Full Opinion

25-286-cr United States v. Morales Sanchez UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT SUMMARY ORDER RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL. At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 10th day of November, two thousand twenty-six. Present: BARRINGTON D. PARKER, GERARD E. LYNCH, WILLIAM J. NARDINI, Circuit Judges. _____________________________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellee, v. No. 25-286-cr RYAN A. BLOOM, RACHELLE N. ALLISON, AKA RACHELLE BLOOM, AKA RACHELLE ROSELLI, KATIE E. CALIMERI, Defendants, ROBERTO MORALES SANCHEZ, AKA PECHU, AKA PICHULIN, Defendant - Appellant. _____________________________________ For Defendant-Appellant: Randall D. Unger, Law Offices of Randall D. Unger, Kew Gardens, NY 1 For Appellee: Tiffany H. Lee, Assistant United States Attorney, for Michael DiGiacomo, United States Attorney for the Western District of New York, Buffalo, NY Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Western District of New York (John L. Sinatra, Jr., District Judge). UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. Defendant-Appellant Roberto Morales Sanchez appeals from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Western District of New York entered on February 5, 2025. Morales Sanchez pled guilty to a superseding information that charged him with one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, and to distribute, 400 grams or more of fentanyl and 1 kilogram or more of heroin in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(A), and 846. The district court sentenced Morales Sanchez to 156 months in prison, followed by seven years of supervised release. On appeal, Morales Sanchez challenges only his supervised release term, which was two years longer than the five-year term recommended by the Sentencing Guidelines, on the ground that it was procedurally unreasonable. Morales Sanchez raises this argument for the first time on appeal, and so we review only for plain error. Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b). “To meet the plain error standard, [Morales Sanchez] must establish four elements: (1) there is an error; (2) the error is clear or obvious, rather than subject to reasonable dispute; (3) the error affected the appellant’s substantial rights; and (4) the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” United States 2 v. Rosa, 957 F.3d 113, 117–18 (2d Cir. 2020). 1 For the reasons set forth below, we discern no error, plain or otherwise. Morales Sanchez argues that the district court erred because it failed to provide sufficient reasons for imposing the seven-year term of supervised release. A district court is required to provide “the reasons for its imposition of the particular sentence.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(c). But “the statement requirement of § 3553(c) sets a low threshold,” one that depends on the circumstances. Rosa, 957 F.3d at 119. The district court acknowledged that it was imposing a term of supervised release that was two years longer than recommended by the Guidelines, and it explained that it was doing so because Morales Sanchez’s prior criminal convictions, as well as his multiple parole violations and revocations, indicated that a longer term was necessary to deter him from future criminal activity and to assist with his rehabilitation. The court’s explanation, which was supported by the record, was sufficient. Morales Sanchez contends that the district court was required to distinguish him from other recidivists, for whom a five-year term of supervised release would have been adequate. In support of this proposition, he cites two cases: United States v. Mora, 22 F.3d 409 (2d Cir. 1994), and United States v. Stevens, 192 F.3d 263 (2d Cir. 1999). But those cases are inapposite. In Mora, we concluded that a lifetime term of supervised release was substantively unreasonable. See 22 F.3d at 414. But Morales Sanchez does not bring a substantive challenge here. Instead, he limits himself to the argument that his sentence was inadequately explained and therefore procedurally unreasonable. We rejected precisely such a procedural challenge in Mora, where the district court explained on the record that a lifetime term of supervised release was 1 Unless otherwise indicated, when quoting cases, all internal quotation marks, alteration marks, emphases, footnotes, and citations are omitted. 3 appropriate because the defendant had committed a second narcotics offense less than two years after her release from prison, which evidenced a lack of rehabilitation. See id. at 413. The district court’s explanation in the present case is just as detailed as the one we approved in Mora, and so it provides no support for Morales Sanchez’s procedural argument here. In Stevens, we vacated a district court’s upward departure to a lifetime of supervised release based on the defendant’s perjury at trial because—under the “departure” framework that previously governed under the Sentencing Guidelines—the factor on which the district court relied had already been accounted for in the obstruction of justice guideline. See 192 F.3d at 268. Our decision in Stevens has no application here, because the district court did not “depart” upwards; a departure is a now-obsolete concept whereby a district court imposed a sentence outside a recommended Guidelines range, but still subject to the detailed constraints of “the framework set out in the Guidelines,” United States v. Stewart, 590 F.3d 93, 137 n.32 (2d Cir. 2009). Among other things, a district court was permitted to depart upward or downward based on a particular factor only to the extent that the Sentencing Commission had not already adequately considered that factor. See Stevens, 192 F.3d at 267. No such constraint is placed on a district court’s decision to impose an upward “variance,” which is what the district court did here. A variance is chosen outside the framework of the Guidelines, and premised generally on the factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). See United States v. Sealed Def. One, 49 F.4th 690, 697 (2d Cir. 2022). Even accepting Defendant-Appellant’s citations to Mora and Stevens for the proposition that an upward variance could be procedurally unreasonable if a district court’s explanation does not distinguish the defendant from any other recidivist, the district court here did distinguish Morales Sanchez’s circumstances as particularly warranting an increase. At sentencing, the district court observed that Morales Sanchez’s “conduct displays either an unwillingness or an 4 inability to control [his] impulses and account for the safety of others,” that his “long pattern of convictions” indicated that he had “not been deterred by prior sentences,” that he “sustained five violations for which [his] supervision was revoked,” and that the “record indicate[d] an inability or unwillingness to follow court orders.” App’x at 154–55. The district court stated that the increased term of supervision was “intended to help [Morales Sanchez] return to society after incarceration,” “to assist with recovery,” and to “allow[] the U.S. Probation Office to monitor [his] activities” to ensure that he does not offend again. Id. at 156. This explanation clearly distinguished Morales Sanchez from the run of recidivists. Finally, both Mora, 22 F.3d at 414, and Stevens, 192 F.3d at 268, concerned the adequacy of a district court’s explanation as to why an increase from the Guidelines range of supervision to a lifetime term of supervised release was warranted. Here, the term of supervised release was raised from five years to seven years. See United States v. Avello-Alvarez, 430 F.3d 543, 544–45 (2d Cir. 2005) (upholding seven-year term of supervision as reasonable where the district judge “explained the reasons she imposed a seven- year term of supervised release,” which included the defendant’s “recidivism, mental health needs, and substance abuse problems”). Morales Sanchez also points out that in his plea agreement, both parties agreed that the Guidelines recommended a five-year term of supervised release. 2 He argues that the district court erred by failing to give him advance notice of its intention to impose a term of supervised release longer than that contemplated by the Guidelines. In support, he relies on United States v. Marquez, 941 F.2d 60, 64–65 (2d Cir. 1991), which held that a district court must give such advance notice before upwardly departing from an applicable Guidelines range. But again: A district court 2 This plea agreement was a binding agreement under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(C), but only as to the term of imprisonment, not the term of supervised release. 5 imposing an upward variance is not bound by the rules that previously governed upward departures. See Irizarry v. United States, 553 U.S. 708, 714–16 (2008). Indeed, we have expressly held that a district court is not required to provide parties with advance notice that it is contemplating a variance from the advisory Guidelines range. See Sealed Def. One, 49 F.4th at 697. Accordingly, the district court did not procedurally err by imposing a seven-year term of supervised release without first giving notice to Morales Sanchez. * * * We have considered Morales Sanchez’s remaining arguments and find them unpersuasive. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court. FOR THE COURT: Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk 6