Within-Guidelines Sentence Affirmed in Reentry Case
United States v. Martinez-Barragan, ___ F.3d ___, 2008 WL 4632806 (10th Cir. 2008)
Sentence for reentry after aggravated felony is procedurally (PR) and substantively reasonable (SR).
PR: COA ducks whether to review under plain error standard because it found there was no error, but signals that the “unforeseeable error” doctrine that avoids PE review might no longer be viable. “Heartland” is a term that applies to both guideline and 18 USC § 3553 analyses, so district court determination that case was not outside the heartland did not signify it was mandatorily applying the GL. COA says that GL and variance analyses are distinct and must not be confused but a judge does not commit reversible error by consolidating the two discussions (thus freeing district courts even further from having to be thorough and clear). Because the district court discussed §3553, it did not erroneously confine itself to just a GL heartland consideration. It explained the reasons for its sentence. Good Stuff: dicta-ish language gives the parsimony argument some weight. Sentence was PR.
SR: signaling what a non-starter a substantive unreasonableness of a within-GL- sentence claim is, the COA devotes all of two pages to it. Without any serious discussion of failure to rebut the presumption of reasonableness, the COA finds that based on the violence of D’s predicate felony and his general criminal history, in spite of the mitigating reason for his return to the US, the district court did not abuse its discretion in sentencing him to the low end of the GL range.
Sentence for reentry after aggravated felony is procedurally (PR) and substantively reasonable (SR).
PR: COA ducks whether to review under plain error standard because it found there was no error, but signals that the “unforeseeable error” doctrine that avoids PE review might no longer be viable. “Heartland” is a term that applies to both guideline and 18 USC § 3553 analyses, so district court determination that case was not outside the heartland did not signify it was mandatorily applying the GL. COA says that GL and variance analyses are distinct and must not be confused but a judge does not commit reversible error by consolidating the two discussions (thus freeing district courts even further from having to be thorough and clear). Because the district court discussed §3553, it did not erroneously confine itself to just a GL heartland consideration. It explained the reasons for its sentence. Good Stuff: dicta-ish language gives the parsimony argument some weight. Sentence was PR.
SR: signaling what a non-starter a substantive unreasonableness of a within-GL- sentence claim is, the COA devotes all of two pages to it. Without any serious discussion of failure to rebut the presumption of reasonableness, the COA finds that based on the violence of D’s predicate felony and his general criminal history, in spite of the mitigating reason for his return to the US, the district court did not abuse its discretion in sentencing him to the low end of the GL range.
posted by Anonymous at 9:34 AM
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