United States v. Ortiz-Alvarez, No. 18-1452 (1st Cir. 2019)
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The First Circuit affirmed Defendant's sentence of sixty months' imprisonment imposed after Defendant pleaded guilty to illegal possession of a machine gun and to being a felon in possession of three firearms and ammunition, holding that there was no plain error in the imposition of the sentence.
On appeal, Defendant argued that the district court committed procedural error when it chose not to, before imposing its sentence, definitively determine whether the guidelines sentencing range (GSR) proposed in the presentence report or the guidelines calculation agreed to in the plea agreement was correct. Instead, the district court based its sentence on the other sentencing factors listed in 18 U.S.C. 3553(a). The First Circuit affirmed, holding that, in light of the district court's statements that the sentence would have been the same under any of the proposed GSRs, there was no prejudice. Further, the district court's rationale was plausible and led to a defensible sentence, and therefore, the sentence was not substantively flawed.
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