Case Explained: Non-Argument Calendar UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. LUCIO DAZA MARQUEZ

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit

Filed: 2026-07-07

Docket: 6:23-cr-00218-CEM-LHP-1

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed Lucio Daza Marquez’s 121-month prison sentence for possession and receipt of child pornography, rejecting his claims that the sentence was procedurally and substantively unreasonable. Regarding procedural reasonableness, the court acknowledged that the district court committed an error by relying on sentencing guideline commentary to count each video as 75 images under U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2(b)(7), rather than calculating the actual number of frames per video as required by *United States v. Kluge*. However, applying plain error review, the court held that Marquez could not demonstrate that this error affected his substantial rights because the correct calculation would have resulted in tens of thousands of images, far exceeding the 600-image threshold for the five-level enhancement; thus, the outcome of the proceeding would not have been different. The court also rejected arguments regarding the district court’s credibility findings concerning a defense psychologist and its characterization of Marquez’s statements about counseling, finding no reasonable probability that correcting these errors would have altered the sentence. On substantive reasonableness, the court applied a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard to review whether the below-guidelines sentence was within the range of reasonable sentences dictated by the facts. The court concluded the district court did not commit a clear error of judgment in weighing the § 3553(a) factors, noting that Marquez’s sentence was well below both the advisory guidelines range and the statutory maximum. The court found it reasonable for the district court to afford greater weight to aggravating factors—including the decade-long duration of the offense, the volume of material (260 videos and 29 images), the use of anti-forensic software to conceal the crimes, and the severe nature of the depicted abuse—than to mitigating factors such as Marquez’s age, family support, and employment. As a result, the judgment of the district court is affirmed, leaving the sentence in place.

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