United States v. Chavez-Morales, 894 F.3d 1206

Defendant Manuel Chavez-Morales, a Mexican national, had four prior illegal-reentry convictions and was convicted a fifth time shortly after deportation; total prior custody exceeded seven years.
He pleaded guilty without a plea agreement; the PSR calculated a Guidelines range of 21–27 months and recommended supervised release of 1–3 years but noted U.S.S.G. § 5D1.1(c) (ordinarily do not impose supervised release on deportable aliens).
The district court rejected a negotiated "fast-track" plea, indicated it might vary upward from Guidelines based on Chavez-Morales’s recidivism, and ultimately imposed a 36‑month upward-variant prison term and a 3‑year (unsupervised) term of supervised release with a special condition forbidding illegal reentry.
Chavez-Morales argued at sentencing that economic incentives (higher U.S. wages) motivated his reentries and mitigated the offense; the court repeatedly addressed and rejected that justification as unpersuasive given his repeated reentries and time spent in U.S. custody.
On appeal he challenged (1) procedural reasonableness of the upward variance for allegedly insufficient consideration of his economic-motivation argument, and (2) plain error in imposing supervised release without acknowledging U.S.S.G. § 5D1.1(c).

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether district court procedurally erred by not meaningfully considering Chavez‑Morales’s economic‑motivation mitigation before imposing an upward variance	Chavez‑Morales: the court failed to meaningfully consider that higher U.S. wages motivated his reentry and mitigated offense seriousness	Government: Chavez‑Morales did not preserve the procedural objection; review should be plain‑error	Court: Not preserved; on the merits the record shows the court addressed the argument three times and adequately explained rejection — no procedural error
Whether imposition of supervised release without acknowledging U.S.S.G. § 5D1.1(c) was plain error	Chavez‑Morales: court erred by not considering Guideline instruction that supervised release is ordinarily inappropriate for deportable aliens, so error likely affected substantial rights	Government: No reversible plain error given defendant’s recidivism and the court’s deterrence concerns	Court: Court committed procedural error by failing to acknowledge § 5D1.1(c), but Chavez‑Morales failed plain‑error prong three (no reasonable probability the sentence would differ on remand) — affirmed

United States v. Gantt, 679 F.3d 1240 (10th Cir. 2012) (preservation rule and plain‑error framework for sentencing procedural challenges)
United States v. Sanchez‑Juarez, 446 F.3d 1109 (10th Cir. 2006) (sentencing court must show it considered meritorious § 3553(a) mitigation arguments)
United States v. Cunningham, 429 F.3d 673 (7th Cir. 2005) (standards for discernible consideration of mitigation at sentencing)
United States v. Estrada‑Mederos, 784 F.3d 1086 (7th Cir. 2015) (economic motive can be a mitigating sentencing factor and typically merits explicit comment)
United States v. Zanghi, 209 F.3d 1201 (10th Cir. 2000) (may not assume prison‑term rationale transfers to supervised‑release decision)
United States v. Solano‑Rosales, 781 F.3d 345 (6th Cir. 2015) (imposition of supervised release on deportable alien requires acknowledgement of § 5D1.1(c) or explanation for departure)
United States v. Azcona‑Polanco, 865 F.3d 148 (3d Cir. 2017) (district court must explain and justify supervised release for deportable immigrant)
United States v. Dazey, 403 F.3d 1147 (10th Cir. 2005) (standard for showing reasonable probability that sentencing defect altered outcome)