U.S. v. Garcia-Lara

• Citation: 499 F.3d 1133
• Decision Date: 22 August 2007
• Docket Number: No. 06-3054.,06-3054.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Guadalupe Alberto GARCIA-LARA, Jr., a/k/a Jose Perez-Gonzales, a/k/a Armando Preciado-Ramirez, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (10th Circuit)

499 F.3d 1133

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Guadalupe Alberto GARCIA-LARA, Jr., a/k/a Jose Perez-Gonzales, a/k/a Armando Preciado-Ramirez, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 06-3054.

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

August 22, 2007.

James A. Brown, Assistant United States Attorney (Eric F. Melgren, United States Attorney, with him on the brief), Topeka, Kansas, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

William Sharma-Crawford, Overland Park, Kansas, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before TACHA, Chief Circuit Judge, BALDOCK, and LUCERO, Circuit Judges.

TACHA, Chief Circuit Judge.

Defendant-Appellee Guadalupe Garcia-Lara pleaded guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of methamphetamine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Because Mr. Garcia-Lara had two prior convictions for controlled substance offenses, the "career offender" enhancement applied to his advisory sentence under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines ("U.S.S.G." or "Guidelines"). See U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1. Believing the career offender enhancement overstated Mr. Garcia-Lara's criminal history, the District Court sentenced him to a below-Guidelines sentence of 140 months' imprisonment. The Government appeals that sentence as substantively unreasonable. Exercising jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3731, we vacate Mr. Garcia-Lara's sentence and remand for resentencing.

I. BACKGROUND

On November 20, 2004, a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper stopped Mr. Garcia-Lara for speeding as he was driving on Interstate 35 near Emporia, Kansas. The trooper received consent to search the vehicle from Mr. Garcia-Lara, the sole occupant of the vehicle, and found approximately 18 pounds of marijuana and 557 grams of methamphetamine hidden inside two spare tires found in the trunk of the vehicle. A grand jury returned an indictment against Mr. Garcia-Lara, charging him with one count of possession with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of methamphetamine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Mr. Garcia-Lara pleaded guilty to the charge without a plea agreement on February 17, 2005.

The U.S. Probation Office prepared a Presentence Investigation Report ("PSR") in anticipation of Mr. Garcia-Lara's sentencing. The PSR reported a criminal history category of V and an initial base offense level of 32. Because two of Mr. Garcia-Lara's prior convictions were for controlled substance offenses as defined in U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(b), the PSR applied the "career offender" provision of the Guidelines, U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1(b)(A), raising his criminal history category to VI and his base offense level to 37. After applying a three-level reduction to the offense level for acceptance of responsibility, the PSR concluded Mr. Garcia-Lara had a total offense level of 34 and a criminal history category of VI, resulting in an advisory Guidelines sentence of 262 to 327 months' imprisonment.

Applying 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), the District Court concluded that a sentence of 262 months, at the bottom of the advisory Guidelines range, over-represented Mr. Garcia-Lara's criminal history, resulting in a sentence greater than necessary to accomplish the goals of § 3553(a). Accordingly, the court sentenced Mr. Garcia-Lara as if the career offender enhancement did not apply. Noting that the advisory Guidelines sentence for a non-career offender would be 140 to 175 months' imprisonment, the District Court sentenced Mr. Garcia-Lara to 140 months.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Post-Rita Sentencing Review

Since United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), this Court has repeatedly stated that we review a district court's sentencing determination for reasonableness, which is guided by the statutory factors delineated in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). See, e.g., United States v. Kristl, 437 F.3d 1050, 1053 (10th Cir. 2006). In the Supreme Court's recently issued opinion Rita v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 2456, 168 L.Ed.2d 203 (2007), the majority referred to reasonableness review as an "abuse of discretion" standard. See id. at 2465 ("Given our explanation in Booker that appellate `reasonableness' review merely asks whether the trial court abused its discretion, the presumption [of reasonableness applied to a within-Guidelines sentence] applies only on appellate review."). We write now, in some detail, to make clear that the Supreme Court's reference in Rita to reasonableness review as an abuse-of-discretion standard does nothing to change the appellate reasonableness standard this Circuit has applied since Booker. As we explain, our case law post-Booker has consistently applied the principle that reasonableness, as defined by § 3553(a), is the measure of the appropriate use of a district court's discretion; or, put differently, we review a district court's sentence for abuse of discretion, asking whether it is reasonable under the § 3553(a) factors.

