United States v. Rodney Hailey

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 13-4188
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
RODNEY R. HAILEY,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Baltimore. William D. Quarles, Jr., District
Judge. (1:11-cr-00540-WDQ-1)
Submitted: March 18, 2014 Decided: March 27, 2014
Before KING, DUNCAN, and AGEE, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Gerald C. Ruter, THE LAW OFFICES OF GERALD C. RUTER, P.C.,
Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellant. Rod J. Rosenstein, United
States Attorney, Stefan D. Cassella, Assistant United States
Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Following a six-day jury trial, Rodney R. Hailey was
convicted of eight counts of wire fraud, in violation of 18
U.S.C. § 1343 (2012); thirty-one counts of money laundering, in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957 (2012); and two counts of
violating the Clean Air Act, in violation of 42 U.S.C.
§ 7413(c)(2)(A) (2012) and various federal regulations. The
district court sentenced Hailey to 151 months’ imprisonment,
three years of supervised release, and ordered him to pay
$42,196,089.78 in restitution.
On appeal, Hailey does not raise any trial issues or
dispute the restitution order. He challenges only the custodial
term of imprisonment. For the reasons that follow, we affirm
the judgment.
In his lead argument, Hailey asks that we extend the
holding in Alleyne v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2151 (2013), to
preclude the district court from making factual findings as
relevant to sentencing enhancements, in addition to prohibiting
factual findings that increase the applicable statutory
mandatory minimum sentence. We find no support for this
proposition. See Alleyne, 133 S. Ct. at 2163 (explaining that
the Court’s holding “does not mean that any fact that influences
judicial discretion must be found by a jury”); see also United
States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 233 (2005) (“[W]hen a trial
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judge exercises his discretion to select a specific sentence
within a defined range, the defendant has no right to a jury
determination of the facts that the judge deems relevant.”);
United States v. Valdez, 739 F.3d 1052, 1054 (7th Cir. 2014)
(declining to interpret Alleyne as overruling Booker to require
that factual issues related to the determination of the
defendant’s advisory Guidelines range be submitted to a jury,
and expressly concluding that “[t]here is no conflict” between
Alleyne and Booker).
Hailey next challenges the reasonableness of his
sentence. We review any criminal sentence, “whether inside,
just outside, or significantly outside the Guidelines range,”
for reasonableness, “under a deferential abuse-of-discretion
standard.” United States v. King, 673 F.3d 274, 283 (4th Cir.),
cert. denied, 133 S. Ct. 216 (2012); see Gall v. United States,
552 U.S. 38, 46, 51 (2007). Of course, the first step in
procedural reasonableness review is to evaluate the district
court’s Guidelines calculations. Gall, 552 U.S. at 51.
Hailey maintains that the district court erred in
determining his Guidelines range by failing to make express
findings as to the two-level enhancement for the number of
victims of the offense, see U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual
(“USSG”) § 2B1.1(b)(2)(A) (2011), and the one-level increase for
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having a conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 1957, see USSG
§ 2S1.1(b)(2)(A).
Generally, in reviewing the district court’s
calculations under the Guidelines, this court “review[s] the
district court’s legal conclusions de novo and its factual
findings for clear error.” United States v. Manigan, 592 F.3d
621, 626 (4th Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks omitted).
However, because Hailey failed to object to the Guidelines
calculations challenged on appeal, Hailey’s claim is reviewed
for plain error. United States v. Blatstein, 482 F.3d 725, 731
(4th Cir. 2007).
We find no such error on this record. Although Hailey
complains of the district court’s failure to make factual
findings regarding these two enhancements, he did not dispute
them at sentencing. Pursuant to Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(i)(3)(A),
the sentencing court “may accept any undisputed portion of the
presentence report as a finding of fact.” Moreover, even if a
defendant objects to a finding in the presentence report
(“PSR”), in the absence of an affirmative showing that the
information is not accurate, the court is “free to adopt the
findings of the presentence report without more specific inquiry
or explanation.” United States v. Love, 134 F.3d 595, 606 (4th
Cir. 1998) (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted).
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Given Hailey’s failure to object to these enhancements
and his related failure to affirmatively show that the PSR was
inaccurate, there is no error, let alone plain error, in the
district court’s reliance on the PSR.
Hailey next claims the court failed to adequately
analyze the particular facts of his case in terms of the 18
U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2012) sentencing factors and to provide a
sufficient explanation for the selected sentence. We disagree.
Prior to imposing sentence, the district court detailed the
facts of this case, focusing particularly on the sophistication
and scope of the underlying fraud and Hailey’s personal history
and characteristics. The court expressed its concern regarding
the motivation for these crimes, emphasizing that Hailey’s
actions were born of blatant greed. The court also noted the
public interests that were harmed by Hailey’s crimes, which took
advantage of a “well-intended government program.”
The sentencing transcript thus makes clear that the
district court received the parties’ sentencing arguments,
weighed the § 3553(a) sentencing factors it viewed to be the
most relevant, and relied on those factors to select a sentence
for Hailey. See Gall, 552 U.S. at 49-50. The court’s
explanation for the sentence, which was within Hailey’s advisory
Guidelines range, was more than sufficient. See United States
v. Hernandez, 603 F.3d 267, 271-72 (4th Cir. 2010) (recognizing
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that a within-Guidelines sentence does not require an “elaborate
or lengthy” explanation). We thus readily conclude that the
district court fulfilled its duty to analyze the sentencing
factors and offer an individualized explanation for the sentence
it imposed. See United States v. Lynn, 592 F.3d 572, 576, 584
(4th Cir. 2010).
The final issue, then, is the substantive
reasonableness of this within-Guidelines sentence. We presume
that a sentence within the Guidelines range is substantively
reasonable. See United States v. Bynum, 604 F.3d 161, 168-69
(4th Cir. 2010); United States v. Mendoza-Mendoza, 597 F.3d 212,
217 (4th Cir. 2010) (“[W]e may and do treat on appeal a district
court’s decision to impose a sentence within the Guidelines
range as presumptively reasonable.”).
To overcome this presumption, Hailey again asserts
that the court failed to engage in individualized sentencing
analysis and contests the propriety of accepting the
Government’s evidence as to the relevant sentencing issues.
This argument simply re-packages the first two procedural
errors, which we have rejected. Hailey also suggests that the
court’s failure to explain why it rejected his request for a
twenty-four-month variant sentence renders the sentence
substantively unreasonable. But, in offering an extensive
explanation for the within-Guidelines sentence, the court amply
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illustrated its reasons for rejecting the proposed variance. We
thus conclude that Hailey’s sentence is substantively reasonable
in light of the circumstances, particularly as it was within his
advisory Guidelines range. See Rita v. United States, 551 U.S.
338, 347 (2007) (upholding rebuttable presumption of
reasonableness for within-Guidelines sentence).
For these reasons, 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 this court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
AFFIRMED
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