United States v. Dwayne Reardon

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UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 20-4292
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
DWAYNE SHANNON REARDON,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at
Raleigh. James C. Dever III, District Judge. (5:18-cr-00215-D-1)
Submitted: June 29, 2022 Decided: August 10, 2023
Before KING and GREGORY, Circuit Judges, and FLOYD, Senior Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ON BRIEF: Paul K. Sun, Jr., Kelly Margolis Dagger, ELLIS & WINTERS LLP, Raleigh,
North Carolina, for Appellant. Robert J. Higdon, Jr., United States Attorney, Jennifer P.
May-Parker, Assistant United States Attorney, David A. Bragdon, Assistant United States
Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Raleigh, North Carolina,
for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:
A federal jury convicted Dwayne Shannon Reardon of possession of a firearm by a
convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(2) (“Count 1”), and simple
possession of five grams or more of methamphetamine and a quantity of cocaine, in
violation of 21 U.S.C. § 844(a) (“Count 2”). 1 The district court sentenced Reardon to a
total term of 132 months’ imprisonment. Reardon appeals, arguing that the district court
erred in denying his motion to suppress certain evidence after conducting a hearing
pursuant to Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978), and by applying certain Sentencing
Guidelines enhancements. Finding no reversible error, we affirm.
I
Reardon first contends that the district court erred by denying his motion to suppress
evidence obtained during a February 2018 search of his residence, contending that the
underlying search warrant affidavit knowingly, intentionally, and recklessly contained
false statements that were necessary to establish probable cause. Although “[a]n accused
is generally not entitled to challenge the veracity of a facially valid search warrant
affidavit” by way of a motion to suppress, United States v. Allen, 631 F.3d 164, 171 (4th
Cir. 2011), there is a narrow exception to this rule if a defendant establishes, by a
1
The jury acquitted Reardon of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug
trafficking crime, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), and of the originally charged offense
in Count 2 of possession with intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841. Although
the jury also convicted Reardon of possession of a firearm while subject to a domestic
violence protective order, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), the district court granted
Reardon’s motion to arrest judgment and vacated this conviction prior to sentencing.
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preponderance of the evidence, “that the affiant either intentionally or recklessly made a
materially false statement or that the affiant intentionally or recklessly omitted material
information from the affidavit,” United States v. Pulley, 987 F.3d 370, 376 (4th Cir. 2021)
(internal quotation marks omitted).
In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, “we review legal conclusions de
novo and factual findings for clear error.” United States v. Seerden, 916 F.3d 360, 365 (4th
Cir. 2019). “In doing so, we consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the
Government.” Id. We must also “give due weight to inferences drawn from those facts by
resident judges and law enforcement officers.” United States v. Wharton, 840 F.3d 163,
168 (4th Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks omitted). “When reviewing factual findings
for clear error, we particularly defer to a district court’s credibility determinations, for it is
the role of the district court to observe witnesses and weigh their credibility during a pre-
trial motion to suppress.” United States v. Palmer, 820 F.3d 640, 653 (4th Cir. 2016)
(cleaned up). Thus, “[a] court reviewing for clear error may not reverse a lower court’s
finding of fact simply because it would have decided the case differently. Rather, a
reviewing court must ask whether, on the entire evidence, it is left with the definite and
firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” United States v. Wooden, 693 F.3d
440, 451 (4th Cir. 2012) (cleaned up).
Reardon specifically challenged a paragraph from the affidavit in support of the
search warrant in which the affiant, Johnston County Sheriff’s Office (“JCSO”) Detective
Justin Roberts, averred that “[o]ver the past several months, the [JCSO] Narcotics Unit
[had] received formal complaints that . . . Reardon [had] been selling crystal
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methamphetamine from his residence.” (J.A. 45). 2 Relying on a document produced by
the Government during discovery in which Roberts outlined various complaints received
about Reardon between April and June 2017 and in November 2017, Reardon argued that
the complaints were not recent enough to justify the phrasing “over the past several
months.” The district court held an evidentiary hearing pursuant to Franks, and Roberts
testified. The court found Roberts to be “very believable and credible” (J.A. 177) and
credited his testimony that, at the time he swore out his affidavit, he was aware of ongoing
complaints against Reardon throughout 2017 and into early 2018, and that the list provided
was a sampling of the numerous complaints.
We conclude that the district court did not err by denying Reardon’s motion to
suppress based on its finding that Roberts did not “subjectively act[] with intent to mislead,
or with reckless disregard for whether the statements would mislead,” United States v.
Moody, 931 F.3d 366, 371 (4th Cir. 2019), by averring that the JCSO had received “formal
complaints” “[o]ver the past several months.” (J.A. 45).
II
Next, Reardon argues that the district court erred in its calculation of his Sentencing
Guidelines range by applying enhancements for possession of a firearm in connection with
another felony offense and obstruction of justice, pursuant to U.S. Sentencing Guidelines
Manual §§ 2K2.1(b)(6), 3C1.1 (2018).
2
Citations to “J.A.” refer to the joint appendix filed by the parties in this appeal.
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Rather than evaluating the merits of Reardon’s challenge to the calculation of his
Guidelines range, “we may proceed directly to an assumed error harmlessness inquiry.”
United States v. Gomez-Jimenez, 750 F.3d 370, 382 (4th Cir. 2014) (internal quotation
marks omitted). In other words, we may assume that the Guidelines errors occurred and
“proceed to examine whether the error[s] affected the sentence imposed.” United States v.
McDonald, 850 F.3d 640, 643 (4th Cir. 2017). Under the assumed error harmlessness
inquiry,
a Guidelines error is harmless and does not warrant vacating the defendant’s
sentence if the record shows that (1) the district court would have reached
the same result even if it had decided the Guidelines issue the other way, and
(2) the sentence would be reasonable even if the Guidelines issue had been
decided in the defendant’s favor.
United States v. Mills, 917 F.3d 324, 330 (4th Cir. 2019) (cleaned up). The error will be
deemed harmless if we are certain that these requirements are satisfied. See id.Here, “the district court made it abundantly clear that it would have imposed the
same sentence . . . regardless of the advice of the Guidelines,” Gomez-Jimenez, 750 F.3d
at 382, thus satisfying the first prong of the assumed error harmlessness inquiry. Under
the second prong, when reviewing the substantive reasonableness of a sentence, “we must
examine the totality of the circumstances . . . to see whether the sentencing court abused
its discretion in concluding that the sentence it chose satisfied the standards set forth in [18
U.S.C.] § 3553(a).” Mills, 917 F.3d at 331 (cleaned up). The district court emphasized its
belief that in light of the seriousness of the offenses of conviction and Reardon’s criminal
history, a 132-month sentence—which comprised the statutory maximum 120-month
sentence on Count 1 and the statutory maximum 12-month sentence on Count 2, to run
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consecutively—was sufficient but not greater than necessary to achieve the goals of
sentencing. Because the sentence would be substantively reasonable even if we were to
recalculate the Guidelines range without the challenged enhancements, we conclude that
any error in the application of the challenged Guidelines enhancements is harmless.
III
Accordingly, 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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