Court Opinion

ID: 9925449
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-19 21:01:14.589199+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:46.975049
License: Public Domain

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
                               File Name: 24a0024n.06

                                    Case Nos. 23-1180/1183

                           UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT                                FILED
                                                                                   Jan 19, 2024
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,                     )                           KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk
                                               )
        Plaintiff - Appellee,                  )
                                               )     ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
 v.                                            )     STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
                                               )     EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
 MOISES JESUS MACARIO-RAMIREZ,                 )
        Defendant - Appellant.                 )                                     OPINION
                                               )
                                               )

BEFORE: GIBBONS, WHITE, and THAPAR, Circuit Judges.

       JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge. Moises Jesus Macario-Ramirez pled guilty to

one count of illegal reentry under 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) and received a bottom-of-the-guidelines

sentence of thirty-seven months’ imprisonment.      Macario-Ramirez appeals that sentence as

substantively unreasonable, contending that the district court improperly weighed the

18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) sentencing factors, providing too much weight to the negative aspects of

Macario-Ramirez’s criminal history and the need for a sentence of deterrence, while providing too

little weight to the mitigating circumstances, such as Macario-Ramirez’s impoverished upbringing

and status as the sole breadwinner for his family. Because the district court did not abuse its

discretion in balancing the § 3553(a) factors as applied to Macario-Ramirez, we affirm.

                                               I.

       Moises Jesus Macario-Ramirez is a Guatemalan national who has been in and out of the

United States without proper documentation for at least the past decade. Macario-Ramirez came

to the United States after growing up in extreme poverty in Guatemala. At age twelve, Macario-
Nos. 23-1180/1183, United States v. Macario-Ramirez

Ramirez began work as a field laborer to support his family. Since coming to the United States,

Macario-Ramirez has held various jobs to support his wife and young daughter in Indiana as well

as his family back in Guatemala.

       Since his initial entry, Macario-Ramirez has also garnered repeated interactions with law

enforcement. Authorities first apprehended Macario-Ramirez at nineteen years-old in 2010 after

witnessing him driving erratically. Macario-Ramirez failed a sobriety test on the scene and

admitted to being intoxicated. He then pled guilty to reckless driving and driving without a license.

The next year, Macario-Ramirez was again arrested after handing police forged identification

papers during a traffic stop—resulting in two felony charges. Macario-Ramirez skipped the

preliminary hearing in connection with these offenses and was subsequently charged with bail

jumping. After pleading guilty to each charge, Macario-Ramirez served two years in prison and

was deported to Guatemala in 2015.1

       Macario-Ramirez returned to the United States soon after and continued to accumulate

traffic and substance-related charges. In 2018, for example, Macario-Ramirez pled guilty to

driving without a license after police responded to an accident. And in 2020, Macario-Ramirez

was arrested for public intoxication at a fashion mall. After the arrest, law enforcement discovered

that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) had placed a hold on Macario-Ramirez and

later transported him to ICE custody, from which he was deported from the United States for a

second time.

       Not long after, Macario-Ramirez again crossed into the United States and was deported for

the third time in 2021 after serving six months’ imprisonment for an illegal reentry charge in

1
  Prior to his first deportation, Macario-Ramirez had also been arrested for other driving and
intoxication-related offenses under other names. Some of these charges were later dismissed, but
the dispositions of others are unclear from the record.
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Nos. 23-1180/1183, United States v. Macario-Ramirez

Arizona. This charge also subjected Macario-Ramirez to a thirty-six-month term of supervised

release, which prohibited Macario-Ramirez from committing another federal, state, or local crime,

and from entering the United States without legal authorization.

       Undeterred, Macario-Ramirez reentered the United States again sometime in 2022 and was

apprehended for the current offense. He encountered customs officers in Port Huron, Michigan

after being denied entry into Canada. During this encounter, Macario-Ramirez admitted to being

in the United States illegally. Macario-Ramirez subsequently pled guilty to unlawful reentry under

8 U.S.C. § 1326(a). At the same time, Macario-Ramirez pled guilty to violating two conditions of

his supervised release established from his previous illegal reentry conviction.2 The district court

sentenced Macario-Ramirez to six months on the supervised release violation to run concurrent

with his pending illegal reentry sentence.

       At sentencing, both parties agreed that the applicable Guidelines range for Macario-

Ramirez’s illegal reentry conviction was thirty-seven to forty-six months. The parties diverged,

however, on the appropriate sentence. The government requested that the court sentence at the top

of the range with a forty-six-month sentence, while Macario-Ramirez requested that the court

sentence him to time-served, or, alternatively, to nine months. After ensuring that neither party

had objections to the information within the presentence report, the district court allowed the

government, defense, and then Macario-Ramirez himself, to speak. Macario-Ramirez expressed

regret for his previous infractions and resolved to “do things in the right way” going forward. DE

25, Sentencing Hr’g Tr., Page ID 126.

