USA V. RODRIGUEZ-RAMIREZ, No. 17-50307 (9th Cir. 2018)
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FILED NOT FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 14 2018 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, No. 17-50307 D.C. No. 2:99-cr-01274-PA-19 v. HECTOR RODRIGUEZ-RAMIREZ, MEMORANDUM* Defendant-Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Ronald S.W. Lew, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted December 3, 2018 Pasadena, California Before: TASHIMA and IKUTA, Circuit Judges, and KENNELLY,** District Judge. Hector Rodriguez-Ramirez appeals the district court’s denial of his motion for a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2). We affirm. * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Matthew F. Kennelly, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois, sitting by designation. The district court did not err in calculating Rodriguez-Ramirez’s amended guidelines range. Consistent with § 1B1.10(b)(1) of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, the court correctly substituted the new base offense level of 32 (which was applicable to Rodriguez-Ramirez’s offense under the amended § 2D1.1(c) of the guidelines) in place of the prior base offense level of 38, and then applied the grouping rules under §§ 3D1.3 and 3D1.4 to arrive at a combined adjusted offense level of 34. See United States v. Waters, 648 F.3d 1114, 1117–18 (9th Cir. 2011); see also United States v. Leniear, 574 F.3d 668, 673 (9th Cir. 2009). The court then correctly applied the three level adjustment for acceptance of responsibility to arrive at a total offense level of 31, resulting in a guidelines range of 151 to 188 months, given Rodriguez-Ramirez’s criminal history category. The district court did not abuse its discretion in weighing the factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) to conclude that a sentencing reduction was not warranted. See United States v. Mercado-Moreno, 869 F.3d 942, 949 (9th Cir. 2017). It adequately addressed Rodriguez-Ramirez’s nonfrivolous arguments for a reduced sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1). The court explained its reasons for determining that—contrary to Rodriguez-Ramirez’s contentions—“the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of the defendant,” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1), did not weigh in favor of a lower sentence. Among other 2 things, the court noted that Rodriguez-Ramirez participated in a violent criminal enterprise, engaged in acts of violence, was part of a conspiracy to murder a fellow gang member, and had a prior felony conviction for manslaughter. Nor did the district court abuse its discretion in rejecting Rodriguez-Ramirez’s argument that denying him a sentence reduction would create unwarranted sentencing disparities with his codefendants, because they were not similarly situated to RodriguezRamirez. Finally, the district court’s assessment that the sentence of 235 months was “not a substantial departure” from the amended guidelines range of 151 to 188 months was not a finding of fact, let alone a clearly erroneous finding of fact. AFFIRMED. 3
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