Our application of the reasonableness standard of review since Booker has necessarily been a review of a district court's decision for abuse of discretion. For example, because a legal standard based on reasonableness is inherently fact dependent, see Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 384, 401-05, 110 S.Ct. 2447, 110 L.Ed.2d 359 (1990), we have implicitly acknowledged that we employ an abuse-of-discretion standard by reviewing a district court's factual findings for clear error, United States v. Valtierra-Rojas, 468 F.3d 1235, 1241 n. 8 (10th Cir.2006). Moreover, as the dissent recognizes, Booker itself implicitly equates reasonableness review with review for abuse of discretion, and Rita simply makes that equivalence explicit. In short, Rita says nothing new about the standard of review.

But even though we accord deference to a district court's sentencing decision, it is clear that district courts must apply, and our appellate review is guided by, the factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). See United States v. Pruitt, 487 F.3d 1298, 1303 (10th Cir.2007) ("The district court must consider the sentencing factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) when imposing a sentence."); Kristl, 437 F.3d at 1053 (noting that appellate reasonableness review is "guided by the factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)"). Because reasonableness in sentencing is defined by statutory factors, it necessarily involves legal determinations. Consequently, even if we defer to lower courts' application of the factors, we cannot do so when they commit legal errors. See, e.g., United States v. Soussi, 316 F.3d 1095, 1108 (10th Cir.2002) ("A district court abuses its discretion if it makes an error of law."). Thus, a district court may abuse its discretion when, for example, it gives one statutory factor too much weight, see, e.g., United States v. Cage, 451 F.3d 585, 595 (10th Cir.2006), or expressly disregards another, see, e.g., United States v. Hildreth, 485 F.3d 1120, 1130 (10th Cir.2007). That is, sentencing courts may not ignore applicable case law interpreting reasonableness under § 3553(a), and this Court may not ignore a district court's errors in interpretation. Cooter & Gell, 496 U.S. at 402, 110 S.Ct. 2447 (noting that an abuse-of-discretion standard does not "preclude the appellate court's correction of a district court's legal errors").

In short, in determining whether a sentence is reasonable, we defer to the district court's exercise of discretion within the bounds of reasonableness: "[T]he fact that there is inevitably a range of sentences that could be held reasonable means that our affirmance of a sentence will necessarily defer, in effect, to the district court's exercise of discretion in choosing a particular sentence within that range." United States v. Sanchez-Juarez, 446 F.3d 1109, 1117 (10th Cir.2006) (emphasis added). The fact that a range of reasonable sentences exists, beyond which we will not defer to a district court, makes clear that there are definite limits on a sentencing court's exercise of discretion. See Rita, 127 S.Ct. at 2466-67 ("In sentencing, as in other areas, district judges at times make mistakes that are substantive. . . . Circuit courts exist to correct such mistakes when they occur."). Our appellate review cannot merely rubber stamp the district court's decision.

Rather than announcing a new or revised standard of review, Rita simply affirmed the appellate courts' application of a "presumption" of reasonableness to within-Guidelines sentences on appellate review. Id. at 2462; see also id. at 2463 ("[T]he presumption reflects the fact that, by the time an appeals court is considering a within-Guidelines sentence on review, both the sentencing judge and the Sentencing Commission will have reached the same conclusion as to the proper sentence in the particular case."). Indeed, the Court's holding in Rita was simply that appellate courts may employ a presumption of reasonableness when reviewing procedurally proper within-Guidelines sentences. The purpose of the Court's reference in Rita to reasonableness review as an abuse-of-discretion standard was to emphasize that the presumption of reasonableness is an appellate presumption (i.e., sentencing courts may not apply it): "We repeat that the presumption before us is an appellate court presumption. Given our emphasis in Booker that appellate `reasonableness' review merely asks whether the trial court abused its discretion, the presumption applies only on appellate review." Id. at 2465. In other words, the Court noted a settled proposition (i.e., "that appellate `reasonableness' review merely asks whether the trial court abused its discretion") in order to emphasize a logical conclusion that may be inferred from it (i.e., that "the presumption applies only on appellate review").

To turn the Court's statement regarding the appellate nature of the presumption into a holding regarding the standard of review, the dissent takes the statement out of context and expands upon it by relying on Justice Stevens's concurring opinion, in...