UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 10-4931
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
LEONARDO DELEON, a/k/a Cristan Reconco-Solorzano,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Florence. Terry L. Wooten, District Judge.
(4:09-cr-01042-TLW-1)
Submitted: January 27, 2011 Decided: February 18, 2011
Before GREGORY, DUNCAN, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Michael A. Meetze, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Florence,
South Carolina, for Appellant. William N. Nettles, United
States Attorney, Robert F. Daley, Jr., William E. Day, II,
Assistant United States Attorneys, Columbia, South Carolina, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Leonardo DeLeon pled guilty to one count of illegal
reentry after deportation for an aggravated felony, in violation
of 8 U.S.C. § 1326 (2006). Under the properly calculated
Sentencing Guidelines, DeLeon’s base offense level was eight and
he received a sixteen-level increase because he was deported
after having committed a crime of violence. See U.S. Sentencing
Guidelines Manual § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii) (2009). The district
court sentenced DeLeon to seventy months’ imprisonment, or the
low end of the Guidelines. On appeal, DeLeon claims that the
sentence is unreasonable because the sixteen-level increase
creates an unwarranted sentencing disparity. Finding no error,
we affirm.
A sentence is reviewed for reasonableness under an
abuse of discretion standard. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S.
38, 51 (2007). This review requires consideration of both the
procedural and substantive reasonableness of a sentence. Id.;
see United States v. Lynn, 592 F.3d 572, 575 (4th Cir. 2010). A
sentence imposed within the properly calculated Guidelines
range, as was DeLeon’s, is presumed reasonable by this court.
United States v. Mendoza-Mendoza, 597 F.3d 212, 217 (4th Cir.
2010).
The district court was aware it could impose a
sentence below the Guidelines sentence based on DeLeon’s
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argument. See Kimbrough v. United States, 552 U.S. 85, 101-07
(2007). However, the court was not obligated to agree with the
argument, and in this case concluded that the sixteen-level
increase was appropriate. “The district court is better
situated to weigh the Guidelines’ policy considerations as
applied to a particular defendant, and our deference to the
exercise of that discretion, backed up by the [Sentencing]
Commission’s deliberations, is proper.” United States v.
Mondragon-Santiago, 564 F.3d 357, 366-67 (5th Cir.) (alteration
added), cert. denied, 130 S. Ct. 192 (2009). There is nothing
to suggest that DeLeon’s within-Guidelines sentence is anything
but reasonable.
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 the
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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