United States v. Tosi, 897 F.3d 12

Primo Tosi pled guilty to possessing a firearm while subject to a qualifying court order under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8) after an incident in which he allegedly pressed a firearm against a pillow covering a woman’s face and said "bang, bang."
Police recovered a Remington 12-gauge shotgun from Tosi’s residence; Tosi was subject to state protective orders for his child and the child’s mother at the time.
The PSR recommended total offense level 12 (including a two-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility) and Criminal History Category (CHC) III, yielding a 15–21 month Guideline range.
The government sought an upward CHC departure to V and an upward variance to 60 months; defense requested a below-guidelines sentence based on personal, medical, and substance-abuse history.
The district court departed upward to CHC V (reflecting uncapped criminal-history points) but imposed a within-guidelines sentence of 33 months (top of the CHC V range for offense level 12).
Tosi appealed, challenging the sentence as substantively and procedurally unreasonable; the First Circuit affirmed.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the district court adequately considered 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors	Government argued for a higher sentence due to seriousness and public protection needs	Tosi argued judge failed to give sufficient weight to mitigating personal characteristics and should have imposed below-guidelines sentence	Court held judge conducted individualized § 3553(a) analysis and reasonably balanced factors, affirming sentence
Whether upward departure to CHC V was justified	Govt: CHC III under-represented Tosi’s criminal history and recidivism risk	Tosi: Departure insufficiently justified; record didn’t support equating him with CHC V defendants	Court held departure under U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3 was justified given recurring convictions and uncapped total criminal-history points
Whether procedural objections raised in reply brief are reviewable	Govt implicitly: prior arguments preserve record	Tosi raised new procedural points in reply brief	First Circuit declined to consider new arguments raised first in reply brief as forfeited
Whether 33-month within-guidelines sentence was reasonable	Govt: higher sentence warranted but 33 months acceptable	Tosi: within-guidelines sentence still substantively unreasonable given mitigation	Court held 33 months is within the universe of reasonable sentences and affirmed

United States v. Crespo-Ríos, 787 F.3d 34 (1st Cir. 2015) (discussing scope of substantive and procedural sentencing-review categories)
United States v. Flores-Machicote, 706 F.3d 16 (1st Cir. 2013) (explaining deference standard for reasonableness review and that legal rulings get no deference)
United States v. Carbajal-Váldez, 874 F.3d 778 (1st Cir. 2017) (refusing to consider arguments raised for first time in a reply brief)
United States v. Ayala-Vazquez, 751 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2014) (emphasizing individualized sentencing and focus on the person before the court)
Gall v. United States, 522 U.S. 38 (2007) (establishing standard for appellate review of sentencing decisions)
United States v. King, 741 F.3d 305 (1st Cir. 2014) (noting broad range of reasonable sentences within guidelines)