United States v. Albert Ayala

── United States v. Albert Ayala ── Case No.: 24-13745 Court: Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Date: March 10, 2026 Category: NEW USCA11 Case: 24-13745 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 03/10/2026 Page: 1 of 12 NOT FOR PUBLICATION In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 24-13745 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus ALBERT AYALA, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 6:23-cr-00052-CEM-RMN-1 ____________________ Before JILL PRYOR, BRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Albert Ayala appeals his sentence of 168 months’ imprison- ment for possession of a firearm as a convicted felon. We affirm. USCA11 Case: 24-13745 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 03/10/2026 Page: 2 of 12 2 Opinion of the Court 24-13745 I. Ayala pleaded guilty to knowingly possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. He admitted that he possessed a firearm when, as he drove his girlfriend’s SUV more than 70 mph on the interstate, the girlfriend fell, leapt, or was pushed out the front passenger door onto the highway. She was run over by several other vehicles and died at the scene. Ayala crashed the vehicle at an exit ramp about a third of a mile past where his girlfriend died and fled on foot, leav- ing behind the firearm and a cell phone. On appeal, Ayala challenges both the procedural and sub- stantive reasonableness of his sentence. He argues that his sen- tence was procedurally unreasonable because the district court re- lied on clearly erroneous factual findings—including the finding that Ayala contributed to his girlfriend’s death. He also argues that the sentence of 168 months in prison was substantively unreasona- ble because the upward variance to more than four times the upper end of the Sentencing Guidelines range was not justified under the circumstances. II. We review a district court’s sentencing decisions for proce- dural and substantive reasonableness under a deferential abuse-of- discretion standard, whether the sentence imposed is inside or out- side the Guidelines range. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41, 51 (2007); see United States v. Pugh, 515 F.3d 1179, 1190 (11th Cir. 2008). The abuse-of-discretion standard “allows a range of choice for the district court, so long as that choice does not constitute a clear error USCA11 Case: 24-13745 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 03/10/2026 Page: 3 of 12 24-13745 Opinion of the Court 3 of judgment.” United States v. Riley, 995 F.3d 1272, 1278 (11th Cir. 2021) (quotation omitted). We review a district court’s findings of fact for clear error. United States v. Philidor, 717 F.3d 883, 885 (11th Cir. 2013). “A fact finding is clearly erroneous when, after review- ing all the evidence, the court is left with the definite and firm con- viction that a mistake has been committed.” Id. (quotation omit- ted). III. A.