Court Opinion

ID: 2718619
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2014-08-18 21:00:49.847338+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:02:24.646356
License: Public Domain

FILED
                            NOT FOR PUBLICATION                            AUG 18 2014

                                                                        MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                     UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                      U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

                             FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,                        No. 13-50469

               Plaintiff - Appellee,             D.C. No. 3:13-cr-00911-LAB

  v.
                                                 MEMORANDUM*
JULIO ZAMUDIO-DIMAS,

               Defendant - Appellant.

                    Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Southern District of California
                     Larry A. Burns, District Judge, Presiding

                            Submitted August 13, 2014**

Before:        SCHROEDER, THOMAS, and HURWITZ, Circuit Judges.

       Julio Zamudio-Dimas appeals from the district court’s judgment and

challenges the 24-month sentence imposed following his guilty-plea conviction for

attempted reentry of a removed alien, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326. We have

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.

          *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
          **
             The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
      Zamudio-Dimas contends that the district court failed to use the correctly

calculated Guidelines range as an initial benchmark at sentencing because it failed

to grant a fast-track departure under U.S.S.G. § 5K3.1. We disagree. Departures

are not part of the Guidelines calculation, and we do not review the procedural

correctness of the denial of a requested departure. See United States v.

Evans-Martinez, 611 F.3d 635, 643 (9th Cir. 2010) (“[I]t is the pre-departure

Guidelines sentencing range that the district court must correctly calculate.”);

United States v. Ellis, 641 F.3d 411, 421 (9th Cir. 2011) (“In analyzing challenges

to a court’s upward and downward departures . . . under Section 5K, we do not

evaluate them for procedural correctness, but rather, as part of a sentence’s

substantive reasonableness.”). The district court satisfied its procedural obligations

by correctly calculating the Guidelines range without the fast-track departure.

      Zamudio-Dimas also contends that the district court imposed a substantively

unreasonable sentence because it did not grant the fast-track departure. The district

court did not abuse its discretion in imposing Zamudio-Dimas’s sentence. See Gall

v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). The 24-month sentence, in the middle of

the Guidelines range, is substantively reasonable in light of the 18 U.S.C.

§ 3553(a) sentencing factors and the totality of the circumstances, including

Zamudio-Dimas’s extensive history of immigration violations. See id.

      AFFIRMED.

                                           2                                    13-50469