024    Page: 3

 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors. It varied above the guidelines, imposing a sentence of 38

 months.

       II.    DISCUSSION

       We first review a short procedural-reasonableness argument made by

 Defendant at the end of his brief on appeal. Defendant contends that “the Court failed

 to address Mr. Rodas’ humanitarian motives for reentrance and the potential

 mitigation that those circumstances carry,” and argues that such a failure to “address

 that portion of Mr. Rodas argument constituted procedural error.” Aplt. Br. at 20. But

 the factual basis of this argument is contradicted by the record. The district court in

 fact did address defense counsel’s short “humanitarian” argument, saying: “I’ve

 considered the arguments regarding why the defendant returned to the country and

 his family problems. I’ve considered the arguments from Defense Counsel about the

 conditions in Honduras and the difficulties the Court faces when trying to deter

 Hondurans from coming to the country.” Aplt. App. at 97–98. This paraphrase of

 Defendant’s argument was more than adequate to show that the district court

 considered the argument.

       Defendant’s principal argument on appeal is that his sentence was not

 substantively reasonable. Substantive reasonableness “concerns whether the length of

 the sentence is reasonable in light of the statutory factors under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).”

 United States v. Adams, 751 F.3d 1175, 1181 (10th Cir. 2014). In assessing a district

 court’s application of these factors, we apply a deferential abuse-of-discretion

 standard. See United States v. Gross, 44 F.4th 1298, 1301 (10th Cir. 2022) “To prove

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Appellate Case: 23-2074     Document: 010111005278        Date Filed: 02/26/2024     Page: 4

 the court abused its discretion, the defendant must show the sentence exceeded the

 bounds of permissible choice, such that the sentence is arbitrary, capricious,

 whimsical, or manifestly unreasonable.” Id. at 1302 (internal quotation marks

 omitted). Although an appellate court may apply a presumption of reasonableness to

 a sentence within the guidelines range, a sentence outside that range is not

 presumptively unreasonable; instead, the reviewing court must “give due deference to

 the district court’s decision that the § 3553(a) factors, on a whole, justify the extent

 of the variance.” Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007).

       Here, the district court gave explicit and reasoned consideration to the

 § 3553(a) factors in explaining Defendant’s sentence. See United States v. Barnes,

 890 F.3d 910, 917 (10th Cir. 2018) (“A sentence is more likely to be within the

 bounds of reasonable choice when the court has provided a cogent and reasonable

 explanation for it.”). 1 Defendant’s arguments ultimately boil down to a disagreement

 with how the district court weighed the factors, noting that the PSR already adjusted

 the base offense level to account for his assault conviction, see Aplt. Br. at 17, and

 that the court’s reliance on a “single instance of criminal conduct, committed when

 [Defendant] was a minor, is insufficient to justify” the sentence imposed, id. at 19.

 But this court does “not examine the weight a district court assigns to various

 § 3553(a) factors, and its ultimate assessment of the balance between them anew.”

       1
         To the extent Defendant argues his sentence is procedurally unreasonable
 because the district court failed to adequately explain its sentencing decision, that
 challenge is meritless.
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Appellate Case: 23-2074    Document: 010111005278        Date Filed: 02/26/2024      Page: 5

 Gross, 44 F.4th at 1305 (internal quotation marks omitted). Further, “district courts

 have broad discretion to consider particular facts in fashioning a sentence under

 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), even when those facts are already accounted for in the advisory

 guidelines range.” Barnes, 890 F.3d at 921 (brackets and internal quotation marks

 omitted).

       We cannot say that the district court’s sentencing decision, reached after

 cogent and reasonable consideration of the § 3553(a) factors, was “arbitrary,

 capricious, whimsical, or manifestly unreasonable.” Gross, 44 F.4th at 1302 (internal

 quotation marks omitted). In light of the district court’s supportable findings

 regarding the seriousness of Defendant’s offense of returning to the United States

 after conviction for a violent crime, the short time between Defendant’s deportation

 and reentry, and the failure of Defendant’s prior 15-month sentence to deter him from

 committing further crimes, the sentence imposed easily satisfies the abuse-of-

 discretion standard.

       We reject Defendant’s substantive-reasonableness challenge to his sentence.

       III.   CONCLUSION

       We AFFIRM Defendant’s sentence.

                                             Entered for the Court

                                             Harris L Hartz
                                             Circuit Judge

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