UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 10-4868
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
GARY W. ELLINGTON, JR.,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Richmond. Robert E. Payne, Senior
District Judge. (3:05-cr-00083-REP-1)
Submitted: April 14, 2011 Decided: June 8, 2011
Before GREGORY, SHEDD, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Michael S. Nachmanoff, Federal Public Defender, Mary E. Maguire,
Assistant Federal Public Defender, Patrick L. Bryant, Research
and Writing Attorney, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellant. Neil H.
MacBride, United States Attorney, Brandon M. Santos, Special
Assistant United States Attorney, Richmond, Virginia, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Gary W. Ellington, Jr., pleaded guilty to one count of
possession of a firearm by a convicted felon/user of controlled
substance and one count of possession of marijuana. He was
sentenced to a total of fifty-one months’ imprisonment and three
years of supervised release. While on supervised release,
Ellington violated several conditions of his supervised release.
The district court revoked Ellington’s supervised release and
sentenced him to eighteen months in prison followed by no
further supervised release. Ellington appeals his sentence,
claiming that the district court’s sentence was plainly
unreasonable. We affirm.
This court will affirm a sentence imposed after
revocation of supervised release if it is not plainly
unreasonable. United States v. Thompson, 595 F.3d 544, 546 (4th
Cir. 2010). The first step in this review requires a
determination of whether the sentence is unreasonable. United
States v. Crudup, 461 F.3d 433, 438 (4th Cir. 2006). “This
initial inquiry takes a more ‘deferential appellate posture
concerning issues of fact and the exercise of discretion’ than
reasonableness review for [G]uidelines sentences.” United
States v. Moulden, 478 F.3d 652, 656 (4th Cir. 2007) (quoting
Crudup, 461 F.3d at 439) (applying “plainly unreasonable”
standard of review for probation revocation). Only if the
2
sentence is procedurally or substantively unreasonable does the
inquiry proceed to the second step of the analysis to determine
whether the sentence is plainly unreasonable. Crudup, 461 F.3d
at 438-39.
A supervised release revocation sentence is
procedurally reasonable if the district court considered the
advisory policy statement range based upon Chapter Seven of the
Sentencing Guidelines and the § 3553(a) factors applicable to
supervised release revocation. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e) (2006);
Crudup, 461 F.3d at 438-40. A sentence is substantively
reasonable if the district court stated a proper basis for
concluding the defendant should receive the sentence imposed, up
to the statutory maximum. Crudup, 461 F.3d at 440. “A court
need not be as detailed or specific when imposing a revocation
sentence as it must be when imposing a post-conviction sentence,
but it still must provide a statement of reasons for the
sentence imposed.” Thompson, 595 F.3d at 547 (internal
quotation marks omitted). After thoroughly reviewing the
record, we conclude that Ellington’s sentence was both
procedurally and substantively reasonable.
Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district
court. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and
legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials
3
before the court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
AFFIRMED
4