explaining “[p]lacing substantial weight on a defendant’s criminal record is entirely consistent with § 3553(a) because five of the factors it requires a court to consider are related to criminal history,” and stating “[u]nder substantive reasonableness review, we have repeatedly affirmed sentences that included major upward variances from the guidelines for defend- ants with significant criminal histories that the sentencing courts weighed heavily”
How later courts described this case
- explaining “[p]lacing substantial weight on a defendant’s criminal record is entirely consistent with § 3553(a) because five of the factors it requires a court to consider are related to criminal history,” and stating “[u]nder substantive reasonableness review, we have repeatedly affirmed sentences that included major upward variances from the guidelines for defend- ants with significant criminal histories that the sentencing courts weighed heavily”
- explaining a district court abuses its discretion and imposes a sub- stantively unreasonable sentence only if it (1) fails to consider rele- vant factors that were due significant weight, (2) gives significant USCA11 Case: 21-14149 Date Filed: 08/17/2022 Page: 4 of 5 4 Opinion of the Court 21-14149 weight to an improper or irrelevant factor, or (3) commits a clear error of judgment in considering the proper factors
- explaining that the weight to give each § 3553(a) factor “is ‘committed to the sound discretion of the district court,’” and the district court “is permitted to attach ‘great weight’ to one factor over others” (first quoting United States v. Williams, 526 F.3d 1312, 1322 (11th Cir. 2008), then quoting United States v. Shaw, 560 F.3d 1230, 1237 (11th Cir. 2009))
- concluding that a 60-month upward variance from the top of the guideline range was substantively rea sonable where the district court weighed the § 3553(a) factors and provided significant justifications for imposing such a sentence
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
*1278 CORRIGAN, District Judge,
concurring in the result:
Eighty-seven months imprisonment is a very long sentence in an illegal reentry case where this Court has previously determined that the guidelines range is 21-27 months. I was concerned that, in arriving at the exact same 87 month sentence on remand that he had previously imposed (the high end of the now-discredited guidelines range), the district judge did not pay sufficient heed to this Court’s decision and did not consider the guidelines as corrected. However, Rosales-Bruno has not asserted this ground, or any other procedural irregularity, on appeal. As to the only ground actually raised on appeal, whether the 87 month sentence is substantively reasonable, I agree that the “sentence did not exceed the outer bounds of the wide range of discretion that district courts are afforded.” Maj. Op. at 1273. Thus, I concur in the result. I think it unnecessary to the decision and unwise for me, as a visitor, to join in the important debate between Chief Judge Carnes and Judge Wilson regarding Eleventh Circuit sentencing precedent.