UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 11-4109
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
ROBERT TAM,
Defendant – Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Charleston. Solomon Blatt, Jr., Senior
District Judge. (2:09-cr-01343-SB-1)
Submitted: July 19, 2011 Decided: August 5, 2011
Before GREGORY, DUNCAN, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Cameron J. Blazer, Assistant Federal Public Defender,
Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellant. William Nettles,
United States Attorney, M. Rhett DeHart, Assistant United States
Attorney, Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Robert Tam pleaded guilty to embezzlement, in
violation of 18 U.S.C.A. § 657 (West Supp. 2011). The U.S.
Sentencing Guidelines Manual (2009) called for a sentencing
range of thirty-three to forty-one months, and Tam received a
thirty-month sentence. Tam now appeals, claiming that the
district court imposed a procedurally unreasonable sentence
because it failed to provide an adequate explanation for the
sentence imposed. We affirm.
We review a sentence for reasonableness under an abuse
of discretion standard. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51
(2007). A sentence is procedurally reasonable where the
district court properly calculated the defendant’s advisory
Guidelines range, considered the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2006)
sentencing factors, analyzed any arguments presented by the
parties, and sufficiently explained the selected sentence. Id.
at 49-50. The district court is not required to “robotically
tick through § 3553(a)’s every subsection.” United States v.
Johnson, 445 F.3d 339, 345 (4th Cir. 2006). However, the
district court “must place on the record an ‘individualized
assessment’ based on the particular facts of the case before it.
This individualized assessment need not be elaborate or lengthy,
but it must provide a rationale tailored to the particular case
at hand and adequate to permit ‘meaningful appellate review.’”
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United States v. Carter, 564 F.3d 325, 330 (4th Cir. 2009)
(quoting Gall, 552 U.S. at 50) (internal footnote omitted).
Upon review, we conclude that the district court
provided an adequate individualized assessment, taking into
account counsel’s arguments for a below-Guidelines sentence, and
did not abuse its discretion in imposing Tam’s thirty-month
sentence. See United States v. Lynn, 592 F.3d 572, 576, 578
(4th Cir. 2010) (providing standard of review for properly
preserved procedural sentencing error); see also Gall, 552 U.S.
at 46.
We accordingly 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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