Court Opinion

ID: 9899110
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-15 21:00:37.457482+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:42.338578
License: Public Domain

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                                            UNPUBLISHED

                               UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                              No. 22-4292

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                            Plaintiff - Appellee,

                     v.

        FELICIANO DE JESUS DIAZ-MARTINEZ, a/k/a Alex,

                            Defendant - Appellant.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore.
        Ellen Lipton Hollander, Senior District Judge. (1:19-cr-00358-ELH-1)

        Submitted: January 31, 2023                                 Decided: November 14, 2023

        Before RICHARDSON and RUSHING, Circuit Judges, and TRAXLER, Senior Circuit
        Judge.

        Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

        ON BRIEF: Brent E. Newton, Gaithersburg, Maryland, for Appellant. Erek L. Barron,
        United States Attorney, Mary W. Setzer, P. Michael Cunningham, Assistant United States
        Attorneys, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Baltimore, Maryland, for
        Appellee.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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        PER CURIAM:

                  A jury convicted Feliciano De Jesus Diaz-Martinez of sex trafficking of a minor, in

        violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a), (b)(2), (c); enticement of a minor to engage in

        prostitution, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b); seven counts of sex trafficking by force,

        fraud, or coercion, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a), (b)(1); conspiracy to distribute and

        possess with intent to distribute controlled substances, in violation of 21 U.S.C.

        §§ 841(b)(1)(C), 846; and two counts of possession with intent to distribute controlled

        substances, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). The district court sentenced Diaz-

        Martinez to a downward variant sentence of 324 months’ imprisonment. Diaz-Martinez

        appeals, arguing that the nonmandatory conditions of supervised release contained in his

        written judgment do not conform to those announced at sentencing and that the district

        court failed to properly account for the time he spent in Immigration and Customs

        Enforcement (ICE) custody in fashioning its sentence. For the reasons that follow, we

        affirm.

                  We review “all sentences—whether inside, just outside, or significantly outside the

        Guidelines range—under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.” United States v.

        Torres-Reyes, 952 F.3d 147, 151 (4th Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks omitted). We

        first must “ensure that the district court committed no significant procedural error,” such

        as improperly calculating the Sentencing Guidelines range, insufficiently considering the

        18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, or inadequately explaining the selected sentence. United

        States v. Fowler, 948 F.3d 663, 668 (4th Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks omitted). “If

        the sentence is procedurally sound, we then consider its substantive reasonableness under

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        a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.” United States v. Williams, 5 F.4th 500, 510

        (4th Cir. 2021) (internal quotation marks omitted). “Any sentence that is within or below

        a properly calculated Guidelines range is presumptively [substantively] reasonable,” and

        that “presumption can only be rebutted by showing that the sentence is unreasonable when

        measured against the . . . § 3553(a) factors.” United States v. Louthian, 756 F.3d 295, 306

        (4th Cir. 2014).

               Diaz-Martinez argues that his sentence is unreasonable because the district court did

        not properly account for his time spent in ICE custody during his pretrial detention in

        fashioning his sentence. However, in discussing this issue, the district court merely noted

        that the Bureau of Prisons makes the final decision as to what credit an inmate receives

        toward his sentence, a correct statement of law. See United States v. Wilson, 503 U.S. 329,

        333 (1992) (explaining that computation of prior custody credit “must occur after the

        defendant begins his sentence,” so a district court cannot award such credit at sentencing).

        Furthermore, although the court included the time-served credit in the judgment, it

        correctly acknowledged that Diaz-Martinez ultimately “may or may not get credit from

        that date.” (J.A. 99). * Finally, the court generally discussed Diaz-Martinez’s otherwise

        “unusually long” pretrial detention and the unique challenges posed by this lengthy

        detention, suggesting that the court accounted for Diaz-Martinez’s entire pretrial detention

        when deciding to vary below the advisory Guidelines range. (J.A. 99-100). Accordingly,

               *
                   “J.A.” refers to the joint appendix filed by the parties in this appeal.

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        we discern no abuse of discretion in the district court’s consideration of this sentencing

        argument.

               We further conclude that the district court’s explanation of Diaz-Martinez’s

        sentence otherwise reflects a clear and thorough consideration of the § 3553(a) factors and

        the parties’ arguments and that Diaz-Martinez otherwise fails to rebut the presumption of

        reasonableness afforded his below-Guidelines sentence. Accordingly, his sentence is both

        procedurally and substantively reasonable.

               In addition to the procedural and substantive requirements of sentencing, “a district

        court must orally pronounce all non-mandatory conditions of supervised release at the

        sentencing hearing.” United States v. Singletary, 984 F.3d 341, 344 (4th Cir. 2021).

        “Discretionary conditions that appear for the first time in a subsequent written judgment

        . . . are nullities; the defendant has not been sentenced to those conditions, and a remand

        for resentencing is required.” Id. (citing United States v. Rogers, 961 F.3d 291, 295, 300-

        01 (4th Cir. 2020)). We review de novo whether the sentence imposed in the written

        judgment is consistent with the district court’s oral pronouncement of the sentence. United

        States v. Cisson, 33 F.4th 185, 193 (4th Cir. 2022). That is, we “compare[] the sentencing

        transcript with the written judgment to determine whether an error occurred as a matter of

        law.” Rogers, 961 F.3d at 296 (internal quotation marks omitted).

               At the sentencing hearing, the district court began by adopting the mandatory and

        standard conditions contained in the presentence report (PSR). The court then announced

        that it was adopting four of the special conditions set forth in the PSR, and the written

        descriptions of the special conditions included in the written judgment match the language

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        of the corresponding recommended conditions in the PSR. Any variation in the court’s

        oral pronouncement of these conditions did not amount to a meaningful modification of

        the conditions but rather a justification for their inclusion. Furthermore, to the extent that

        “the precise contours of an oral sentence are ambiguous, we may look to the written

        judgment to clarify the district court’s intent.” Rogers, 961 F.3d at 299. Given that Diaz-

        Martinez had notice of the proposed special conditions through the PSR, the adopted

        conditions matched those in the PSR, and any potential ambiguity in the oral sentence was

        clarified in the written judgment, we conclude that there was no Rogers error.

               We therefore affirm the district court’s judgment. We dispense with oral argument

        because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this

        court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

                                                                                         AFFIRMED

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