Background
Serbelio Tepaz-Perez was serving a term of supervised release when he committed a new illegal reentry offense in the Western District of Texas. The district court revoked his supervised release and imposed a 12-month revocation sentence, ordering it to run consecutively to the 21-month sentence imposed for the new illegal reentry offense — resulting in a combined sentence of 33 months.
Tepaz-Perez appealed the revocation sentence to the Fifth Circuit, arguing that the 12-month term was substantively unreasonable solely because the district court directed it to run consecutive to, rather than concurrent with, his new offense sentence.
The Court’s Holding
A per curiam panel of Judges Richman, Southwick, and Willett affirmed the district court. The Fifth Circuit applied the presumption of reasonableness that attaches to a within-Guidelines revocation sentence and found that Tepaz-Perez had failed to rebut that presumption.
The court further held that Tepaz-Perez had not demonstrated a clear or obvious error sufficient to establish substantive unreasonableness, citing United States v. Warren, 720 F.3d 321 (5th Cir. 2013), United States v. Lopez-Velasquez, 526 F.3d 804 (5th Cir. 2008), and Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129 (2009).
Key Takeaways
- A revocation sentence carries a presumption of reasonableness in the Fifth Circuit, and the defendant bears the burden of rebutting it.
- Ordering a revocation sentence to run consecutive to a new offense sentence does not, without more, render the revocation sentence substantively unreasonable.
- Clear or obvious error is required to overcome the presumption of reasonableness on plain-error review of a revocation sentence.
Why It Matters
This decision reaffirms the Fifth Circuit’s deferential posture toward district courts in supervised release revocation proceedings. Defense counsel challenging consecutive revocation sentences face the dual burden of overcoming the presumption of reasonableness and demonstrating a clear sentencing error — a high bar that this case illustrates is difficult to clear on appeal.
For practitioners in illegal reentry cases, the decision underscores that a district court retains wide discretion to stack a revocation term on top of a new substantive sentence, particularly where the defendant’s conduct — committing a new federal crime while on supervision — directly justifies treating the penalties as separate and cumulative.