United States v. Mark Garza, Jr.
708 F. App'x 209
| 5th Cir. | 2018Background
- Mark Garza, Jr. was on supervised release and was convicted after a jury trial of possessing a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1); that conviction (and its 120-month prison sentence) was recently affirmed on appeal.
- The district court revoked a separate supervised release term, sentenced Garza to 15 months’ imprisonment to run consecutively to the 120-month sentence, and imposed a new three-year supervised-release term with conditions requiring substance-abuse treatment, mental-health treatment, and participation in a workforce-development program.
- The court ordered the new three-year supervised-release term to run concurrently with a three-year term in the firearm case, which included identical treatment and vocational conditions.
- Garza appealed the revocation sentence, arguing (1) the district court failed to adequately explain the consecutive sentence and (2) the supervised-release conditions unlawfully delegated authority to the probation officer and improperly included unspoken workforce-development terms.
- The panel affirmed the revocation prison sentence but, invoking the concurrent-sentence doctrine, vacated the challenged supervised-release conditions in the revocation judgment and remanded with instructions to suspend imposing those conditions in that revocation case, because identical conditions already properly attached to the separately affirmed firearm sentence.
Issues
| Issue | Plaintiff's Argument | Defendant's Argument | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whether district court adequately explained running revocation sentence consecutively | Garza: court failed to provide adequate explanation for consecutive sentence | Government: record shows court thought an advisory-range sentence appropriate; review is plain error | Affirmed — no reversible plain error; sentence within advisory range supported rationale (Rita) |
| Whether supervised-release conditions unlawfully delegated judicial power | Garza: conditions delegate to probation officer the manner/duration of treatment and programs | Government: conditions valid; identical conditions attached to separately affirmed sentence | Did not reach merits; vacated those conditions in revocation judgment under concurrent-sentence doctrine and remanded to suspend them |
| Whether workforce-development terms in written judgment but not mentioned at sentencing are enforceable | Garza: those written terms should be eliminated as they were not pronounced | Government: terms are part of sentence; redundant with firearm case sentence | Court declined to review due to concurrent-sentence doctrine; vacated those conditions in this revocation judgment |
Key Cases Cited
- United States v. Mondragon-Santiago, 564 F.3d 357 (5th Cir. 2009) (plain-error standard for sentencing objections not raised at trial)
- Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338 (2007) (sentence within advisory Guidelines range may receive less elaborate explanation)
- United States v. Stovall, 825 F.2d 817 (5th Cir. 1987) (concurrent-sentence doctrine; appellate economy where identical conditions are in an affirmed sentence)