United States v. Tremayne Goss , 527 F. App'x 275 ( 2013 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 12-4909
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
TREMAYNE S. GOSS,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. Terrence W. Boyle,
District Judge. (5:12-cr-00157-BO-1)
Submitted: June 6, 2013 Decided: June 13, 2013
Before WILKINSON, KING, and AGEE, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Thomas P. McNamara, Federal Public Defender, Stephen C. Gordon,
Assistant Federal Public Defender, Raleigh, North Carolina, for
Appellant. Thomas G. Walker, United States Attorney, Jennifer
P. May-Parker, Joshua L. Rogers, Assistant United States
Attorneys, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Tremayne Goss pled guilty to possession with intent to
distribute a quantity of cocaine and possession with intent to
distribute a quantity of cocaine and a quantity of cocaine base,
in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a) (2006). After sustaining
Goss’ objection to the drug weight attributed to him in the
presentence report, the district court imposed a
within-Guidelines sentence of eighty-four months’ imprisonment.
Goss appeals. On appeal, he argues only that his sentence was
not substantively reasonable because it was based on a
Guidelines range driven in large measure by a confidential
informant’s uncorroborated statement. In opposition, the
Government asserts that Goss invited the error of which he now
complains. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.
As a general rule, “‘a court can not be asked by
counsel to take a step in a case and later be convicted of
error, because it has complied with such a request.’” United
States v. Herrera, 23 F.3d 74, 75 (4th Cir. 1994) (quoting
Shields v. United States, 273 U.S. 583, 586 (1927)). Thus, we
“will not consider alleged errors that were invited by the
appellant,” absent a showing of such “extraordinary
circumstances” as “an apparent miscarriage of justice or doubt
as to the integrity of the judicial process.” United States v.
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Hickman, 626 F.3d 756, 772 (4th Cir. 2010) (internal quotation
marks omitted).
At sentencing, Goss objected to the informant’s
statement, asserting that it was vague and resulted in a
substantially higher drug quantity than that involved in his
offenses. As a remedy for these objections, defense counsel
requested only that the district court remove one ounce of
cocaine from the informant’s drug weight estimate to qualify
Goss for the lower base offense level of twenty-six. The court
did just this, adopting the lower drug weight as requested by
Goss and imposing a sentence within the Guidelines range
established by the resulting base offense level. Goss made no
further objection to this Guidelines range and did not request a
different sentence. Goss does not demonstrate that a
miscarriage of justice will result from, or that the judicial
process will be compromised by, the alleged error. Because the
sentence Goss now identifies as unreasonable resulted from a
remedy his counsel specifically requested, we conclude that
Goss’ argument is invited error not subject to review by this
court. *
*
In any event, were we to consider the issue on its merits,
we would conclude without difficulty that Goss has not met his
burden to rebut the presumption of substantive reasonableness
accorded his within-Guidelines sentence. See United States v.
Montes-Pineda, 445 F.3d 375, 379 (4th Cir. 2006).
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Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment.
We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before
this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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