United States v. Leroy Ragin

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 12-4961
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
LEROY RAGIN,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western
District of North Carolina, at Charlotte. Max O. Cogburn, Jr.,
District Judge. (3:90-cr-00025-MOC-1)
Submitted: July 16, 2013 Decided: July 30, 2013
Before NIEMEYER, KING, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Frank A. Abrams, LAW OFFICE OF FRANK ABRAMS, PLLC, Asheville,
North Carolina, for Appellant. Anne M. Tompkins, United States
Attorney, William M. Miller, Assistant United States Attorney,
Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Leroy Ragin appeals the district court’s judgment
revoking his supervised release and imposing a fourteen-month
prison term. Ragin challenges this sentence, arguing that it is
plainly unreasonable. We affirm.
A district court has broad discretion to impose a
sentence upon revoking a defendant’s supervised release. United
States v. Thompson, 595 F.3d 544, 547 (4th Cir. 2010). We will
affirm a sentence imposed after revocation of supervised release
if it is within the applicable statutory maximum and not
“plainly unreasonable.” United States v. Crudup, 461 F.3d 433,
437, 439-40 (4th Cir. 2006). In determining whether a
revocation sentence is plainly unreasonable, we first assess the
sentence for unreasonableness, “follow[ing] generally the
procedural and substantive considerations that we employ in our
review of original sentences.” Id. at 438.
A supervised release revocation sentence is
procedurally reasonable if the district court considered the
Sentencing Guidelines’ Chapter 7 advisory policy statements and
the 18 U.S.C.A. § 3553(a) (West 2000 & Supp. 2013) factors it is
permitted to consider in a supervised release revocation case.
18 U.S.C.A. § 3583(e) (West 2000 & Supp. 2013); Crudup, 461 F.3d
at 439. Such a sentence is substantively reasonable if the
district court stated a proper basis for concluding the
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defendant should receive the sentence imposed, up to the
statutory maximum. Crudup, 461 F.3d at 440. Only if a sentence
is found procedurally or substantively unreasonable will we
“then decide whether the sentence is plainly unreasonable.” Id.
at 439. A sentence is plainly unreasonable if it is clearly or
obviously unreasonable. Id.In this case, there is no dispute that Ragin’s
fourteen-month prison sentence does not exceed the applicable
statutory maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment, 18
U.S.C. § 3559(a) (2006); 18 U.S.C.A. § 3583(e)(3) (West Supp.
2013), and Ragin does not assert that the district court
committed any procedural errors. Rather, he contends that his
sentence is substantively unreasonable in light of fact that he
appears to have over-served his initial sentence.
Ragin cites no authority, however, for his claim that
it was plainly unreasonable and “manifestly unjust” for the
district court to have imposed a term of imprisonment, followed
by an additional forty-six months of supervised release. We
have previously noted that it is “unthinkable to lend support to
any judicial decision which permits the establishment of a line
of credit for future crimes.” Miller v. Cox, 443 F.2d 1019,
1021 (4th Cir. 1971) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Additionally, upon review of the parties’ briefs and
the record, we conclude that the fourteen-month prison sentence,
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which represents a downward variance from the advisory policy
statement range of thirty to thirty-seven months’ imprisonment,
is not unreasonable. The district court considered the advisory
policy statement range and Ragin’s arguments that he had
overserved his sentence by as much as four years, and imposed a
downward variance in order to take Ragin’s over-service into
account. It is apparent that the court also considered relevant
§ 3553(a) factors, addressing on the record the nature and
circumstances of Ragin’s violative behavior and the need for the
sentence to afford adequate deterrence to Ragin’s criminal
conduct. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1), (2)(B). We conclude that the
district court adequately explained its rationale for imposing
the fourteen-month prison sentence and relied on proper
considerations in doing so. * Based on the broad discretion that
a district court has to revoke a term of supervised release and
impose a prison term up to the statutory maximum, Ragin’s
revocation sentence is not clearly unreasonable. Therefore, we
conclude that Ragin’s sentence is not plainly unreasonable.
*
Even assuming that over-service of Ragin’s sentence was
not a proper basis for the downward variance, consideration of
this factor benefited Ragin. Under the “party presentation
principle . . . an appellate court may not alter a judgment to
benefit a nonappealing party.” Greenlaw v. United States, 554
U.S. 237, 244-45 (2008) (holding that, in the absence of a
Government cross-appeal, an appellate court may not sua sponte
correct a district court error if the correction would be to the
defendant’s detriment).
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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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