No. 22-1665

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

v.

JOSÉ LUIS MELÉNDEZ-RIVERA,

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, Lipez and Thompson, Circuit Judges.

Franco L. Pérez-Redondo, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Supervisor, Appeals Section, with whom Héctor L. Ramos-Vega, Interim Federal Public Defender, District of Puerto Rico, was on brief, for appellant.

Maarja T. Luhtaru, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney, and Mariana E. Bauzá-Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate Division, were on brief, for appellee.

June 4, 2025 THOMPSON, Circuit Judge. After José Luis Meléndez-Rivera (Meléndez) and a criminal associate attacked two victims during a carjacking, causing serious injury by way of a gunshot to one of those victims, Meléndez was arrested and charged accordingly. He negotiated a plea agreement with the government, and the district court pronounced sentence thereafter. But Meléndez says two big problems arose at different junctures during sentencing: the government breached the plea agreement, and the court's upwardly variant sentence was procedurally unreasonable. For reasons we explain in the pages to follow, these appellate contentions do not carry the day. We therefore affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

As usual when, as here, a sentencing appeal follows a guilty plea, we draw the pertinent facts from the plea agreement, each change-of-plea hearing,1 the unobjected-to presentence investigation report (PSR), and the sentencing hearing transcript. See United States v. Diaz-Serrano, 77 F.4th 41, 44 (1st Cir. 2023).

A. The Offense Conduct

One evening around late January 2018, Meléndez and Kevin J. Aponte-Pelaez (Aponte) approached a parked Ford F-250 truck in

The appellate record does not include transcripts for the 1 change-of-plea proceedings. See United States v. Morales-Cortijo, 65 F.4th 30, 32 n.1 (1st Cir. 2023) (noting same issue). But the record does contain the docketed minutes of Meléndez's change-of-plea hearings, so we look to those.

- 2 - Bayamón, Puerto Rico, brandishing firearms. Inside the truck were two occupants -- a woman (seated in the driver's seat) and her father (seated in the backseat). Aponte opened the driver's-side door and pulled the woman out of the truck and to the ground by her leg. Meléndez went to the back seat and told the father, "Get out of the vehicle. We are stealing this vehicle." The father pulled out the pistol he owned and shot in Meléndez's direction. Then the father grabbed Aponte (who was in the driver's seat by then) by the neck and attempted to shoot him, but the gun did not discharge. A shootout between the father and Meléndez ensued, during which Meléndez shot the father in the face. Meléndez and Aponte fled on foot.

B. Indictment and Plea Agreements

Soon after, Meléndez was arrested and charged with carjacking resulting in serious bodily injury, 18 U.S.C. § 2119(2) (Count 1), carrying and discharging a firearm during a violent crime, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(iii) (Count 2), and possessing a firearm and ammunition as a convicted felon, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (Counts 3 and 4).

Meléndez entered a plea of not guilty, but, in time, moved to c