Court Opinion

ID: 9906661
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-04 21:00:46.269572+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:25:30.833455
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-13873    Document: 51-1      Date Filed: 12/04/2023   Page: 1 of 10

                                                [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 22-13873
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
        versus
        RAUL PEREZ,

                                                    Defendant-Appellant.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Southern District of Florida
                     D.C. Docket No. 1:21-cr-20127-JLK-1
                           ____________________
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        2                      Opinion of the Court                  22-13873

        Before ROSENBAUM, GRANT and DUBINA, Circuit Judges.
        PER CURIAM:
                Appellant Raul Perez appeals his 217-month total imprison-
        ment sentence for carjacking that resulted in serious bodily injury,
        in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2119(2), and brandishing or discharging
        a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, in violation of 18
        U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(ii) and (iii). He first argues the district court
        clearly erred by denying him an acceptance of responsibility adjust-
        ment under U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1(a) based on the finding that his inabil-
        ity to remember the crime, due to a car accident immediately after
        the offense that rendered him unconscious, was inconsistent with
        accepting responsibility. Perez further argues the district court
        abused its discretion and imposed a substantively unreasonable
        sentence because it failed to give due weight to his remorsefulness
        and mitigating personal history. Having read the parties’ briefs and
        reviewed the record, we affirm Perez’s sentence.
                                          I.
               We review for clear error a district court’s ﬁndings regarding
        an acceptance of responsibility reduction under U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1.
        United States v. Tejas, 868 F.3d 1242, 1247 (11th Cir. 2017). We will
        not disturb a district court’s ﬁndings under clear error review “un-
        less we are left with a deﬁnite and ﬁrm conviction that a mistake
        has been committed.” United States v. Cruickshank, 837 F.3d 1182,
        1192 (11th Cir. 2016) (quotation marks omitted). Further, we rarely
        ﬁnd clear error when the basis of the district court’s decision is
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        22-13873               Opinion of the Court                          3

        supported by the record and does not misapply the law. United
        States v. De Varon, 175 F.3d 930, 945 (11th Cir. 1999) (en banc).
                Because the sentencing judge is in a unique position to eval-
        uate a defendant’s acceptance of responsibility, the determination
        of the sentencing judge is “entitled to great deference on review.”
        Tejas, 868 F.3d at 1247; see U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1, comment. (n.5). The
        district court’s decision on acceptance of responsibility will not be
        overturned unless the facts in the record clearly establish that the
        defendant accepted personal responsibility. United States v. Sawyer,
        180 F.3d 1319, 1323 (11th Cir. 1999). The defendant bears the bur-
        den of proving he clearly accepted responsibility. Id. Further, while
        a district court’s decision to grant or deny an adjustment is subject
        to great deference, the district court errs if it believes it lacks au-
        thority to grant the adjustment as a matter of law. United States v.
        Mathews, 874 F.3d 698, 709-10 (11th Cir. 2017).
                A two-level decrease to the oﬀense level applies “[i]f the de-
        fendant clearly demonstrates acceptance of responsibility for his
        oﬀense.” U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1(a). An additional one-level decrease ap-
        plies if the defendant qualiﬁes for a decrease under § 3E1.1(a), the
        oﬀense level determined before application of such a decrease is 16
        or greater, and the government has ﬁled a motion stating that the
        defendant “has assisted authorities in the investigation or prosecu-
        tion of his own misconduct by timely notifying authorities of his
        intention to enter a plea of guilty, thereby permitting the govern-
        ment to avoid preparing for trial and permitting the government
        and the court to allocate their resources eﬃciently.” Id. § 3E1.1(b).
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        4                      Opinion of the Court                 22-13873

                “Entry of a plea of guilty prior to the commencement of
        trial combined with truthfully admitting the conduct comprising
        the oﬀense of conviction, and truthfully admitting or not falsely
        denying any additional relevant conduct for which he is accounta-
        ble under § 1B1.3 . . . will constitute signiﬁcant evidence of ac-
        ceptance of responsibility . . . .” Id., comment. (n.3). However,
        “signiﬁcant evidence” of acceptance may be outweighed by con-
        duct that is inconsistent with accepting responsibility, and a defend-
        ant must present more than just a guilty plea to meet his burden of
        establishing acceptance of responsibility. Id.
                Ultimately, § 3E1.1 “is intended to reward those defendants
        who aﬃrmatively acknowledge their crimes and express genuine
        remorse for the harm caused by their actions.” United States v. Car-
        roll, 6 F.3d 735, 740 (11th Cir. 1993). The commentary provides a
        non-exhaustive list of factors to be considered when determining
        if a defendant accepted responsibility, including whether he has vol-
        untarily paid restitution before adjudication of guilt, voluntarily
        surrendered to authorities promptly after committing the oﬀense,
        aﬃrmatively denied relevant conduct, or voluntarily withdrew
        from criminal conduct. U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1, comment. (n.1). The dis-
        trict court may consider a wide range of evidence in determining
        if the defendant recognizes the wrongfulness of his conduct, has
        remorse for the consequences, and is willing to turn away from
        that conduct. United States v. Scroins, 880 F.2d 1204, 1215-16 (11th
        Cir. 1989).
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        22-13873               Opinion of the Court                          5

