[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
FILED
No. 10-14526 U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
Non-Argument Calendar ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________ APRIL 7, 2011
JOHN LEY
CLERK
D.C. Docket No. 1:99-cr-00003-WPD-19
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
WILLIE LEGETT,
a.k.a. Little Willie,
Defendant-Appellant.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
________________________
(April 7, 2011)
Before HULL, WILSON and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Willie Legett appeals the revocation of his supervised release, as well as the
reasonableness of his 14-month revocation sentence. The district court found that
Legett violated his release by committing the crimes of resisting arrest and witness
tampering, in violation of Florida law.
We find no merit to Legett’s claim that there was insufficient evidence to
establish that he resisted arrest or engaged in witness tampering. At the revocation
hearing, the district court considered the testimony of Sergeant Humberto Ruiz of
the City of Hialeah, Florida Police Department. Sergeant Ruiz testified that when
he responded to a call that accused Legett of a sexual offense, Legett: (1)
persistently stared down the victim of the alleged sexual offense; (2) screamed out,
“[S]ee what I am going to do to you, bitch”; (3) leaned back in his seat in an effort
to kick out a window of the police car; and (4) stiffened his body and wedged his
foot into the cage of the car in order to make it difficult for the officers to apply a
restraint. Although the state dropped the charges against Legett, the defense
presented no evidence at the revocation hearing to rebut Sergeant Ruiz’s testimony
and nothing in the record suggests that the district court’s implicit credibility
determination was clearly erroneous. Sergeant Ruiz’s testimony sufficiently
established, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Legett committed the crimes
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of resisting arrest and witness tampering, and the district court, accordingly, did
not abuse its discretion in revoking supervised release.
Legett next contends that his 14-month sentence is procedurally and
substantively unreasonable. The sentence fell at the top of the applicable 8–14
month guideline range, but we ordinarily expect guideline sentences to be
reasonable. United States v. Talley, 431 F.3d 784, 788 (11th Cir. 2005) (per
curiam). Although it is unclear whether Legett preserved his reasonableness
challenge, we find his sentence to be both procedurally and substantively
reasonable under either a plain-error or an abuse-of-discretion standard. The
record shows that the district court correctly calculated the guideline range,
considered the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, and heard Legett’s arguments in
mitigation. In the end, the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding
that a sentence at the high-end of the guidelines range was necessary to comply
with the purposes of § 3553(a).
AFFIRMED.
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