United States v. Vargas-Martinez
| Decision Date | 01 October 2021 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 16-2141,16-2142,s. 16-2141 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Victor VARGAS-MARTINEZ, Defendant, Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
Mary A. Davis and Tisdale & Davis, P.A., on brief for appellant.
W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney, Mariana E. Bauzá-Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate Division, and Francisco A. Besosa-Martinez, Assistant United States Attorney, on brief for appellee.
Before Howard, Chief Judge, Thompson and Kayatta, Circuit Judges.
While on bail pending trial for charges of possession with intent to distribute marihuana, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(B), and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking offense, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i), defendant-appellant Victor Vargas-Martinez ("Vargas") was once again arrested and charged in a separate case with receipt of a firearm while under indictment for a felony, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(n), 924(a)(2). Vargas eventually pleaded guilty to the firearm offenses in both cases pursuant to separate plea agreements. Following his request to be sentenced for both counts of conviction in a single proceeding, the district court held a sentencing hearing in which it sentenced Vargas to consecutive upwardly variant sentences. Vargas now challenges the procedural reasonableness of both sentences and the substantive reasonableness of one of them. We affirm both sentences.
On February 16, 2015, Puerto Rico Police Department officers observed Vargas reach under a stairwell in a public housing project, retrieve a drum magazine, and hand it to another individual who placed it in a bag. The officers detained Vargas and the other individual. Inside the bag, the officers found the drum magazine, which contained forty rounds of .40 caliber ammunition, and a .40 caliber Kel Tec rifle with an obliterated serial number, loaded with twenty-two rounds of ammunition. Under the stairwell, the officers found a lunch box that had fifty-four bags of marihuana identified with an "under armour" logo and two Ziploc bags each containing seven baggies of marihuana. The officers found twelve additional baggies of marihuana and two decks of heroin in Vargas's jacket, and $369 in his pocket.
On February 18, 2015, a grand jury sitting in the District of Puerto Rico returned an indictment charging Vargas with possession with intent to distribute marihuana, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(B), and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking offense, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i) (Case No. 15-125).2 On February 23, 2015, Vargas was granted bail pending trial. As part of his conditions of release, he had to wear an electronic monitoring device and was placed in home detention, under the custody of his mother.
Vargas, however, did not comply with his conditions of release. At 7:27 p.m. on July 21, 2015, he left his home without authorization to do so. Vargas returned home, but he left again later that night. At around 9:50 p.m., Puerto Rico Police officers monitoring surveillance cameras saw Vargas acting suspiciously in the parking lot of a Puma gas station in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. They saw him reaching for his waistband for what seemed to be a firearm. Police officers were dispatched to the area to take a closer look. When they arrived at the area, the officers found Vargas in the parking lot of a Bonanza restaurant, next to the Puma gas station. He had a hammer, a loaded .40 caliber Ruger pistol, a loaded magazine, a lighter, a flashlight, and $689 on him. The officers arrested him.
Vargas asked the officers to inform his mother of his arrest. The officers went to Vargas's home, informed Vargas's mother of his situation and obtained her consent to search Vargas's room. In his room, the officers found an additional loaded firearm, a radio scanner, and a blade.
As a result of the events of July 21, 2015, Vargas was charged in a new case (Case No. 15-485) with receiving a firearm while being under indictment for a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(n), 924(a)(2). This new case was assigned to a different judge than the one presiding over Case No. 15-125.
In March 2016, Vargas pleaded guilty to the sole count in Case No. 15-485 pursuant to a plea agreement. In the plea agreement, the parties calculated a base offense level of twelve under United States Sentencing Guidelines ("U.S.S.G.") § 2K2.1(a)(7), and a two-level reduction under § 3E1.1 for Vargas's timely acceptance of responsibility, for a total offense level of ten. The parties agreed to recommend a sentence at the lower end of the resulting applicable Guidelines Sentencing Range ("GSR") when combining the total offense level of ten with the criminal history category to be determined by the court. If Vargas's criminal history category turned out to be I, the resulting GSR would be six to twelve months and the parties would recommend six months of imprisonment.