                 Perez contends on appeal that the district court clearly erred
        by failing to grant him an acceptance of responsibility adjustment.
        Perez entered a guilty plea pursuant to North Carolina v. Alford, 400
        U.S. 25, 37-38, 91 S. Ct. 160, 167-68 (1970) (a guilty plea where the
        defendant maintains a claim of innocence to the underlying crimi-
        nal conduct charged but admits that suﬃcient evidence exists to
        convict him of the oﬀense). Perez claims that he entered the Alford
        plea because, due to the memory loss he sustained from the brain
        injury he suﬀered following a car accident that occurred after the
        commission of the carjacking oﬀense, he could not recall the spe-
        ciﬁcs of the oﬀense. Perez argues that despite the memory loss, he
        did not dispute the government’s factual allegations and conceded
        that the government could prove the elements of the oﬀense at
        trial, and he did not put the government to its burden of proof at
        trial. For these reasons, and the fact that he expressed remorse for
        his actions at sentencing, Perez contends that the district court
        should have granted him an adjustment for acceptance of respon-
        sibility.
               The government responds that the district court did not
        clearly err, and this court should give great deference to the district
        court’s determinations. The government notes that Perez’s story
        changed from his ﬁrst forensic evaluation where he admitted to the
        crime to his change of plea hearing where he claimed not to re-
        member the facts of the crime. Although an Alford plea does not
        preclude a ﬁnding of acceptance of responsibility, it is a relevant
        factor in the determination. See United States v. Rodriguez, 905 F.2d
        372, 374 (11th Cir. 1990) (noting that nothing in the Guidelines
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        6                      Opinion of the Court                  22-13873

        precludes a district court from considering whether a defendant
        entered a qualiﬁed guilty plea when analyzing whether he or she
        accepted responsibility). See also United States v. Coe, 79 F.3d 126,
        127-28 (11th Cir. 1996) (recognizing that a defendant’s failure to ad-
        mit to relevant oﬀense conduct because of a lack of memory can
        preclude the award of an acceptance of responsibility reduction).
        Thus, the government claims that Perez cannot satisfy his burden
        of demonstrating that he clearly accepted responsibility for his
        crimes.
                We conclude from the record that the district court did not
        clearly err when it denied the acceptance-of-responsibility adjust-
        ment under U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1(a). The district court based its deci-
        sion on Perez’s inability to concede to the facts of the crime fully
        and completely and the legal arguments presented by the parties
        and discussed at length during the sentencing hearing. Although
        Perez pled guilty, he did not admit to discharging a ﬁrearm in public
        and causing a severe accident by leading police on a car chase. Even
        though he expressed remorse during his allocution, Perez only
        apologized for his inability to remember the incident. Further, Pe-
        rez’s guilty plea did not entitle him to an acceptance of responsibil-
        ity reduction as a matter of right, and there is no indication that the
        district court believed it did not have the authority to grant the ad-
        justment, Mathews, 874 F.3d at 709-10.
               Perez had the burden of demonstrating that he had clearly
        accepted responsibility beyond just his guilty plea. Sawyer, 180 F.3d
        at 1323. On this record, we cannot say that the district court clearly
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        22-13873               Opinion of the Court                          7

