United States v. Stephenson

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 08-4369
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
JERRY WAYNE STEPHENSON, JR.,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. Terrence W. Boyle,
District Judge. (5:02-cr-00222-BO-l)
Submitted: December 3, 2008 Decided: December 29, 2008
Before TRAXLER and AGEE, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Thomas P. McNamara, Federal Public Defender, Stephen C. Gordon,
Assistant Federal Public Defender, Raleigh, North Carolina, for
Appellant. George E. B. Holding, United States Attorney,
Anne M. Hayes, Banumathi Rangarajan, Assistant United States
Attorneys, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Jerry Wayne Stephenson, Jr., appeals his sentence of
twelve months and one day imposed after the district court
revoked his supervised release. We affirm.
On appeal, Stephenson argues that the sentence imposed
is plainly unreasonable because it does not further the relevant
18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2006) factors, and that the district court
erred by failing to explain adequately its imposition of a
sentence outside the Guidelines range. Stephenson does not
contest the district court’s decision to revoke his supervised
release or its Guidelines calculations. The Government responds
that the district court’s sentence is not unreasonable.
Because Stephenson did not object to the sentence or
the district court’s failure to articulate the reasoning, we
review for plain error. United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725,
732 (1993). In United States v. Crudup, 461 F.3d 433, 437 (4th
Cir. 2005), we held that “revocation sentences should be
reviewed to determine whether they are ‘plainly unreasonable’
with regard to those § 3553(a) factors applicable to supervised
release revocation sentences.” We recognized that analysis of a
sentence imposed on revocation of supervised release involves
both procedural and substantive components. Id. at 438.
Although the district court must consider the Chapter Seven
policy statements and the requirements of 18 U.S.C. §§ 3553(a),
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3583 (2006), “the court ultimately has broad discretion to
revoke its previous sentence and impose a term of imprisonment
up to the statutory maximum.” Crudup, 461 F.3d at 439 (internal
quotation marks and citation omitted). Although a sentencing
court must provide a sufficient explanation of the sentence to
allow “effective review of [its] reasonableness” on appeal,
United States v. Moulden, 478 F.3d 652, 657 (4th Cir. 2007)
(probation revocation), the court need not “robotically tick
through § 3553(a)’s every subsection,” or “explicitly discuss
every § 3353(a) factor on the record.” United States v.
Johnson, 445 F.3d 339, 345 (4th Cir. 2006).
Our review of the record in this case leads us to
conclude that the district court’s reasons supporting its
sentencing decision are sufficiently apparent from the record.
We conclude that the sentence is neither procedurally nor
substantively unreasonable. See United States v. Finley, 531
F.3d 288, 297 (4th Cir. 2008) (applying Gall v. United States,
128 S. Ct. 586, 597 (2007), in reviewing a sentence to determine
if it is plainly unreasonable).
We therefore affirm Stephenson’s sentence. We
dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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