UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 10-4161
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
MICHAEL RAY THORNTON,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western
District of Virginia, at Roanoke. James C. Turk, Senior
District Judge. (7:05-cr-00029-jct-1)
Submitted: August 30, 2010 Decided: September 9, 2010
Before KING, SHEDD, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Larry W. Shelton, Federal Public Defender for the Western
District of Virginia, Fay F. Spence, First Assistant Federal
Public Defender, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellant. Timothy J.
Heaphy, United States Attorney, R. Andrew Bassford, Assistant
United States Attorney, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Michael Ray Thornton was convicted of possession of a
firearm by a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§§ 922(g)(1), 924(e) (2006) (Count One), and possession of body
armor by a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 931
(2006) (Count Two). His case is before the court after a second
remand for resentencing.
In our original decisions, we vacated Thornton’s armed
career criminal sentence, ultimately concluding that Thornton
lacked the requisite three prior convictions to qualify as an
armed career criminal. See United States v. Thornton, 554 F.3d
443 (4th Cir. 2009). On the second remand, the district court
sentenced Thornton to an upward variance sentence of ninety-six
months’ imprisonment on Count One and a concurrent term of
thirty-six months on Count Two, with concurrent supervised
release terms of thirty-six months on Count One and one year on
Count Two. Thornton timely appealed, arguing that the upward
variance sentence is unreasonable.
We review Thornton’s sentence “under a deferential
abuse-of-discretion standard,” which first considers whether the
sentence is procedurally reasonable. Gall v. United States, 552
U.S. 38, 41, 51 (2007). “When rendering a sentence, the
district court must make an individualized assessment based on
the facts presented[,] . . . apply[ing] the relevant [18 U.S.C.]
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§ 3553(a) [(2006)] factors to the specific circumstances of the
case before it.” United States v. Carter, 564 F.3d 325, 328
(4th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks and emphasis omitted).
The court also must “state in open court the particular reasons
supporting its chosen sentence [and] set forth enough to satisfy
the appellate court that [it] has considered the parties’
arguments and has a reasoned basis for exercising [its] own
legal decisionmaking authority.” Id. (internal quotation marks
omitted).
If a sentence is procedurally reasonable, we then
consider substantive reasonableness, examining “the totality of
the circumstances, including the extent of any variance from the
Guidelines range.” Gall, 552 at 51. “If the district court
decides to impose a sentence outside the Guidelines range, it
must ensure that its justification supports the degree of the
variance.” United States v. Evans, 526 F.3d 155, 161 (4th Cir.
2008) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
Thornton argues that the district court abused its
discretion and failed to justify the extent of the upward
variance and thus imposed a sentence greater than necessary.
Our review of the sentencing transcript and the five-page
Statement of Reasons leads us to conclude that the district
court adequately explained its sentence to reflect that it
considered the relevant § 3553(a) factors and to provide a
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sufficiently individualized explanation for its sentence, as
required by Carter. We also conclude that the extent of the
variance was supported by the facts of the case.
Thornton also contends that the district court
unreasonably imposed conditions of supervised release applicable
to sex offenders. However, district courts may impose special
conditions of supervised release to address prior unrelated
crimes. United States v. Bull, 314 F.3d 1275, 1276-78 (11th
Cir. 2000). We conclude that the district court did not abuse
its discretion by imposing the special conditions of supervised
release in this case.
Accordingly, we affirm. 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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