United States v. Julio Zamudio-Dimas

MEMORANDUM

Julio Zamudio-Dimas appeals from the district court’s judgment and challenges the 24-month sentence imposed following his guilty-plea conviction for attempted reentry of a removed alien! in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326 . We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm.

Zamudio-Dimas contends that the district court failed to use the correctly calculated Guidelines range as an initial benchmark at sentencing because it failed to grant a fast-track departure under U.S.S.G. § 5K3.1. We disagree. Departures are not part of the Guidelines calculation, and we do not review the procedural correctness of the denial of a requested departure. See United States v. Evans— Martinez, 611 F.3d 635, 643 (9th Cir.2010) (“[I]t is the pre-departure Guidelines sentencing range that the district court must correctly calculate.”); United States v. Ellis, 641 F.3d 411, 421 (9th Cir.2011) (“In analyzing challenges to a court’s upward and downward departures ... under Section 5K, we do not evaluate them for procedural correctness, but rather, as part of a sentence’s substantive reasonableness.”). The district court satisfied its procedural obligations by correctly calculating the…