Court Opinion

ID: 9950715
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-14 17:01:02.058267+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:36:13.194470
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                             FILED
                      UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                         MAR 14 2024

                              FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                           U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,                          No. 22-30147

                  Plaintiff-Appellee,              D.C. No. 2:16-cr-00300-RSL-1

    v.
                                                   MEMORANDUM*
AUBREY TAYLOR, AKA Uno,
                  Defendant-Appellant.

                     Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Western District of Washington
                   Robert S. Lasnik, Senior District Judge, Presiding
                      Argued and Submitted September 15, 2023
                                Seattle, Washington
Before: W. FLETCHER, R. NELSON, and COLLINS, Circuit Judges.

         Aubrey Taylor appeals the sentence imposed on remand after we vacated

two of his five counts of conviction and remanded for resentencing. See United

States v. Taylor, 828 F. App’x 491 (9th Cir. 2020). We have jurisdiction under 18

U.S.C. § 3742(a) and 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We affirm.1

         1. Taylor raises multiple objections to the manner in which the district court

conducted the resentencing on remand. However, none of these procedural

objections were raised in the district court, either before or after the district court

*
  This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as
provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
1
  Taylor’s motion to strike the Government’s answering brief (Dkt. 27) is denied.
announced the sentence. Indeed, after providing its oral explanation for the

sentence, the district court specifically asked counsel for both sides whether there

was “anything else [they] needed” the court to do, and neither side raised any

further objections. Accordingly, we review only for plain error. See United States

v. Montoya, 82 F.4th 640, 646 (9th Cir. 2023) (en banc) (stating that plain error

would apply to sentencing objections not raised below “if the [district] court

affords a party the opportunity to make” such objections, including after the oral

imposition of sentence (citation omitted)); United States v. Valencia-Barragan,

608 F.3d 1103, 1108 & n.3 (9th Cir. 2010) (holding that, because no objection was

made after the oral imposition of sentence, plain error applied to claim that the

district court’s oral sentencing decision did not “adequately address and apply the

sentencing factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)”); see also United States v. Ceja,

23 F.4th 1218, 1227 (9th Cir. 2022) (reaching same conclusion as to failure to

object to district court’s compliance with Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(i)(3)(B)). The plain

error standard requires Taylor to show that (1) the district court erred; (2) the error

is plain; (3) the error affected his substantial rights; and (4) leaving the error

uncorrected will undermine the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial

proceedings. See United States v. Marcus, 560 U.S. 258, 262 (2010). Taylor has

not made that showing.

      a. At the resentencing, the Government noted that Taylor had re-raised on

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remand certain objections that the district court had previously rejected at the first

sentencing. The court then stated that it was “not revisiting” anything “that [it]

ruled on previously that was appealable in the previous appeal.” Taylor contends

that, by taking this approach, the district court deprived him of the full de novo

sentencing to which he was entitled on remand. We disagree. Taylor’s argument

presumes that the district court’s comment reflected a belief that the court lacked

the authority to revisit previously settled issues as part of a full resentencing.

However, the comment could also be construed as reflecting merely a substantive

decision not to reach a different conclusion with respect to such re-raised issues,

given the absence of intervening direction from this court on non-appealed issues.

Because there was no contemporaneous objection that might have clarified

whether the court thought it lacked any authority to reconsider those issues, Taylor

has not established that there was a plain error affecting his substantial rights on

this score.

      b. Taylor claims that the district court violated Rule 32(i)(3)(B) by failing to

resolve his objections to the presentence report and the probation office’s

resentencing memorandum. Even assuming arguendo that the seven objections

that Taylor made to these documents were ones that would trigger the requirements

of Rule 32(i)(3)(B), we conclude that Taylor has failed to show any plain error.

