United States v. Crocker

22-300
United States v. Crocker
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION
TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS
GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT=S
LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH
THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN
ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY
CITING TO A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT
REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.
At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit,
held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the
City of New York, on the 14th day of February, two thousand twenty-three.
PRESENT:
AMALYA L. KEARSE,
DENNIS JACOBS,
RICHARD J. SULLIVAN
Circuit Judges.
_____________________________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v. No. 22-300
MALIK CROCKER
Defendant-Appellant. *
_____________________________________
* The Clerk of Court is respectfully directed to amend the official case caption as set forth above.
For Defendant-Appellant: Daniel M. Perez, Law Offices of Daniel M.
Perez, Newton, NJ.
For Appellee: Camille Fletcher, Assistant United States
Attorney, for Damian Williams, United
States Attorney for the Southern District of
New York, New York, NY.
Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern
District of New York (Sidney H. Stein, Judge).
UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED,
ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court is
AFFIRMED.
Malik Crocker appeals from the district court’s judgment imposing a
sentence of thirty months’ imprisonment, following his violations of a previously
imposed term of supervised release. The violations arose from an altercation in
which Crocker fired two gunshots at the driver of a vehicle on a public street in
Queens, New York. On appeal, Crocker argues that his thirty-month term of
imprisonment is substantively unreasonable. We assume the parties’ familiarity
with the underlying facts, procedural history, and issues on appeal.
We review the reasonableness of a sentence for a violation of the terms of
supervised release under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard. See United
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States v. Verkhoglyad, 516 F.3d 122, 127 (2d Cir. 2008). We will set aside a district
court’s sentence as substantively unreasonable “only in exceptional cases where
its decision cannot be located within the range of permissible decisions.” United
States v. Aumais, 656 F.3d 147, 151 (2d Cir. 2011) (citation and alteration omitted).
In other words, a substantively unreasonable sentence is one “so shockingly high,
shockingly low, or otherwise unsupportable as a matter of law that allowing [it]
to stand would damage the administration of justice.” United States v. Broxmeyer,
699 F.3d 265, 289 (2d. Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted).
In “determining an appropriate sentence for [a] violation of supervised
release,” a district court must “‘consider’ most of the factors listed in [18
U.S.C. §] 3553(a),” United States v. Fleming, 397 F.3d 95, 97, 99 (2d Cir. 2005)
(quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)) (alterations omitted), but retains broad discretion to
consider “other pertinent factors” as well, United States v. Williams, 443 F.3d 35, 47
(2d. Cir. 2006). In particular, “the critical subject under consideration at a
revocation proceeding” is “the breach of trust manifested by the violation.”
United States v. Edwards, 834 F.3d 180, 194 (2d Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks
omitted). Assessing the severity of the breach of trust “necessarily requires
consideration of the defendant’s criminal history at the time the violation
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occurred” and “the severity of the conduct constituting the violation.” United
States v. Ramos, 979 F.3d 994, 1001, 1003 (2d. Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks
omitted).
Applying this standard, we conclude that the thirty-month term of
imprisonment imposed by the district court was neither substantively
unreasonable nor an abuse of discretion. First, Crocker’s violations manifested a
serious breach of the court’s trust. As the district court explained, Crocker “ha[d]
been given two substantial breaks by the criminal justice system.” App’x at 129.
Crocker received a below-Guidelines sentence on his original conviction, as well
as a one-year reduction in his supervised release for successful completion of the
Re-Entry through Intensive Supervision and Employment (“RISE”) program.
Indeed, as the district court emphasized at sentencing, the RISE judges “went out
of their way [for Crocker]. It is not everybody who gets admitted to the RISE
court.” Id. at 133. These two instances of leniency exacerbated the severity of
Crocker’s breach of trust. See Ramos, 979 F.3d at 1003 (“[T]he breach of trust
reflected in a violation is exacerbated if the defendant received a lenient original
sentence.” (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted)).
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Moreover, the conduct underlying Crocker’s violation was “extraordinarily
dangerous.” App’x at 140. As the district court noted, “[Crocker] fire[d] two
shots at [a] driver,” and “he could have killed that person or perhaps even [a]
woman who had been moved away from the car.” Id. at 129. The seriousness of
the violation was integral to the district court’s conclusion that an
above-Guidelines sentence was necessary to “afford adequate deterrence to
criminal conduct” and “protect the public from further crimes of the defendant.”
