UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

v.

EMILIANO EMMANUEL FLORES-GONZÁLEZ,

Defendant, Appellant.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

[Hon. Francisco A. Besosa, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Barron, Chief Judge, Thompson and Kayatta, Circuit Judges.

Ivan Santos-Castaldo, Research and Writing Attorney, with whom Eric Alexander Vos, Federal Public Defender, Franco L. Pérez- Redondo, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Supervisor, Appeals Division, and Liza L. Rosado-Rodríguez, Research and Writing Specialist, were on brief, for appellant. Gregory B. Conner, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney, and Marina E. Bauzá-Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate Division, were on brief, for appellee.

May 16, 2022 THOMPSON, Circuit Judge. Emiliano Emmanuel Flores- González ("Flores") thinks his 48-month prison sentence entered after he pled guilty to illegally possessing a machine gun (a modified Glock pistol) is too long — in legal lingo, he believes his incarcerative term (which is well below the 10-year statutory maximum) is procedurally and substantively unreasonable. Reviewing for abuse of discretion — a multidimensional standard that requires us to inspect fact findings for clear error and legal rulings de novo (with fresh eyes, to use plain English), see United States v. Rivera-Berríos, 968 F.3d 130, 133-34 (1st Cir. 2020) — we agree with one of his many arguments and so vacate his sentence and remand for resentencing consistent with this opinion.

I

Criminal sentencing might be the hardest thing district judges do. See, e.g., United States v. Vixamar, 679 F.3d 22, 34- 35 (1st Cir. 2012). What was once a system of "total judicial discretion" (letting judges pick whatever sentence they wished, unless Congress reined in that discretion with statutes setting minimum or maximum penalties) and then one of "virtually no[]" discretion "with mandatory [sentencing] guidelines" is now a regime of "advisory guidelines with discretion for variances and policy disagreements with the guidelines" (though judges must

- 2 - still, of course, stay within statutory bounds).1 See Mark W. Bennett, Addicted to Incarceration: A Federal Judge Reveals Shocking Truths About Federal Sentencing and Fleeting Hopes for Reform, 87 UMKC L. Rev. 3, 22 (2018).2 Appellate decisions on the subject fill volumes of the United States Reports and the Federal Reporter series.

Developed by the federal sentencing commission — a non- elected body created by Congress that sits within the judicial branch, see 28 U.S.C. § 991(a); see also id. § 994(a) — the guidelines set up a matrix-like regime.3 Roughly speaking, a judge scores the crime's "base offense level," making adjustments for certain aggravating or mitigating factors to get the "total offense level." See United States v. Martínez-Benítez, 914 F.3d 1, 2 n.2

1 "The allowable band of variance is greater" under the new system than under the old ones, though intellectual discipline remains vital. "[A] motion to [a court's] discretion is a motion, not to its inclination, but to its judgment; and its judgment is to be guided by sound legal principles." See United States v. Kirkpatrick, 589 F.3d 414, 416 (7th Cir. 2009) (quoting United States v. Burr, 25 F. Cas. 30, 35 (C.C.D. Va. 1807) (Marshall, C.J.)) (alterations by Kirkpatrick). 2 Former Judge Bennett was a district judge in the Northern District of Iowa from 1994 to 2019. See Biographical Directory o