United States v. Delgado

106 F.4th 185

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Wilfredo Isaac DELGADO, a/k/a El Gordo, Defendant, Appellant.

No. 21-1855

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit

July 3, 2024

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO [Hon. Francisco A. Besosa, U.S. District Judge]

Héctor Sueiro-Álvarez, Assistant Federal Public Defender, with whom Eric Alexander Vos, Federal Public Defender, and Franco L. Pérez-Redondo, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Supervisor, Appeals Section, were on brief, for appellant.

Gregory B. Conner, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney, and Mariana E. Bauzá-Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate Division, were on brief, for appellee.

Before Montecalvo and Lipez, Circuit Judges, and Burroughs,^* District Judge.

LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.

While completing a term of supervised release, Wilfredo Isaac-Delgado ("Isaac") tested positive for multiple controlled substances, failed to abide by the regulations of his residential reentry center, and was charged with violating Puerto Rico's domestic violence statute for harassing a former romantic partner. Isaac's probation officer detailed these actions, each of which violated the conditions of Isaac's supervised release, in two motions to the district court. Those motions requested that the court revoke Isaac's supervised release.

At the beginning of a hearing on the motions, Isaac informed the court that he would "not be contesting the[ ] violations" described by his probation officer. Isaac instead identified mitigating circumstances that, in his view, justified a sentence within the applicable Sentencing Guidelines range. Relying on the uncontested representations about Isaac's conduct from the probation officer, the district court imposed a sentence more than three times longer than the high end of the Guidelines range. Isaac now challenges that sentence as procedurally unreasonable. Finding no procedural flaw, we affirm the sentence imposed by the district court.

I.

A. Isaac's Conditions of Supervised Release

In November 2018, Isaac completed a term of imprisonment for federal offenses related to a bank robbery and began serving a five-year term of supervised release. Less than a year later, in August 2019, Isaac's probation officer notified the district court that Isaac had violated two conditions of his release: one that prohibited him from committing another crime and another that required him to follow the instructions of his probation officer. The probation officer explained that Isaac had violated a court-issued restraining order imposed because he had threatened and mistreated a former romantic partner. Despite his probation officer's instructions to the contrary, Isaac continued to contact his former partner and, as a result, he was criminally charged with violating Puerto Rico's domestic violence statute ("Commonwealth charges").

The district court initiated proceedings to consider revoking Isaac's supervised release. However, before Isaac's preliminary revocation hearing, the Commonwealth charges were dismissed. Isaac's probation officer then moved to vacate the revocation proceedings, asking that the court instead add new conditions to Isaac's supervised release. The court granted that request, with Isaac's acquiescence. Among the new conditions was a requirement that Isaac participate in reentry support programs, including cognitive behavioral treatment services related to domestic violence.

One year later, Isaac's probation officer notified the district court that Isaac had again violated his conditions of release by using controlled substances and failing to follow the instructions of his probation officer. The probation officer reported that Isaac had tested positive for marijuana five times in the past year and had failed to call into his drug testing program on more than sixty occasions. He recommended that Isaac be admitted to a residential reentry center. Isaac agreed, and his conditions of release were modified to include his participation in such a residential reentry program.

B. Isaac's Violations of Supervised Release

During his short-lived stay at a residential reentry center, however, Isaac failed required drug screens, testing positive for marijuana four times between February and April 2021, and, in one instance, also testing positive for benzodiazepines.

Isaac also continued exhibiting aggressive behavior toward another of his former romantic partners, Johanna Gonzalez-Crespo ("Gonzalez"). In May 2021, staff members at the reentry center heard Isaac insulting a woman over the phone. Two months later, on July 19, 2021, Gonzalez reported to the probation office that Isaac was inundating her with harassing and threatening calls. She explained that, despite blocking his number, she continued to receive threatening calls from Isaac, who started using the phones of other individuals to insult and intimidate her. The probation office reviewed hostile voicemails left by Isaac and recommended that Gonzalez seek assistance from her local police department.

