UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 06-4060
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
LYNELL LAWS,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Claude M. Hilton, Senior
District Judge. (1:05-cr-00416-CMH)
Submitted: June 22, 2006 Decided: June 28, 2006
Before NIEMEYER, MICHAEL, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Sol Z. Rosen, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Chuck Rosenberg,
United States Attorney, Michael J. Frank, Special Assistant United
States Attorney, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
See Local Rule 36(c).
PER CURIAM:
Pursuant to a plea agreement, Lynell Laws pled guilty to
conspiracy to distribute fifty grams or more of cocaine base
(“crack”), in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) & 846 (2000).
The district court sentenced Laws to 179 months imprisonment. He
now seeks to appeal, asserting that the district court did not
expressly consider all the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2000) factors and
that his sentence is unreasonable. The Government asserts that, in
his plea agreement, Laws validly waived the right to appeal his
conviction and sentence. We agree with the Government and dismiss
the appeal.
In his plea agreement, Laws “waive[d] the right to appeal
the conviction and any sentence within the statutory maximum . . .
on any ground whatsoever.” A defendant may waive the right to
appeal if that waiver is knowing and intelligent. See United
States v. Blick, 408 F.3d 162, 169-73 (4th Cir. 2005); United
States v. Brown, 232 F.3d 399, 402-03 (4th Cir. 2000). Laws does
not challenge the validity of his plea or the voluntariness of his
appeal waiver. Rather, he challenges his sentence. These issues
fall squarely within the waiver. Accordingly, we dismiss the
appeal. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
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contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the
Court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
DISMISSED
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