Background
Gerardo Perez-Checa appealed a twenty-one-month, within-guidelines sentence imposed following his guilty plea conviction for illegal reentry. He argued that the district court’s explanation for the sentence was inadequate because it did not specifically respond to his nonfrivolous arguments for a lesser sentence.
The court’s reasoning
The court determined that Perez-Checa’s challenge to his sentence was not so clearly foreclosed by circuit precedent as to warrant summary affirmance. Consequently, the court denied the government’s motion for summary affirmance. The court reviewed the forfeited challenge to the procedural reasonableness of the sentence for plain error. It concluded that the district court provided sufficient reasons for its choice of a within-guidelines sentence and that Perez-Checa failed to show plain error.
What it means going forward
The decision reinforces that while summary affirmance may be denied when a sentencing challenge is not clearly foreclosed, a defendant must still demonstrate plain error to overturn a within-guidelines sentence where the district court provided sufficient reasons.
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