US v. Torres-Reyes: Torres-Reyes,
a Mexican national, had been deported from the United States (once) and allowed
to leave voluntarily (twice) before returning “undetected” to the United States
in 2001. In 2006 he was charged in state court with a drug offense, but absconded
while on bond. Ten years later, he was arrested again in state court, where he
eventually pleaded guilty to multiple charges. He was then charged in federal
court with illegal reentry, to which he also pleaded guilty. At sentencing, the
district court rejected Torres-Reyes’s objection to a 1995 drug conviction
being counted in his criminal history score, resulting in an advisory Guideline
range of 37 to 46 months. The district court also declined to impose a downward
variance, eventually sentencing Torres-Reyes to a term of 37 months in prison.
On appeal, the Fourth Circuit vacated Torres-Reyes’s
sentence. It noted that while the district court provided a sufficient
explanation for rejecting the legal
objection Torres-Reyes made to the inclusion of the 1995 convictions in the Guideline
calculations, it did not similarly grapple with the equitable argument that doing so resulted in an advisory Guideline
range that overstated the seriousness of Torres-Reyes’s criminal history.
Because it was not “patently obvious” that the district court considered the
variance argument, the sentence had to be vacated and the case remanded for
resentencing.
Congrats to the Defender Office in Eastern NC on the win!
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