2
 Jurisdiction over the supervised release violations garnered by Macario-Ramirez’s new federal
offense was transferred from the District of Arizona to the Eastern District of Michigan.
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Nos. 23-1180/1183, United States v. Macario-Ramirez

       After the allocution, the district court conveyed its understanding of the case. The district

court began with Macario-Ramirez’s criminal history. The district court highlighted Macario-

Ramirez’s repeated interactions with law enforcement in the United States, noting that he often

came into contact with immigration authorities “because of some illegal act [Macario-Ramirez]

did.” Id. While these acts were not major, they did put others at risk. Specifically, the district

court emphasized the dangers presented by Macario-Ramirez’s history of drunk driving, stating

that it put “citizens at risk, other drivers at risk, [and] police officers at risk.” Id. This criminal

history and Macario-Ramirez’s history of reentry, the court reasoned, rendered a sentence of time-

served inappropriate.

       Next, the district court acknowledged Macario-Ramirez’s difficult upbringing in

Guatemala. The court described the poverty Macario-Ramirez faced as “horrible,” and recognized

that Macario-Ramirez “tried to help [his wife and daughter] out as much as [he] could.” Id. at

Page ID 127–28. But the district court deemed these circumstances not to excuse repeated

violations of the law. The district court highlighted that that Macario-Ramirez’s upbringing was

“similar to lots of people that have come over.” Id. at Page ID 127. Furthermore, the court

reminded Macario-Ramirez that he had been given light sentences for his previous convictions,

and that his repeated reentry demonstrated that such sentences had neither instilled in Macario-

Ramirez respect for the law nor provided adequate deterrence.

       After explicitly citing the § 3553(a) factors, the district court sentenced Macario-Ramirez

to thirty-seven months’ imprisonment to run concurrently with the six-month sentence for the

supervised release violation, which the district court described as “a break.” Id. at Page ID 130,

133. That sentence would be followed by two years of supervised release, which the district court

warned Macario-Ramirez meant that he could not return to the United States without authorization

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Nos. 23-1180/1183, United States v. Macario-Ramirez

during that time. Macario-Ramirez appealed his sentence on both the supervised release and illegal

reentry cases soon after.

                                                 II.

       On appeal, Macario-Ramirez challenges his sentence as substantively unreasonable. We

review sentencing decisions “under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.” Gall v. United

States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007). On appellate review, within-guidelines sentences also enjoy a

presumption of reasonableness. United States v. Vonner, 516 F.3d 382, 389 (6th Cir. 2008) (en

banc). Nonetheless, a “sentence may be substantively unreasonable if the district court chooses

the sentence arbitrarily, grounds the sentence on impermissible factors, or unreasonably weighs a

pertinent factor.” United States v. Adkins, 729 F.3d 559, 563–64 (6th Cir. 2013) (quoting United

States v. Brooks, 628 F.3d 791, 796 (6th Cir. 2011)). The reviewing court’s role is to examine

“whether the sentence is reasonable,” not whether we would have imposed the same sentence in

the first instance. Id. at 571 (quoting United States v. Ely, 468 F.3d 399, 404 (6th Cir. 2006)).

                                                III.

       Macario-Ramirez primarily contends that the district court abused its discretion by putting

too much weight on some factors, like the need for his sentence to instill respect for the law and

provide adequate deterrence, and not enough on others, such as the nonviolent nature of his

criminal history as well as his troubled upbringing and strong family ties. First, Macario-Ramirez

contends that the Guidelines range of thirty-seven to forty-six months, while calculated correctly,

overstates the seriousness of the instant offense, and thus the district court erred by giving

“unreasonably high negative weight to the [G]uidelines.” Appellant Br., at 11–12. Indeed, other

courts have acknowledged that old convictions may drive up the Guidelines range in a manner that

makes the range inappropriately high under the circumstances. See United States v. Amezcua-

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Nos. 23-1180/1183, United States v. Macario-Ramirez

Vasquez, 567 F.3d 1050, 1055–56 (9th Cir. 2009) (deeming enhancement based on an over twenty-

year-old conviction for crime of violence unreasonable under the circumstances where defendant

did not commit any like crimes thereafter); cf. United States v. Calderon-Minchola, 351 F. App’x

610, 611–12 (3d Cir. 2009) (deeming seventeen-month below-Guidelines sentence unreasonable

based on the record in part because criminal history relied on unrelated, minor crime committed

years prior). Macario-Ramirez argues that this is such a case because his Guidelines range was

driven up by his nearly decade-old forged instrument convictions. Given this circumstance,

Macario-Ramirez argues that even a sentence at the bottom of the Guidelines range is “greater than

necessary” to achieve the sentencing goals articulated in § 3553(a). United States v. Tristan-

Madrigal, 601 F.3d 629, 632–33 (6th Cir. 2010) (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)).

