United States v. Steven Matthews

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 11-4259
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
STEVEN NOVAC MATTHEWS,
Defendant – Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle
District of North Carolina, at Greensboro. William L. Osteen,
Jr., District Judge. (1:98-cr-00242-WO-1)
Submitted: July 20, 2011 Decided: August 5, 2011
Before MOTZ and DAVIS, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Louis C. Allen, Federal Public Defender, Eric D. Placke,
Assistant Federal Public Defender, Greensboro, North Carolina,
for Appellant. Ripley Rand, United States Attorney, Robert M.
Hamilton, Assistant United States Attorney, Jennifer C. Mathews,
Third Year Law Student Law Clerk, Greensboro, North Carolina,
for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Steven Novac Matthews appeals the district court’s
order revoking his supervised release and sentencing him to
twenty-four months in prison. Matthews argues that his sentence
is plainly unreasonable because it was run consecutive to a
sentence he is already serving. We affirm.
This court will affirm a sentence imposed after
revocation of supervised release if it is within the applicable
statutory maximum and is not plainly unreasonable. See United
States v. Crudup, 461 F.3d 433, 437, 439-40 (4th Cir. 2006). We
first assess the sentence for reasonableness, “follow[ing]
generally the procedural and substantive considerations that we
employ in our review of original sentences, . . . with some
necessary modifications to take into account the unique nature
of supervised release revocation sentences.” Id. at 438-39; see
United States v. Finley, 531 F.3d 288, 294 (4th Cir. 2008) (“In
applying the ‘plainly unreasonable’ standard, we first
determine, using the instructions given in Gall [v. United
States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007)], whether a sentence is
‘unreasonable.’”).
Only if a sentence is found procedurally or
substantively unreasonable will we “decide whether the sentence
is plainly unreasonable.” Crudup, 461 F.3d at 439; see Finley,
531 F.3d at 294. Although the district court must consider the
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Chapter 7 policy statements and the requirements of 18 U.S.C.A.
§§ 3553(a), 3583 (West 2000 & Supp. 2011), “the [district] 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 citations
omitted).
Matthews argues that the district court’s sentence is
plainly unreasonable because the district court imposed the
twenty-four-month sentence to run consecutive to the sentence he
is currently serving. “In determining the reasonableness of a
sentence, we ‘give due deference to the district court’s
decision[.]’” Finley, 531 F.3d at 297 (quoting Gall, 552 U.S.
at 51). Our review of the record confirms that the district
court carefully evaluated Matthews’ situation and reached the
reasonable conclusion that a consecutive sentence was necessary
to deter future criminal conduct and to protect the public from
further crimes by Matthews. Accordingly, we conclude that the
sentence imposed by the district court is not plainly
unreasonable and 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 the
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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