United States v. Martin Garcia


NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS OCT 26 2023 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 22-30202 Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. 1:04-cr-00087-SPW-1 v. MARTIN GARCIA, MEMORANDUM* Defendant-Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Montana Susan P. Watters, District Judge, Presiding Submitted October 19, 2023 ** Portland, Oregon Before: GILMAN,*** KOH, and SUNG, Circuit Judges. Martin Garcia was indicted as part of a large drug conspiracy in 2004 and was later convicted and sentenced. In late 2019, Garcia moved the district court to * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). *** The Honorable Ronald Lee Gilman, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation. reduce his sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2), and in 2020 he moved to reduce his sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1). The district court granted both motions and reduced Garcia’s total sentence from 720 months to 382 months of imprisonment (comprised of 262 months for the drug charges and 120 months for the firearm charges). Garcia now appeals these decisions, arguing that his sentence should have been reduced even further, to a time-served sentence of 221 months. We review sentence-reduction decisions based on both 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1) and (c)(2) under the abuse-of-discretion standard. United States v. Aruda, 993 F.3d 797, 799 (9th Cir. 2021). A district court abuses its discretion if “it does not apply the correct law or if it rests its decision on a clearly erroneous finding of material fact.” Id. (quoting United States v. Dunn, 728 F.3d 1151, 1155 (9th Cir. 2013)). 1. Garcia argues for a reduction of his sentence for the drug charges based on Amendments 782 and 788 to the United States Sentencing Guidelines, which lowered the Guidelines range for these drug charges after Garcia was originally sentenced. A district court can reduce a sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) for a defendant who was “sentenced to a term of imprisonment based on a sentencing range that [was] subsequently . . . lowered by the Sentencing Commission.” In considering a motion under § 3582(c)(2), the court must adhere to any applicable policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission and consider whether a 2 reduction is warranted after considering the factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). One such policy statement makes clear that, for motions under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2), the district court cannot reduce the defendant’s term of imprisonment “to a term that is less than the minimum of the amended guideline range[.]” U.S. Sent’g Guidelines Manual § 1B1.10(b)(2)(A) (U.S. Sent’g Comm’n 2021) (“U.S.S.G.”). Here, the district court granted Garcia’s motion for a sentence reduction under § 3582(c)(2) and reduced his sentence on the drug charges to the …

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