United States v. Pavel Ruiz-Gonzalez


USCA11 Case: 21-10602 Date Filed: 11/18/2021 Page: 1 of 8 [DO NOT PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 21-10602 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus PAVEL RUIZ-GONZALEZ, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 6:18-cr-00004-CEM-GJK-1 ____________________ USCA11 Case: 21-10602 Date Filed: 11/18/2021 Page: 2 of 8 2 Opinion of the Court 21-10602 Before WILSON, BRANCH, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Pavel Ruiz-Gonzalez appeals the district court’s decision to revoke his supervised release, and impose a 24-month sentence of imprisonment, for aggravated battery. He argues that the sentence was procedurally unreasonable because his Florida aggravated fel- ony conviction did not qualify as a crime of violence under the United States Sentencing Guidelines (the Guidelines). He also ar- gues that his sentence was substantively unreasonable because the upward variance from the guideline range was not warranted by significant justification. I. In 2014, Ruiz-Gonzalez pled guilty to one count of bringing undocumented immigrants into the United States for commercial advantage and private gain, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(2)(B)(ii). The district court sentenced him to serve 36 months’ imprisonment, to be followed by 36 months’ supervised release. Less than a year into his period of supervised release, Ruiz- Gonzalez stabbed someone following a bar fight. He pled guilty to aggravated battery and the state court sentenced him to serve 35 months’ imprisonment. Following his sentence in state prison, Ruiz-Gonzalez was returned to federal custody. The probation of- fice petitioned to revoke Ruiz-Gonzalez’s supervised release be- cause of his conviction for aggravated battery. At the revocation USCA11 Case: 21-10602 Date Filed: 11/18/2021 Page: 3 of 8 21-10602 Opinion of the Court 3 hearing, Ruiz-Gonzalez pled guilty to a violation of his supervised release. He and the government initially agreed that aggravated battery constituted a grade B violation. However, the probation office later indicated that it was a grade A violation. At the sentenc- ing hearing, the district court allowed Ruiz-Gonzalez to withdraw his guilty plea based on this fact, but he declined and understood that the court would find that the violation was a grade A violation. A grade A violation calls for a sentencing guideline range of 12 to 18 months’ imprisonment. See United States Sentencing Guidelines §§ 7B1.1(a)(1), 7B1.4. Ruiz-Gonzalez requested a down- ward variance to 8 months, arguing that he admitted guilt, already served his sentence in state prison for the offense, and spent 8 months in federal custody. The government requested a 12-month sentence to account for the violent nature of the stabbing. The dis- trict court considered the parties’ statements, but sentenced Ruiz- Gonzalez to the maximum sentence of 24 months’ imprisonment. It acknowledged that Ruiz-Gonzalez’s conduct was violent, em- phasizing that he followed a man after a bar fight, rammed his car into the man, and stabbed him twice. The district court further expressed confusion that the government requested a low-end guideline range sentence …

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