       Here, however, Macario-Ramirez’s Guidelines range was not unreasonably high because

Macario-Ramirez’s convictions for possession of forged identification documents, although

somewhat old, related to Macario-Ramirez’s history of residence in the United States without

proper documentation. Thus, the offenses were not “unrepresentative of [Macario Ramirez’s]

characteristics during the past many years;” rather, they comported with the conduct resulting in

the illegal reentry offense at issue. Cf. Amezcua-Vasquez, 567 F.3d at 1056 (predicate convictions

“were very old and unrepresentative” of the defendant’s characteristics in the decades since);

Calderon-Minchola, 351 F. App’x at 612 (criminal history relied on by district court entailed

decades-old count for theft of sunglasses valued at less than $20).

       Similarly, the district court did not give the Guidelines unreasonable weight in fashioning

Macario-Ramirez’s sentence. Rather, the district court thoroughly reviewed Macario-Ramirez’s

history and characteristics, specifically his criminal history and the circumstances of his

upbringing and family situation, among other things, in coming to an appropriate sentence. The

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Nos. 23-1180/1183, United States v. Macario-Ramirez

district court specifically recognized that Macario-Ramirez’s criminal history did not reflect the

commission of “major” crimes. DE 25, Sentencing Hr’g Tr., Page ID 126. Nonetheless, the

district court did not act unreasonably in determining that Macario-Ramirez’s history of alcohol-

and driving-related offenses created a danger to the public. See Tristan-Madrigal, 601 F.3d at

633–34 (deeming sentencing judge’s emphasis on the dangerousness presented by a history of

drunk driving reasonable even though the past offenses did not actually result in injuries to others);

18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(C) (citing the need “to protect the public”).

       Additionally, the court addressed Macario-Ramirez’s recidivism with respect to the crime

at issue—unlawful reentry. Although Macario-Ramirez expressed his resolve to comply with the

law in the future, the court highlighted its concerns that previous sentences and deportations had

not sufficiently deterred Macario-Ramirez from reentering the United States without proper

documentation. These concerns are far from unfounded and are not ameliorated by Macario-

Ramirez’s prospect of deportation after this sentence since he has thrice returned to the United

States after deportation. See Tristan-Madrigal, 601 F.3d at 634–35 (upward departure to thirty-

six months’ imprisonment reasonable in part because defendant’s history of four unauthorized

reentries over an eight-year period supported the district court’s “concern that [the defendant]

would likely reoffend if not incarcerated for a time period greater than the top of the recommended

Guidelines range”).

       For similar reasons, we reject Macario-Ramirez’s argument that the district court abused

its discretion in ascribing too little weight to Macario-Ramirez’s upbringing, strong family ties,

and role as the primary financial provider for his family. The record demonstrates that the district

court did adequately consider relevant mitigating factors. The district court acknowledged that it

read and “appreciate[d]” the letter written by Macario-Ramirez’s wife, that it recognized the

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Nos. 23-1180/1183, United States v. Macario-Ramirez

challenges wrought by his upbringing in Guatemala, and that it understood that Macario-Ramirez

had a wife and young daughter whom he loved and for whom he provided financially. DE 25,

Sentencing Hr’g Tr., Page ID 121, 127–30. The district court did not act unreasonably, however,

in determining that the need for deterrence and respect for the law evinced by Macario-Ramirez’s

criminal history and repeated reentry outweighed the mitigating aspects of his history and

circumstances. See United States v. Sanchez-Mercado, 409 F. App’x 879, 882 (6th Cir. 2011)

(rejecting substantive reasonableness challenge to thirty-seven-month sentence in unlawful reentry

case for defendant with record of previous removal and substance-related convictions based on

district court’s alleged failure to give sufficient weight to defendant’s family situation and

employment record); Adkins, 729 F.3d at 571–72 (no substantive unreasonableness where district

court adequately considered defendant’s family circumstances).

                                               IV.

       Given this analysis, Macario-Ramirez’s arguments are “insufficient to justify our

disturbing the reasoned judgment of the district court.” United States v. Trejo-Martinez, 481 F.3d

409, 413 (6th Cir. 2007). Accordingly, we affirm.

                                              -8-