United States v. Jesus Rodriguez, 75 F.4th 1231

Rodriguez pled guilty to possession with intent to distribute ≥100g heroin and ≥50g methamphetamine; proffer and search of his home yielded ~300g heroin, 56g meth, scales, mask, and $50,000.
PSR: base offense level 26; applied two-level §2D1.1(b)(12) premises enhancement; safety-valve and acceptance reductions produced total offense level 23 (Guidelines range 46–57 months).
Sentencing occurred by Zoom; defense counsel experienced intermittent disconnections while the court questioned Rodriguez about drug activity at his home.
The district court applied the premises enhancement, upwardly varied to 60 months based on two prior convictions, then reduced 10 months for cooperation — imposed 50 months and five years’ supervised release.
The written judgment added 13 discretionary supervised-release conditions drawn from a standing Southern District of Florida administrative order that were not orally pronounced at sentencing.
Eleventh Circuit disposition: affirmed as to enhancements and sentence reasonableness and denied relief for video malfunctions, but vacated the non-mandatory supervised-release conditions and remanded for resentencing on those conditions.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
1. Premises enhancement (§2D1.1(b)(12))	Rodriguez: home was primarily a family residence; drug use incidental	Government: evidence (trash pulls, quantities, in-home activity, defendant admissions) showed substantial drug activity at home	Enhancement affirmed — no clear error; totality supported that drug activity was more than incidental
2. Procedural & substantive reasonableness of sentence	Rodriguez: court improperly relied on uncounted prior convictions and unjustified upward variance	Government: variance modest and explained; final 50 months within Guidelines	Affirmed — no plain procedural error; sentence not substantively unreasonable
3. Right to counsel during videoconference malfunctions	Rodriguez: counsel’s brief disconnections denied assistance at a critical stage, requiring relief without prejudice showing	Government: interruptions were brief, counsel rejoined and repeated events; no prejudice	No relief — court found no complete denial of counsel and no plain-error prejudice
4. Supervised-release conditions added in written judgment	Rodriguez: discretionary conditions not pronounced at sentencing denied notice and opportunity to object	Government: conditions tracked standing administrative order and thus notice was sufficient	Vacated and remanded — discretionary conditions not orally announced; court must pronounce or expressly adopt written list; error not shown harmless by government

United States v. George, 872 F.3d 1197 (11th Cir. 2017) (totality-of-circumstances test for premises enhancement)
Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38 (2007) (district court must adequately explain sentence and any deviation)
Holguin-Hernandez v. United States, 140 S. Ct. 762 (2020) (defendant’s advocacy for a particular sentence preserves substantive-reasonableness claim)
United States v. Diggles, 957 F.3d 551 (5th Cir. 2020) (discretionary supervised-release conditions must be announced or orally adopt a written list)
United States v. Margarita Garcia, 906 F.3d 1255 (11th Cir. 2018) (harmless-error analysis where counsel briefly absent)
Cronic v. United States, 466 U.S. 648 (1984) (structural error doctrine when counsel totally absent at a critical stage)
United States v. Barner, 572 F.3d 1239 (11th Cir. 2009) (government bears burden to show harmless error in sentencing context)
United States v. Stanley, 739 F.3d 633 (11th Cir. 2014) (within-Guidelines sentences are ordinarily reasonable)