UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 20-4419
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
JUAN PABLO BARCENAS-BUENO,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at
Spartanburg. Timothy M. Cain, District Judge. (7:19-cr-01009-TMC-1)
Submitted: January 26, 2021 Decided: January 29, 2021
Before AGEE, QUATTLEBAUM, and RUSHING, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Lora C. Blanchard, Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL
PUBLIC DEFENDER, Greenville, South Carolina, for Appellant. Peter M. McCoy, Jr.,
United States Attorney, Columbia, South Carolina, Max B. Cauthen, III, Assistant United
States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Greenville, South
Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Juan Pablo Barcenas-Bueno pled guilty to illegally reentering the United States after
having previously been deported, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a). The district court
imposed a within-Guidelines sentence of 24 months’ imprisonment followed by 1 year of
supervised release. Barcenas-Bueno appeals, arguing that his sentence is procedurally
unreasonable because the court did not consider his nonfrivolous sentencing arguments.
Finding no error, we affirm.
We review Barcenas-Bueno’s sentence for reasonableness, applying “a deferential
abuse-of-discretion standard.” Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007). In crafting
an appropriate sentence, the district court must “address the parties’ nonfrivolous
arguments in favor of a particular sentence, and if the court rejects those arguments, it must
explain why in a sufficiently detailed manner to allow this [c]ourt to conduct a meaningful
appellate review.” United States v. Blue, 877 F.3d 513, 519 (4th Cir. 2017). “We cannot
assume that a sentencing court truly considered a defendant’s nonfrivolous arguments . . .
where the record fails to make it patently obvious,” id. at 521 (internal quotation marks
omitted), and the court’s failure to give “specific attention” to nonfrivolous arguments
produces a procedurally unreasonable sentence, United States v. Lewis, 958 F.3d 240, 245
(4th Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks omitted).
However, “[t]he sentencing court’s explanation need not be extensive,” United
States v. Harris, 890 F.3d 480, 485 (4th Cir. 2018); where the court addresses the
defendant’s “central thesis” for mitigation, it need not “address separately each supporting
data point marshalled on its behalf,” United States v. Nance, 957 F.3d 204, 214 (4th Cir.
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2020), cert. denied, No. 20-5825, 2020 WL 6385951 (U.S. Nov. 2, 2020). Furthermore,
we “will not vacate [a] sentence simply because the court did not spell out what the context
of its explanation made patently obvious.” United States v. Montes-Pineda, 445 F.3d 375,
381 (4th Cir. 2006). “The context surrounding a district court’s explanation may imbue it
with enough content” for this court to conclude that the sentencing court gave specific
attention to the defendant’s arguments. Id.
We have reviewed the transcript of Barcenas-Bueno’s sentencing hearing and find
that the district court adequately addressed his nonfrivolous arguments. Barcenas-Bueno
argued that the court should impose a below-Guidelines sentence because he had already
served time in state custody, had originally been brought to the United States at a young
age, and had reentered the country in order to see his immediate family. The court
explicitly acknowledged that Barcenas-Bueno’s family situation was difficult but
insufficient to justify a below-Guidelines sentence given the seriousness of his offense and
his long criminal record. In addition, the court’s detailed discussion of Barcenas-Bueno’s
criminal history, lack of respect for the law, and potential to endanger the public “make it
patently obvious” that the court considered, and rejected, Barcenas-Bueno’s argument that
the time he already served in custody warranted a below-Guidelines sentence. Blue, 877
F.3d at 521 (internal quotation marks omitted). We therefore conclude that the district
court met its obligation to address and explain its rejection of Barcenas-Bueno’s arguments
“in a sufficiently detailed manner to allow this [c]ourt to conduct a meaningful appellate
review,” id. at 519, and thus that Barcenas-Bueno’s sentence is procedurally reasonable.
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Therefore, we affirm Barcenas-Bueno’s sentence. We dispense with oral argument
because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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