United States v. Garron Sparks , 586 F. App'x 136 ( 2014 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 14-4440
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
GARRON TAUFEEQ SPARKS,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle
District of North Carolina, at Greensboro. Thomas D. Schroeder,
District Judge. (1:13-cr-00357-TDS-1)
Submitted: November 24, 2014 Decided: December 4, 2014
Before NIEMEYER, KING, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Louis C. Allen, Federal Public Defender, Greg Davis, Assistant
Federal Public Defender, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for
Appellant. Ripley Rand, United States Attorney, Stephen T.
Inman, Assistant United States Attorney, Greensboro, North
Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Garron Taufeeq Sparks pled guilty to possession of a
firearm by a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 922(g)(1) (2012). The district court sentenced him to a
Guidelines sentence of fifty-five months’ imprisonment. Sparks
appeals, claiming that his sentence is substantively
unreasonable. We affirm.
We review the district court’s sentence, “whether
inside, just outside, or significantly outside the Guidelines
range[,]” for reasonableness “under a deferential abuse-of-
discretion standard.” Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41,
51 (2007). Because Sparks does not challenge the procedural
reasonableness of his sentence, we turn our attention to
substantive reasonableness, “tak[ing] into account the totality
of the circumstances.” Id. at 51. “Any sentence that is within
or below a properly calculated Guidelines range is presumptively
reasonable[,]” and this “presumption can only be rebutted by
showing that the sentence is unreasonable when measured against
the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) [(2012)] factors.” United States v.
Louthian, 756 F.3d 295, 306 (4th Cir. 2014), cert. denied, __
U.S.L.W. __, 2014 WL 4717386 (U.S. Oct. 20, 2014) (No. 14-336).
Sparks asserts that the district court inadequately
considered his youth when imposing a Guidelines sentence. We
disagree. The district court expressly relied on Sparks’ age as
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its basis for imposing a sentence near the low end of the
Guidelines range, while also taking into account Sparks’
criminal history, which included two prior convictions for
illegal gun possession. Sparks has not shown that this sentence
is unreasonable when measured against the § 3553(a) factors.
Accordingly, we hold that the Guidelines sentence
imposed by the district court is substantively reasonable, and
we affirm the judgment of the district court. 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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