18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(B)–(C); see App’x at 130 (“[H]opefully he is being
deterred. . . . [H]opefully others will be deterred. He also has to be isolated from
society.”). Given the seriousness of the violation, see Ramos, 979 F.3d at 1003, and
the degree to which Crocker breached the court’s trust, see Edwards, 834 F.3d at 194,
the district court’s sentence was substantively reasonable.
Crocker offers several arguments to the contrary, but they are unavailing.
First, he contends that the district court’s sentence was substantively unreasonable
because it exceeded the advisory Guidelines range for a Grade B violation and
thereby “blurred the distinction” between the Grade A violation that was not
proven at the revocation hearing and the Grade B violations that were proven at
the revocation hearing. Crocker Br. at 20. But the record reflects that the district
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court was well aware of Crocker’s violations and the applicable Guidelines. On
several occasions, the district court took pains to clarify that its sentence pertained
only to Crocker’s three Grade B violations – not to the unproven specification for
a Grade A violation. The fact that the sentence exceeded the Guidelines range is
of no moment. We have consistently held that “the sentencing judge may freely
impose a term lower or higher than the recommended Guidelines range” after
starting with a “legally correct interpretation of the Guidelines.” Ramos, 979 F.3d
at 999 (citation omitted). The district court’s imposition of an above-Guidelines
sentence did not blur the distinction between violations; rather, the district court
reasonably varied from the Guidelines given the extraordinarily dangerous nature
of the violations and the serious breach of trust they constituted.
Second, Crocker challenges the district court’s sentence on the ground that
it exceeded the recommendation of the Probation Office. But we have repeatedly
held that the Probation Office’s sentencing recommendation is just that – “only a
recommendation” – and “does not bind the district court.” United States v.
Welbeck, 145 F.3d 493, 498 (2d Cir. 1998) (citation omitted); see also, e.g., United States
v. Avello-Alvarez, 430 F.3d 543, 545 (2d Cir. 2005) (holding same); United States v.
Rivera, 96 F.3d 41, 43 (2d Cir. 1996) (explaining that “the defendant has no
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justifiable expectation that the [Probation Office’s] recommendation will be
followed”); United States v. Eberhard, 525 F.3d 175, 179 (2d Cir. 2008) (finding the
sentence substantively reasonable when it was sixty-four months longer than the
Probation Office’s recommendation). As explained above, the district court had
good reason to vary upward from the sentencing recommendation and reasonably
exercised its discretion to do so.
Finally, Crocker asserts that the district court failed to adequately consider
a variety of mitigating factors, such as his “accomplishments while on supervised
release,” the “support of [his] family and friends,” and “the difficulties [he]
encountered as a result of being incarcerated at the [Metropolitan Detention
Center (the ‘MDC’) in] Brooklyn for almost eight months.” Crocker Br. at 21–22.
But the district court explicitly considered each of these factors. See App’x at 126
(noting that Crocker had “indeed[] successfully completed [the RISE] program”);
id. at 127–28 (describing in detail the letters submitted by Crocker’s family and
friends); id. at 140 (acknowledging the conditions at the MDC and recommending
that the Bureau of Prisons move Crocker to a “facility with more programming
and exercise facilities available”). In any event, “[t]he particular weight to be
afforded aggravating and mitigating factors is a matter firmly committed to the
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discretion of the sentencing judge, with appellate courts seeking to ensure only
that a factor can bear the weight assigned it under the totality of circumstances in
the case.” United States v. Solis, 18 F.4th 395, 405 (2d Cir. 2021) (citation omitted).
Thus, we may not substitute our judgement for the district court’s on how best to
balance these mitigating factors. See United States v. Halvern, 26 F.4th 566, 569
(2d. Cir. 2022) (“Mere disagreement with how the district court balanced the
[section] 3553(a) factors . . . is not a sufficient ground for finding an abuse of
discretion.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
In sum, the record indicates that the district court carefully and
appropriately applied the applicable sentencing factors, see Fleming, 397 F.3d
at 97 – most importantly, the “degree to which [Crocker’s] violation represent[ed]
a serious betrayal of the court’s trust,” Verkhoglyad, 516 F.3d at 136, and “the
severity of the conduct constituting the violation,” Ramos, 979 F.3d at 1003 – before
imposing a sentence that it reasonably deemed to be “sufficient, but not greater
than necessary, to [accomplish] the purposes of [sentencing],” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).
We defer to that assessment and conclude that Crocker’s sentence is not
“shockingly high, shockingly low, or otherwise unsupportable as a matter of law.”
United States v. Rigas, 583 F.3d 108, 123 (2d. Cir. 2009).
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We have considered Crocker’s remaining arguments and find them to be
without merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.
FOR THE COURT:
Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court
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