United States v. Arturo Garza, Jr.

In United States v. Garza, 127 F.4th 954 (5th Cir. 2025), the Fifth Circuit affirmed the defendant’s 87-month prison sentence, even though that was 12 months higher than what he had received at his original sentencing before he had won on appeal.

Background: Originally, Garza had received a 75-month sentence, but he appealed and won. See United States v. Garza, 2023 WL 3918993 (5th Cir. June 9, 2023). Following that appeal, Garza’s case was remanded for a resentencing “with instructions to permit the Government to present additional evidence” about whether to apply a Sentencing Guidelines enhancement for possessing a firearm in close proximity to a large-capacity magazine."

On remand, Garza was scheduled for a resentencing hearing. “Here’s the twist: On the day of the hearing, the district court learned about additional criminal convictions that had been entered against Garza since his original sentencing.” Those new convictions raised Garza’s Guidelines range from 46-to-57 months to 77-to-96 months. Garza objected that increasing his Guidelines exceeded the scope of the Fifth Circuit’s mandate, but the district court denied his objection and imposed an 87-month sentence.

Holding 1: The district court did not err by using the intervening sentences to increase Garza’s criminal history score.

“The question here is whether a “prior” sentence includes a sentence issued after the original sentence but before a subsequent resentencing proceeding,” and the federal circuit courts “are divided on this question.’ The Fifth Circuit decided to side with “the majority of circuits, which interpret [USSG] § 4A1.1 to include sentences imposed prior to resentencing.”

Holding 2: The district court did not exceed the Fifth Circuit’s mandate by considering the intervening convictions.

“The mandate rule requires courts to comply with the directives of a superior court on remand, and bars the re-litigation of issues expressly or implicitly resolved by the appellate court.” Under Fifth Circuit precedent, “district courts may address issues on remand that were not—and indeed, could not—have been brought in the original appeal” (quotation marks and citation omitted).

Here, Garza’s intervening convictions “did not exist at the time of his original sentencing,” so “the government could not have raised them in his initial appeal as grounds for increasing his criminal history score.” For that reason, the district court was not prohibited from considering the intervening sentences at the resentencing hearing.