UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 10-4758
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
TRYONE ELGERALCA BRIDGERS,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of North Carolina, at Wilmington. James C. Fox, Senior
District Judge. (5:01-cr-00150-F-1)
Submitted: January 28, 2011 Decided: March 2, 2011
Before NIEMEYER, KING, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Thomas P. McNamara, Federal Public Defender, G. Alan DuBois,
Assistant Federal Public Defender, Raleigh, North Carolina, for
Appellant. George E. B. Holding, United States Attorney,
Jennifer P. May-Parker, Kristine L. Fritz, Assistant United
States Attorneys, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Tryone Elgeralca Bridgers pled guilty to bank robbery
and was sentenced to 151 months of imprisonment and a three-year
term of supervised release. This sentence was later reduced to
eighty-four months based on Bridgers’ substantial assistance to
the government. Thereafter, while on supervised release,
Bridgers failed three urine screens for drug use. The district
court revoked Bridgers’ supervised release and sentenced him to
twelve months of incarceration. Bridgers timely appeals from
this sentence. ∗ For the reasons that follow, we affirm.
We will affirm a sentence imposed after revocation of
supervised release if it is within the prescribed statutory
range and is not plainly unreasonable. United States v. Crudup,
461 F.3d 433, 437 (4th Cir. 2006). Bridgers’ instant sentence
falls within the statutory range and is not plainly
unreasonable.
∗
While incarcerated on the bank robbery conviction,
Bridgers pled guilty to escape and was sentenced to twenty-one
months of imprisonment and a three-year term of supervised
release. Bridgers also had this second term of supervised
release revoked and was sentenced to twelve months of
imprisonment as part of his escape sentence. As conceded by
appellate counsel, however, Bridgers failed to file a notice of
appeal regarding this sentence. See generally Fed. R. App. P.
3(a) (regarding necessity of filing a notice of appeal). Thus,
we do not address Bridgers’ supervised release sentence that was
imposed as part of his punishment for the escape conviction.
2
To the extent Bridgers properly preserved the issue of
whether the district court adequately addressed his arguments at
sentencing, we find no abuse of discretion in the district
court’s explanation. See United States v. Thompson, 595 F.3d
544, 547 (4th Cir. 2010) (stating review standard); United
States v. Lynn, 592 F.3d 572, 576 (4th Cir. 2010) (same). The
district court acknowledged that Bridgers’ primary problem was
his drug abuse (primarily cocaine), which began at age thirteen,
resulted in his dishonorable discharge from the military, and
resulted in the revocation of supervised release. Bridgers
admitted to using cocaine while on supervised release the day
after he completed a fourteen-day, in-patient drug treatment
program.
The court attempted to sentence Bridgers to a sentence
which would allow him to participate in the Bureau of Prisons’
intensive 500-hour drug treatment program, but both defense
counsel and Bridgers informed the court that Bridgers was not
eligible for the program. We find that the district court
adequately addressed its reasons for imposing the twelve-month
sentence. United States v. Carter, 564 F.3d 325, 328 (4th Cir.
2009). In addition, even if we were to find the district court
abused its discretion in not adequately explaining Bridgers’
sentence, we find that the Government has proven that any error
was harmless. Lynn, 592 F.3d at 576.
3
The district court was faced with an obdurate drug
addict, who, despite many chances, failed to cease his
consumption of illegal substances. Nonetheless, the court
specifically addressed 18 U.S.C.A. § 3553(a) (West 2000 & Supp.
2010) factors applicable to revocations of supervised release
under 18 U.S.C.A. § 3583(e) (West 2000 & Supp. 2010), considered
Bridgers’ drug addiction, and sentenced him within the advisory
Sentencing Guidelines range of eight to fourteen months. See
U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 7B1.4(a) (2009). We apply a
presumption of reasonableness to a sentence within that range on
appeal. See Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007); Rita
v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 359 (2007). “A court need not
be as detailed or specific when imposing a revocation sentence
as it must be when imposing a post-conviction sentence.”
Thompson, 595 F.3d at 547.
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
4