United States v. Adrian Zitlalpopoca-Hernandez, 709 F. App'x 428

Defendant was convicted of multiple counts including aiding and abetting coercion/persuasion to travel to engage in prostitution (18 U.S.C. § 2422(a)) and several immigration-related offenses (8 U.S.C. §§ 1328, 1324).
District court imposed a 200‑month prison sentence and a period of supervised release; defendant appealed the sentence.
On appeal defendant argued (1) the Guidelines range for supervised release was wrongly calculated and (2) the district court’s explanation for the chosen sentence was procedurally deficient because it failed to address arguments in defendant’s sentencing memorandum about sentencing disparity under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6).
The Ninth Circuit reviewed de novo whether procedural errors occurred (abuse of discretion standard for sentencing overall; plain‑error review for unpreserved claims) and considered whether the explanation satisfied United States v. Carty requirements.
The panel affirmed the supervised‑release calculation under plain‑error review because the defendant will likely be removed and supervised release will be waived on removal, so any error did not affect substantial rights.
The panel reversed and remanded for resentencing because the district court did not adequately address defendant’s specific, nonfrivolous § 3553(a)(6) disparity argument; the case was returned to the original judge. A concurrence/dissent would have (1) declined to reach substantive reasonableness and (2) ordered reassignment to a different judge.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Validity of supervised‑release calculation	Ameline/plain‑error review: sentence component was miscalculated and should be corrected	District: any error is harmless because defendant will be deported and supervised release will be waived	Affirmed under plain‑error review — removal makes supervised release unlikely to affect substantial rights
Adequacy of sentencing explanation under § 3553(a)	Court failed to address defendant’s specific, nonfrivolous argument re sentencing disparities with similarly situated defendants	Court relied on reading filings and other general comments; argued its explanation sufficed	Reversed and remanded: district court must expressly consider and accept or reject the disparity argument with reasoned explanation per Carty/Trujillo
Reassignment of case on remand	Defendant requested reassignment to a new judge due to repeated resentencings and alleged entrenched views	Government opposed; majority stressed high threshold for reassignment and judge’s willingness to reconsider	Denied: reassignment not warranted; remand to original judge (concurrence/dissent would have reassigned)

United States v. Carty, 520 F.3d 984 (9th Cir. 2008) (en banc) (sentencing courts must calculate Guidelines, consider § 3553(a), and provide reasoned explanation; greater explanation needed for larger variances)
United States v. Ameline, 409 F.3d 1073 (9th Cir. 2005) (en banc) (plain‑error review for unpreserved sentencing claims)
United States v. Trujillo, 713 F.3d 1003 (9th Cir. 2013) (judge’s mere statement of having read filings is not necessarily an adequate § 3553(a) explanation)
United States v. Grissom, 525 F.3d 691 (9th Cir. 2008) (if sentence vacated on procedural grounds, courts need not reach substantive‑reasonableness question)
Earp v. Cullen, 623 F.3d 1065 (9th Cir. 2010) (standards for reassignment on remand: unusual circumstances required)
United States v. Ellis, 641 F.3d 411 (9th Cir. 2011) (discussion of procedural versus substantive review in sentencing appeals)
Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38 (2007) (sentencing review framework: procedural and substantive reasonableness)