United States v. Ricardo Douze

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________ FILED
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
No. 10-15610 ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
Non-Argument Calendar JUNE 29, 2011
________________________ JOHN LEY
CLERK
D.C. Docket No. 1:98-cr-00549-ODE-JED-2
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
RICARDO DOUZE,
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll Defendant-Appellant.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
________________________
(June 29, 2011)
Before TJOFLAT, MARCUS and BLACK, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
On October 27, 1999, after Ricardo Douze had entered pleas of guilty, the
district court sentenced him on two counts, for violations of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1951
and 924(c), to consecutive prison terms of 30 and 60 months, to be followed by
three years of supervised release. On November 19, 2010, the district court
revoked Douze’s supervised release and sentenced him to prison for 18 months.
He appeals his sentence, contending that it is substantively unreasonable.
We review the sentence imposed upon the revocation of supervised release
for reasonableness. United States v. Velasquez Velasquez, 524 F.3d 1248, 1252
(11th Cir. 2008). A district court must impose a sentence that is both procedurally
and substantively reasonable. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51, 128 S. Ct.
586, 597, 169 L. Ed. 2d 445 (2007). We review the reasonableness of a sentence
“under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.” Id., 552 U.S. at 41, 128 S. Ct.
at 591. “[T]he party who challenges the sentence bears the burden of establishing
that the sentence is unreasonable.” United States v. Talley, 431 F.3d 784, 788
(11th Cir. 2005).
A sentence is substantively unreasonable if it “fails to achieve the purposes
of sentencing as stated in [18 U.S.C. §] 3553(a).” Id. When revoking a
defendant’s term of supervised release, the sentencing court must consider: (1) the
nature and circumstances of the offense; (2) the history and characteristics of the
defendant; (3) the need for deterrence; (4) the need to protect the public; (5) the
need to provide the defendant with educational or vocational training, medical
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care, or other correctional treatment; (6) the kinds of sentences and the Sentencing
Guidelines sentencing range; (7) any pertinent policy statements; (8) the need to
avoid unwarranted sentencing disparities; and (9) the need to provide restitution to
any victims. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e); 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(B)-(D),
(a)(4)-(7).
A district court abuses its discretion when it balances the § 3553(a) factors
unreasonably or places unreasonable weight on a single factor. United States v.
Irey, 612 F.3d 1160, 1192-93 (11th Cir. 2010) (en banc), cert. denied, 131 S. Ct.
1813 (2011). We remand a case for resentencing if “left with the definite and firm
conviction that the district court committed a clear error of judgment in weighing
the § 3553(a) factors by arriving at a sentence that lies outside the range of
reasonable sentences dictated by the facts of the case.” United States v. Pugh, 515
F.3d 1179, 1191 (11th Cir. 2008) (quotation omitted).
Given the record before it, we conclude that district court did not impose a
substantively unreasonable sentence.
AFFIRMED.
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