Not For Publication in West's Federal Reporter
Citation Limited Pursuant to 1st Cir. Loc. R. 32.3
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 06-1045
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
OSCAR E. TRINIDAD-RODRÍGUEZ,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Juan M. Pérez-Giménez, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Lipez, Circuit Judge,
Stahl, Senior Circuit Judge,
and Howard, Circuit Judge.
Elizabeth Caddick on brief for appellant.
Teresa A. Wallbaum on brief for appellee.
November 9, 2006
Per Curiam. Defendant Oscar E. Trinidad-Rodríguez
("Trinidad") appeals from his within-guidelines sentence, imposed
after United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), on the grounds
that the district court gave too much weight to the guidelines and
too little to his individual history and characteristics,
particularly his lack of a prior criminal record and his otherwise
productive life both before and after his conviction. After
careful review of the parties' briefs and the underlying record, we
affirm the sentence.
Although Trinidad does not dispute the accuracy of the
district court's calculation of his advisory guidelines sentencing
range of 41 to 51 months, he faults the court for relying too
heavily on that range in crafting the ultimate 41-month sentence.
In particular, he focuses on the district court's statement that
Trinidad's proffered mitigating circumstances were not sufficiently
"compelling," "substantial," or "extraordinary," to warrant a
below-guidelines sentence.
In another case where a judge used similar terminology--
also, as here, without the benefit of our subsequent guidance as to
the appropriate sentencing protocol post-Booker--we agreed that "a
party need not make an 'extraordinary' showing in order to persuade
the district court that a sentence below the G[uidelines]
S[entencing] R[ange] is warranted." United States v. Rivera, 448
F.3d 82, 85 (1st Cir. 2006). But we declined to view such language
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as "indicat[ing] that the court did not understand the latitude it
possessed to impose a nonguidelines sentence." Id. Rather,
reading that language in context, we deemed the district court "to
have engaged in a substantially similar . . . analysis" to that
which we endorsed in United States v. Jiménez-Beltre, 440 F.3d 514,
517-19 (1st Cir. 2006) (en banc), i.e., requiring the proponent of
a nonguidelines sentence to provide "persuasive" reasons for such
a sentence, Rivera, 448 F.3d at 85 (citing Jiménez-Beltre, 440 F.3d
at 517-19). See also United States v. Feliz, 453 F.3d 33, 38 (1st
Cir. 2006) (declining to remand for resentencing where, despite its
phraseology, "[t]he court's understanding of Booker was
substantially correct"); United States v. Navedo-Concepción, 450
F.3d 54, 57 (1st Cir. 2006) (same).
We read the district court's decision here the same way.
Despite its choice of words, it is clear, in context, that the
district court understood that it was required to--and did in fact-
-consider not only what it characterized as the "now-advisory"
guidelines sentencing range but also the other sentencing factors
set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). In particular, the court
expressly considered the individual circumstances that Trinidad
brought to its attention--that other than the instant offense, he
was a productive member of society, a good father, and a law-
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abiding citizen both before and after his conviction1–-but was not
persuaded that those circumstances warranted a below-guidelines
sentence. As grounds for reaching that conclusion, the court was
presumably more impressed by the government's counter-arguments
that the seriousness of the instant offense--in which Trinidad
personally laundered $330,000 of funds in multiple transactions
over a substantial period of time--warranted a within-guidelines
sentence, which already took into account his first-offender
status, rather than the probationary sentence that Trinidad
requested. The court nevertheless presumably took those factors
into account in sentencing Trinidad to the bottom of the applicable
sentencing range, rather than the top as the government had
recommended. We see nothing implausible about that implicit
explanation or unreasonable about the resulting 41-month sentence.
"If the court had completely disregarded the[] sentencing
factors [that Trinidad relied upon], this might be a different
case. Here, however, the record makes manifest that the judge
pondered . . . the . . . factors cited by [Trinidad]; he simply
came to a different, yet altogether plausible, conclusion as to
their salience." United States v. Dixon, 449 F.3d 194, 205 (1st
Cir. 2006). Under those circumstances, we defer to the district
1
Since his original sentencing, he has been released on bail
and has been gainfully employed as the manager of an auto repair
store in Florida.
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court's on-the-scene judgment. Id. at 204; Jiménez-Beltre, 440
F.3d at 519.
Affirmed. See 1st Cir. R. 27(c).
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