        erred in ﬁnding that Perez did not qualify for an acceptance of re-
        sponsibility reduction, and we aﬃrm as to this determination.
                                          II.
               We review the substantive reasonableness of sentencing de-
        cisions under the deferential abuse-of-discretion standard. Gall v.
        United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51, 128 S. Ct. 586, 597 (2007). The party
        challenging the sentence bears the burden of showing that the sen-
        tence is unreasonable based on the record, the factors listed in §
        3553(a), and the substantial deference aﬀorded sentencing courts.
        United States v. Rosales-Bruno, 789 F.3d 1249, 1256 (11th Cir. 2015).
        Under this standard, we may aﬃrm a sentence even though we
        would have imposed a diﬀerent sentence had we been in the district
        court’s position. United States v. Irey, 612 F.3d 1160, 1189 (11th Cir.
        2010) (en banc). A district court abuses its discretion at sentencing
        when it “(1) fails to aﬀord consideration to relevant factors that
        were due signiﬁcant weight, (2) gives signiﬁcant weight to an im-
        proper or irrelevant factor, or (3) commits a clear error of judg-
        ment in considering the proper factors.” Id. (quotation marks
        omitted).
               We will vacate a district court’s sentence “only if we are left
        with the ‘deﬁnite and ﬁrm’ conviction that the district court com-
        mitted a clear error of judgment in weighing the § 3553(a) factors
        by arriving at a sentence that is outside the range of reasonable
        sentences dictated by the facts of the case.” United States v. Gold-
        man, 953 F.3d 1213, 1222 (11th Cir. 2020) (citing Irey, 612 F.3d at
        1190). Although this Court does not presume sentences within the
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        8                       Opinion of the Court                   22-13873

        guideline range are reasonable, we ordinarily expect they will be.
        United States v. Perkins, 787 F.3d 1329, 1342 (11th Cir. 2015).
               The “overarching” instruction to sentencing courts in 18
        U.S.C. § 3553 is that any sentence, whether within the guideline
        range or through a variance, must be suﬃcient but not greater than
        necessary to comply with the purposes listed in § 3553(a)(2). Kim-
        brough v. United States, 552 U.S. 85, 101, 128 S. Ct. 558, 570 (2007); 18
        U.S.C. § 3553(a). The proper factors as set out in § 3553(a) include
        the nature and circumstances of the oﬀense, the personal history
        and characteristics of the defendant, the seriousness of the crime,
        and the need for the sentence to promote respect for the law, pro-
        vide just punishment, and aﬀord adequate deterrence. 18 U.S.C.
        § 3553(a)(1)-(2). The court must also consider the applicable guide-
        line range, any pertinent policy statements from the Sentencing
        Commission, and the need to avoid unwarranted sentencing dis-
        parities between similarly situated defendants and provide restitu-
        tion to any of the defendant’s victims. Id. § 3553(a)(3)-(7).
               The district court need not account for every § 3553(a) fac-
        tor, nor must it discuss each factor and the role that it played in
        sentencing. United States v. McBride, 511 F.3d 1293, 1297 (11th Cir.
        2007). Failure to discuss mitigating evidence does not indicate that
        the court “erroneously ignored or failed to consider this evidence.”
        United States v. Amedeo, 487 F.3d 823, 833 (11th Cir. 2007).
               Perez argues on appeal that the district court imposed a sub-
        stantively unreasonable sentence because the sentence is greater
        than necessary to achieve the considerations set forth in § 3553(a).
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        22-13873               Opinion of the Court                        9

        He claims the district court did not properly consider his youth at
        the time of the oﬀense, his lack of adult criminal history, and his
        family support. In response, the government argues that the dis-
        trict court properly weighed Perez’s age and mental health, as well
        as the facts of the case, the violence oﬀense conduct, Perez’s crim-
        inal history, and the need to protect the public in concluding that a
        sentence at the low end of the guideline range was appropriate.
        The government contends that the district court gave a suﬃcient
        explanation for the imposed sentence and did not abuse its discre-
        tion.
               We conclude that the record demonstrates that Perez can-
        not show the district court abused its discretion and that his
        217-month total imprisonment sentence is substantively unreason-
        able because the record demonstrates the district court adequately
        weighed the § 3553(a) factors in concluding a sentence within Pe-
        rez’s guideline range was appropriate. After hearing the parties’
        arguments, the district court noted its consideration of Perez’s mit-
        igating circumstances, the advisory guideline range, and the
        § 3553(a) factors. The district court denied Perez’s requested
        downward variance because it found that Perez committed the of-
        fense while he was on probation and the offense involved a carjack-
        ing. The district court also stated that a sentence at the low end of
        the guideline range would reflect the seriousness of the offense and
        Perez’s criminal history, deter recidivism, and protect the public.
        Further, although we do not automatically presume that a sen-
        tence within the guideline range is reasonable, we conclude that
        the 217-month total sentence is substantively reasonable, in part,
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        10                   Opinion of the Court             22-13873

        because the 97-month sentence for Count One was at the low end
        of the guideline range and the 120-month sentence for Count Two
        was the mandated minimum statutory term. See Perkins, 787 F.3d
        at 1342. Accordingly, based on the aforementioned reasons, we
        affirm Perez’s sentence.
              AFFIRMED.