Kermit V. Lipez
How Judge Lipez rules, drawn from 45 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
How Judge Lipez decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
He reads statutory and sentencing-guideline text at the level of grammar and punctuation when the provision's structure resolves the dispute.
“the guideline, through placement of the comma following ‘or facilitate the travel of,’ plainly includes ‘facilitat[ing] . . . travel’ as one of five alternative means by which the use of a computer to engage a minor in prohibited sexual contact will trigger the enhancement.”
In agency review, he examines what the decision actually implies and will identify impermissible unstated factfinding rather than accepting a formally neutral explanation at face value.
“The insinuation here of an improper motive for the marriage is unmistakable -- Badose married because he was in jeopardy of removal.”
In reviewing jury selection, he scrutinizes facially neutral reasons that lack a case-specific connection and risk reproducing racial stereotypes.
“And strikes based on a juror's level of education in the absence of a clear connection to the case's complexity may come perilously close to resembling strikes based on amorphous concepts of ‘intelligence’ that have been rejected by courts, and that perpetuate deplorable and wholly unjustified racist stereotypes about Black mental acuity.”
Procedural preferences
The farther a sentence departs from the guideline range, the more thorough and cogent the district court's stated rationale must be.
“Accordingly, it was incumbent upon the district court to provide a sentencing rationale that was correspondingly thorough and cogent.”
Cautions
Sympathetic facts do not substitute for record evidence at summary judgment; the claim still must satisfy the governing law on the developed record.
“It is clear that González-Cabán and his family have suffered a terrible tragedy. However, we are limited in our ruling to the state of the summary judgment record and the law.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“The petition is denied. So ordered.”
“In arriving at its 360-month sentence, the district court made an individualized assessment of appellant's role in the conspiracy and murders, imposed its sentence in reliance on that assessment, and provided an adequate explanation for its sentence. Furthermore, the district court did not err when it declined to adjust appellant's sentence to reflect the six months he had served for his state drug conviction. Accordingly, we affirm its judgment.”
“Within ‘a universe of reasonable sentences,’ where there is ‘not a single appropriate sentence,’ the factors relied on by the court ‘add[ed] up to a plausible rationale’ for the modest variance imposed in this case. Affirmed.”
“There was no error -- plain or otherwise -- in the court's determination that the proper TOL was 34. . . . Accordingly, we hold that Acevedo-Sueros has not carried his burden to show that his substantial rights were affected by the court's alleged failure to satisfy Rule 32(i)(1)(A). Affirmed.”
“To protect the fairness and integrity of the sentencing process, the district court should impose a sentence in this revocation proceeding based on a correct view of the facts. Hence, we vacate the judgment of the district court.”
“In sum, the district court committed a clear error when it insisted without factual support that Cotto-Negrón was more culpable in the commission of the San Patricio Kmart robbery than co-defendants Zambrana-Sierra and Tanco-Moreno. Hence, we vacate Cotto-Negrón's procedurally unreasonable sentence and remand the case for resentencing.”
“For the forgoing reasons, the petition is dismissed.”
“For the foregoing reasons, we dismiss the petitions for want of jurisdiction.”
“For the foregoing reasons, the BIA did not abuse its discretion in rejecting Kuffour's motion to reconsider. We thus deny the petition for review. So ordered.”
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