Court Opinion

ID: 9400629
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-08 18:01:27.531056+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:46.947334
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-10916         Document: 00516778818             Page: 1      Date Filed: 06/08/2023

              United States Court of Appeals
                   for the Fifth Circuit
                                      ____________
                                                                                United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                         Fifth Circuit
                                       No. 22-10916
                                     Summary Calendar                                   FILED
                                     ____________                                     June 8, 2023
                                                                                  Lyle W. Cayce
   United States of America,                                                           Clerk

                                                                       Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                             versus

   Brithany Rodriguez,

                                               Defendant—Appellant.
                      ______________________________

                      Appeal from the United States District Court
                          for the Northern District of Texas
                               USDC No. 3:21-CR-149-1
                      ______________________________

   Before Smith, Southwick, and Douglas, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam: *
          In 2020, Brithany Rodriguez pleaded guilty of conspiracy to transport
   illegal aliens, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1), and was sentenced to 12
   months and one day of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised
   release (“SR”). In July 2022, her probation officer filed a petition to revoke,
   alleging that she had violated her conditions of SR by (1) committing a new
   state crime, (2) possessing and using cocaine, (3) failing to attend outpatient
          _____________________
          *
              This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-10916      Document: 00516778818           Page: 2    Date Filed: 06/08/2023

                                     No. 22-10916

   substance abuse treatment, (4) failing to attend mental health treatment,
   (5) failing to submit to substance abuse testing, (6) being expelled from a
   residential reentry center for failure to submit to substance abuse testing, and
   (7) failing to enroll in a GED program. As to the first allegation, the probation
   officer claimed that Rodriguez had physically assaulted her boyfriend, Aldo
   Martinez.
          At the revocation hearing, Rodriguez pleaded true to allegations 2
   through 7 but contested the first allegation. Despite being served with a sub-
   poena, Martinez did not appear to testify. Instead, the government intro-
   duced the testimony of the two police officers who responded to the assault
   call, as well as their body camera videos, the police report, Martinez’s sworn
   affidavit, and photographs showing scratches on Martinez’s face. The dis-
   trict court overruled Rodriguez’s objection to the admission of Martinez’s
   out-of-court statements without confrontation, found that Rodriguez com-
   mitted an assault as alleged, revoked SR, and sentenced her to 18 months of
   imprisonment, with no additional term of SR. Rodriguez appeals.
          First, Rodriguez challenges the admission of Martinez’s recorded
   statements, urging that the district court lacked good cause to deny her right
   to confront him and that his statements were unreliable. We review this
   claim “de novo, subject to harmless error analysis.” United States v. Jimison,
   825 F.3d 260, 262 (5th Cir. 2016). Here, any error in admitting Martinez’s
   statements without confrontation was harmless because it did not affect Rod-
   riguez’s substantial rights. See id.; see also Molina-Martinez v. United States,
   578 U.S. 189, 194 (2016); United States v. Carrillo, 660 F.3d 914, 927 (5th Cir.
   2011). Revocation of Rodriguez’s SR was mandatory because she admitted
   that she possessed a controlled substance, refused to comply with drug tes-
   ting, and had more than three positive drug tests in one year. See 18 U.S.C.
   § 3583(g)(1), (3), (4). The assault charge, on the other hand, did not mandate
   revocation and did not change the grade of Rodriguez’s violations or her sug-

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Case: 22-10916     Document: 00516778818           Page: 3   Date Filed: 06/08/2023

                                    No. 22-10916

   gested imprisonment range.       See § 3583(g); U.S.S.G. § 7B1.1(a), p.s.;
   U.S.S.G. § 7B1.4(a), p.s. Accordingly, the admission of Martinez’s state-
   ments did not affect the outcome of the proceeding. See Molina-Martinez,
   578 U.S. at 194; United States v. Minnitt, 617 F.3d 327, 335 (5th Cir. 2010).
   To the extent the admission of Martinez’s statements affected the length of
   the sentence, “[a] revocation defendant’s due process right to confrontation
   does not apply in connection with the length of any resulting sentence.”
   United States v. Williams, 847 F.3d 251, 254 (5th Cir. 2017).
          Rodriguez contends that the sentence was plainly unreasonable be-
   cause it considered an improper factor: the need to promote respect for the
   law. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A); § 3583(e)(3); United States v. Warren,
   720 F.3d 321, 332 (5th Cir. 2013); United States v. Miller, 634 F.3d 841, 843
   (5th Cir. 2011). The district court relied on appropriate § 3553(a) factors in
   determining that the sentence was warranted, as it addressed the nature and
   circumstances of Rodriguez’s violations; her history and characteristics, in-
   cluding her repeated history of failing to comply with her conditions of SR;
   and the need to deter future criminal activity and protect the public. See
   § 3553(a); Warren, 720 F.3d at 333; see also United States v. Cano, 981 F.3d
   422, 426 (5th Cir. 2020). Despite a brief mention of the need to promote
   respect for the law, the court’s reasons did not rely on this improper factor,
   and the record does not reflect that the need to promote respect for the law
   was a dominant factor in the decision. See United States v. Foley, 946 F.3d
   681, 687–88 (5th Cir. 2020).
          The judgment is AFFIRMED.

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