      Two of Taylor’s objections involved the re-raising of objections that had

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been rejected at the prior sentencing, and the district court sufficiently explained

that it would adhere to those prior rulings here. Moreover, the district court

explained on the record why (1) it continued to rely on what it deemed to be the

credible testimony of H.S., who was the victim at issue in the two counts that had

been vacated in the prior appeal; (2) it believed that the adjustment for commission

of an offense while on supervision still applied; and (3) it agreed with the

probation officer’s calculation of the multiple-offense adjustment.

      Although the district court did not specifically discuss Taylor’s objection to

the role adjustment for Count 4 or his contention that his criminal history was

overstated, there was no plain error. The court’s explicit finding that the applicable

criminal history category was IV necessarily reflected the court’s rejection of

Taylor’s argument that his criminal history was overstated. See United States v.

Riley, 335 F.3d 919, 931 (9th Cir. 2003) (holding that, even though the district

court did not “specifically address” the defendant’s objection to the “criminal

history calculation,” the court’s “later adopt[ion] [of] the recommendations and

findings of fact” in the presentence report was “sufficient to satisfy Rule 32”). The

role adjustment for Count 4 did not affect Taylor’s substantial rights. Even if the

adjustment had not been applied, the final offense level would have been the same:

Count 5 had the highest offense level of the three sentencing groups, and the multi-

count adjustment that would be applied to that level under U.S.S.G. § 3D1.4 would

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not have been different even if the offense level for Count 4 had not included the

role adjustment. See Ceja, 23 F.4th at 1227 (holding that there is no plain error

from an asserted failure to comply with Rule 32(i)(3)(B) where there is not a

“reasonable probability” that the sentence would have changed (citation omitted)).

      c. The district court adequately explained its guidelines calculation and its

reasons for imposing the same below-guidelines sentence. We have held that the

district court “need not tick off each of the § 3553(a) factors to show that it has

considered them” and that “[w]hat constitutes a sufficient explanation” will depend

upon the circumstances. United States v. Carty, 520 F.3d 984, 992 (9th Cir. 2008)

(en banc). Given that this was a resentencing, the district court did not commit

plain error by simply stating that it had considered all of the § 3553(a) factors and

all of the “aggravating and mitigating” circumstances that had been presented and

that it had decided to reimpose the same sentence—which was a full seven years

below the bottom of the guidelines range. See United States v. Perez-Perez, 512

F.3d 514, 516 (9th Cir. 2008) (rejecting contention that district court failed to

adequately consider the § 3553(a) factors where the record showed that the district

court “apparently consider[ed]—without explicit reference—[the defendant’s]

mitigation arguments”). On this record, where there was no contemporaneous

“request [for] a more definitive ruling,” United States v. Rigby, 896 F.2d 392, 394

(9th Cir. 1990), the district court’s succinct explanation for its sentence did not

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affect Taylor’s substantial rights. In particular, the district court did not commit

plain error in failing explicitly to explain why it found unpersuasive Taylor’s

contention that a 276-month sentence would be too disparate from the lower

sentences that had been imposed in the collection of other cases he catalogued in

his sentencing memorandum. See United States v. Espinoza-Baza, 647 F.3d 1182,

1195 (9th Cir. 2011) (“It does not matter for the purposes of § 3553(a) that [the

defendant] can point to other criminal defendants who may have received lighter

sentences under materially different circumstances.” (simplified)).

      2. Taylor also contends that the district judge’s comments concerning one of

the victims, H.S., reflected disqualifying “deep-seated favoritism” and required the

district judge’s recusal. Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S. 540, 555 (1994).

Because Taylor did not raise this objection below, we review only for plain error.

There is none. We have reviewed the district judge’s comments, and we are

satisfied that they reflect a permissible opinion that was “properly and necessarily

acquired in the course of the proceedings” and that does not provide a ground for

recusal. Id. at 551; see also id. at 550–51 (holding that a judge is not “recusable

for bias or prejudice” merely because, “upon completion of the evidence,” he or

she may “be exceedingly ill disposed towards the defendant, who has been shown

to be a thoroughly reprehensible person”).

      AFFIRMED.

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