United States v. Allan Arias-Ramos

Case: 14-50367 Document: 00512894695 Page: 1 Date Filed: 01/08/2015 IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT No. 14-50367 Summary Calendar United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit FILED January 8, 2015 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Lyle W. Cayce Clerk Plaintiff-Appellee v. ALLAN OCTAVIO ARIAS-RAMOS, Defendant-Appellant Appeals from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas USDC No. 2:13-CR-972-1 Before PRADO, OWEN, and GRAVES, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: * Allan Octavio Arias-Ramos appeals the within-guidelines, 28-month sentence imposed for his guilty plea conviction of illegal reentry. He contends that his sentence is substantively unreasonable and greater than necessary to satisfy the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors. We review the substantive reasonableness of the sentence for an abuse of discretion. See Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). Arias-Ramos’s * Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4. Case: 14-50367 Document: 00512894695 Page: 2 Date Filed: 01/08/2015 No. 14-50367 arguments fail to rebut the presumption of reasonableness that we apply to his within-guidelines sentence. See United States v. Cooks, 589 F.3d 173, 186 (5th Cir. 2009); United States v. Campos-Maldonado, 531 F.3d 337, 338 (5th Cir. 2008). The district court, who was “in a superior position to find facts and judge their import under § 3553(a),” acknowledged Arias-Ramos’s mitigating arguments but concluded that a sentence near the top of the guidelines range was appropriate in light of his criminal history. Campos-Maldonado, 531 F.3d at 339. We have rejected the argument that U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2’s double-counting of a prior conviction in the calculation of a defendant’s offense level and criminal history score necessarily render a sentence unreasonable. United States v. Duarte, 569 F.3d 528, 529-31 (5th Cir. 2009). We have also rejected substantive reasonableness challenges based on the alleged lack of seriousness of illegal reentry. United States v. Juarez-Duarte, 513 F.3d 204, 212 (5th Cir. 2008); United States v. Aguirre-Villa, 460 F.3d 681, 683 (5th Cir. 2006). Finally, as Arias-Ramos concedes, his argument that the presumption of reasonableness should not be applied to his sentence because § 2L1.2 lacks an empirical basis is foreclosed. See Duarte, 569 F.3d at 530-31; United States v. Mondragon-Santiago, 564 F.3d 357, 366-67 (5th Cir. 2009). The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. 2