Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Francisco Raymundo Morales-Gonzalez was convicted of illegally reentering the United States. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas imposed a prison term 12 months above the applicable advisory Sentencing Guidelines range and also imposed supervised release.
On appeal, Morales-Gonzalez argued that the district court inadequately explained the above-guidelines sentence, that the sentence was substantively unreasonable, and that the court imposed supervised release without addressing U.S.S.G. § 5D1.1(c). Because he had not preserved his challenges to the sentencing explanation or supervised release, the Fifth Circuit reviewed those claims for plain error.
The Court’s Holding
The Fifth Circuit affirmed. It held that Morales-Gonzalez’s unpreserved challenge to the district court’s explanation of the sentence failed under plain-error review. The court also concluded that he had not shown an abuse of discretion in the imposition of the above-guidelines prison sentence.
The court further held that, in view of the record, Morales-Gonzalez had not demonstrated reversible plain error concerning supervised release. The panel therefore rejected all three challenges and left the sentence intact.
Key Takeaways
- An unpreserved objection to a district court’s sentencing explanation is reviewed for plain error.
- Morales-Gonzalez did not establish that the 12-month upward variance was substantively unreasonable or an abuse of discretion.
- The record did not support reversal for plain error based on the district court’s imposition of supervised release without expressly addressing U.S.S.G. § 5D1.1(c).
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates the difficulty of overturning a sentence when objections to the court’s explanation and supervised-release determination were not preserved below. Plain-error review requires more than identifying a possible omission; the defendant must demonstrate an error warranting reversal.
It also confirms that the Fifth Circuit will review an above-guidelines sentence for abuse of discretion and may uphold supervised release in an illegal-reentry case based on the record despite the defendant’s reliance on U.S.S.G. § 5D1.1(c).