UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 04-4971
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
RICKY DEAN DAWSON,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern
District of West Virginia, at Beckley. Robert C. Chambers,
District Judge. (CR-01-161)
Submitted: February 18, 2005 Decided: April 28, 2005
Before LUTTIG and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Mary Lou Newberger, Federal Public Defender, Jonathan D. Byrne,
Appellate Counsel, Megan J. Schueler, Assistant Federal Public
Defender, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellant. Kasey Warner,
United States Attorney, Larry R. Ellis, Assistant United States
Attorney, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
See Local Rule 36(c).
PER CURIAM:
Ricky Dean Dawson appeals from the district court’s order
revoking his supervised release and sentencing him to six months
imprisonment. We review the district court’s decision to revoke a
defendant’s supervised release for an abuse of discretion. United
States v. Copley, 978 F.2d 829, 831 (4th Cir. 1992). The district
court need only find a violation of a condition of supervised
release by a preponderance of the evidence. 18 U.S.C.A.
§ 3583(e)(3) (West Supp. 2004). Because Dawson did not dispute the
allegations presented in the petition to revoke his supervised
release, we find no abuse of discretion in the district court’s
decision to revoke Dawson’s supervised release.
Dawson argues on appeal that the district court lacked
jurisdiction to impose his sentence in light of the Supreme Court’s
decisions in Blakely v. Washington, 124 S. Ct. 2531 (2004), and
United States v. Booker, 125 S. Ct. 738 (2005). In Booker, the
Supreme Court ruled that, under Blakely, the Sixth Amendment is
violated when a district court, acting pursuant to the Sentencing
Reform Act and the guidelines, imposes a sentence greater than the
maximum guideline sentence authorized by the facts found by the
jury alone. The Court concluded that, if the guidelines were
advisory rather than mandatory, the failure to submit guidelines
issues to a jury would not violate the Sixth Amendment. Having
determined that the mandatory nature of the federal sentencing
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regime was unconstitutional, the Booker Court adopted a remedial
scheme that preserved the majority of the guidelines, excising only
those portions mandating sentencing and appellate review in
conformance with the guidelines.
Because the sentencing guideline range calculated under
U.S. Sentencing Guidelines § 7B1.4(a) (2000) is purely advisory,
Booker does not apply to sentences imposed upon revocation of
supervised release. See United States v. Davis, 53 F.3d 638, 642
(4th Cir. 1995); United States v. Denard, 24 F.3d 599, 602 (4th
Cir. 1994). Accordingly, we affirm Dawson’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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