District court may consider conduct not related to crime of conviction in formulating reasonable sentence

SENTENCING United States v. Chavez-Calderon, No. 06-2313, ___ F.3d ___ (10th Cir. Jul 30, 2007)(New Mexico). Appeal of sentence for unlawful reentry to United States after deportation. HELD: District court is required to carefully consider facts contained in presentence report when evaluating 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) sentencing factors, including history and characteristics of defendant, need for sentence to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct, and need to protect public from further crimes of defendant. Therefore, district court may consider conduct not related to crime of conviction in formulating reasonable sentence. Accordingly, in this instance, district court properly considered two instances of domestic violence in formulating sentence for illegal reentry even though neither incident resulted in conviction. Read the opinion here.