The following month, Vargas pleaded guilty to the firearm count in Case No. 15-125 pursuant to another plea agreement. In that plea agreement, the parties noted that the guideline sentence for the offense of conviction was sixty months of imprisonment, the statutory mandatory minimum. The parties agreed to recommend that sentence to the court.
The Presentence Investigation Report ("PSR") in each case tracked the plea agreements' calculations of the GSRs. Vargas then requested that the court conduct a single sentencing hearing in which he would be sentenced for both counts of conviction. The court granted his request.
At the sentencing hearing, the court clarified that, although Vargas was being sentenced simultaneously in both cases, he was being sentenced for "separate crimes," thus the cases were "not consolidated for purposes of relevant conduct" and the sentences would not be "concurrent." The court then calculated the Guidelines' recommended sentence for each count of conviction. In Case No. 15-485, it calculated a total offense level of ten, which resulted from a base offense level of twelve pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1 and a two-level reduction pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1(a) for Vargas's timely acceptance of responsibility. The total offense level of ten, combined with a criminal history category of I, yielded a GSR of six to twelve months of imprisonment. As to Case No. 15-125, the court noted that the statute allowed for an imprisonment term between sixty months and life, and that the recommended guideline sentence was the statutory-minimum term of sixty months' imprisonment.
The court stated that it had reviewed the plea agreements, the PSRs, the parties' sentencing memoranda, had heard counsels' arguments, and had considered the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) sentencing factors. The court referenced Vargas's history and characteristics, including his age, education, and prospects for rehabilitation, as well as the "need to promote respect for the law, provide just punishment, and protect the community from further crimes [by Vargas]." It recounted the facts leading to the two counts of conviction and commented that it was "troubling" that while Vargas was on bail, he was "not obeying the conditions of release"; rather, he was "absconding from his residence" and committing another firearm offense similar to the one for which he was already facing trial. It was "extremely troubling" to the court that Vargas "simply [did] not abide by the law." Furthermore, the court mentioned that firearm offenses such as those committed by Vargas are serious offenses not to be taken lightly, especially in light of Puerto Rico's alarming crime rate.
Prior to sentencing Vargas, the court inquired from the government whether it would move to dismiss the drug trafficking count pending in Case No. 15-125 as part of the plea agreement in that case, to which the government responded in the affirmative. The court also noted that Vargas's criminal history category of I in Case No. 15-485 was "a little bit deceiving" because, although he had a conviction in Case No. 15-125, the fact that he had not yet been sentenced translated into a lower criminal history category and, consequently, a lower GSR.
The court then acknowledged the parties' recommended sentence of sixty months in Case No. 15-125 but rejected it and imposed an upwardly variant sentence of seventy-five months' imprisonment, to be followed by five years of supervised release. In the court's view, the parties' 60-month "recommendation underrepresent[ed] the severity of the criminal conduct in [that] case and more so the lack of utter respect for the [c]ourt's conditions of release [on bail]." The court also highlighted that the firearm in Case No. 15-125 was loaded with twenty-two rounds of ammunition and that, in addition, Vargas had a drum magazine with forty additional rounds of ammunition, which could have killed "a lot of people."
As to Case No. 15-485, the court also rejected the parties' recommended sentence of six months' imprisonment and imposed an upwardly variant sentence of eighteen months, to be served consecutively to the sentence in Case No. 15-125, and to be followed by three years of supervised release. The court noted the "severity of the conduct," the fact that this was "repeated conduct" as the offense was similar to that which gave rise to Case No. 15-125, and underscored that "this [second] case [was] way too soon" after the first one. In the court's view, that Vargas committed this offense just a couple of months after being released on bond in Case No. 15-125 showed his blatant disrespect for the law.
The government then requested that the drug trafficking count in Case No. 15-125 be dismissed pursuant to the plea agreement. The court granted the request. After sentencing Vargas, the court mentioned that it had considered a higher sentence because of the "troubl[...
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