United States v. Fernandez-Rodriguez
United States v. Fernandez-Rodriguez
Opinion
ON REMAND FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
The Supreme Court vacated the sentence in this case and remanded the case to this Court to reconsider in light of United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. -, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005). Subsequently, we requested letter briefs from the parties with respect to Booker issues. Having reviewed the parties’ letter briefs, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
Appellant’s Booker claim is foreclosed by the waiver of an appeal provision in his *204 plea agreement. As conceded in Appellant’s letter brief, this Court’s precedents would not recognize an infirmity in the waiver even after Booker. See United States v. Cortez, 413 F.3d 502 (5th Cir. 2005).
Moreover, even if waiver of an appeal provision would not foreclose consideration under this Court’s precedents, Appellant’s Blakely/now-Booker claim was raised for the first time on direct appeal. If addressed, that claim would be reviewed for plain error, and Appellant has failed to show that the district court would have imposed a lesser sentence under an advisory guidelines system. Thus, the error, while clear and obvious, has not been shown to affect Appellant’s substantive rights. See United States v. Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S. 74, 124 S.Ct. 2333, 2339, 159 L.Ed.2d 157 (2004). Accordingly, for the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.
Pursuant to 5th Cir. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5th Cir. R. 47.5.4.
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