A week later, on July 26, Gonzalez reached out to the reentry center to report her problems with Isaac. She explained that Isaac had been calling her from different phone numbers and coming to her residence to threaten her family. The following day, Gonzalez filed a police report against Isaac detailing the relevant events, including Isaac's threat that "if she is not with him, she will not be with nobody [sic]."

When police officers went to the reentry center to arrest Isaac, he refused to report to the lobby upon request. He became agitated, slammed electronics, violently kicked a desk, and announced: "If they are coming to arrest me, they have to take me death [sic]." After an hour of negotiations, he surrendered to the police. On July 28, Isaac was again charged with violating Puerto Rico's domestic violence law. Two days later, the probation office received a "failure letter" from the reentry center, reporting that Isaac had violated several of the center's regulations.

Isaac's probation officer notified the district court of Isaac's violations of supervised release stemming from these events. In two filings ("Docket Entries 108 and 117" or, collectively, "Probation Motions"), the probation officer detailed Isaac's repeated positive tests for marijuana and benzodiazepines, his threats to Gonzalez, and the resulting criminal charges. The Probation Motions also noted Isaac's prior criminal charges involving his mistreatment of two other women. In addition to the 2019 episode described above, Isaac was also arrested in 2008 on criminal domestic violence charges.

Finally, the probation officer explained that Isaac refused medication to treat his anxiety and substance dependence, despite the probation office paying the cost of his prescription medications. The Probation Motions asserted that Isaac's refusal to take these medications "sabotag[ed] his mental health treatment," thus violating his condition of release requiring him to "participate in a mental health program . . . as arranged and approved by [his] U.S. Probation Officer."

Isaac waived his right to a preliminary revocation hearing, and the district court subsequently entered a finding of probable cause "as to all violations included in the motions filed by [Isaac's probation officer] at Dockets No. 108 and 117." The matter proceeded to a final revocation hearing.

C. Final Revocation Hearing

Isaac began the final revocation hearing by admitting to the violations: "[A]fter review of both the motions of the Probation Officer notifying violations at docket entry 108 and 117, the Defendant will not be contesting these violations but we would like to be heard before Your Honor pronounces sentencing." Isaac then broadly summarized the allegations, explaining that the Probation Motions allege "four positive results to marijuana and another one to benzo[diazepines] and the other one, basically the Probation Officer informed the Court of a domestic violence case that the Defendant had in State Court."

Isaac then identified mitigating circumstances for the court's consideration in sentencing, explaining that the most recent Commonwealth domestic violence charges involved no force or physical aggression, only threats. And those charges, he noted, were dismissed before the final revocation hearing. Isaac also stressed that an existing restraining order would preclude him from "communicat[ing] with the victim."

Isaac further explained that he had been diagnosed with impulsiveness, anxiety, depression, and insomnia. He stated that, to treat these conditions, he "was taking his medications" and had been attending a mental health clinic every month for nearly a year, even while working. Citing monthly reports from the clinic, Isaac highlighted that he "had taken positive steps toward [his treatment] goals, that he was on time for his appointments[,] and was communicative." And, despite the prior modifications of his release conditions, Isaac noted that "[t]his [was] basically his first revocation hearing." Isaac's own allocution to the court requested one "last opportunity" to "not go on the way that [he] ha[d] been going," and he asked for a sentence within the applicable Guidelines range of four to ten months of imprisonment.

The government requested a much longer term of imprisonment. Isaac's conduct, the government argued, justified a sentence beyond the Guidelines range because he had harassed his former romantic partner, continuing a pattern of threatening women going back to 2008. Though the Commonwealth charges were eventually dismissed, the government viewed Isaac's multiple arrests for similar conduct as occurring "too many times . . . to be a coincidence." Even accepting that Isaac's conduct came "from a place of mental health," the government asserted "he's not fixing it." On that basis, the government concluded that a...