UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 13-4844
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
ANTURAN DAQUAN MORRIS,
Defendant – Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Richmond. James R. Spencer, District
Judge. (3:13-cr-00067-JRS-1)
Submitted: April 29, 2014 Decided: June 11, 2014
Before KING, DUNCAN, and WYNN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Michael S. Nachmanoff, Federal Public Defender, Alexandria,
Virginia, Frances H. Pratt, Assistant Federal Public Defender,
Carolyn V. Grady, Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF
THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellant.
Dana J. Boente, Acting United States Attorney, Alexandria,
Virginia, Olivia L. Norman, Assistant United States Attorney,
OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Richmond, Virginia, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Anturan Daquan Morris appeals his conviction for being a
felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. §
922(g)(1) and his resulting 51-month sentence. For the reasons
that follow, we affirm.
I.
A.
At trial, the government presented evidence that, on
December 12, 2012, Officers Joachin Okonkwo and James A. Spada
of the Richmond Police Department approached a man whom they
recognized by sight but not by name. They asked him to stop,
but the man fled and the officers pursued him. Officer Okonkwo
testified that while he lost sight of the man he was chasing a
few times, those lapses were “just momentary.” J.A. 46. During
the chase, Officer Spada saw the man remove a firearm from his
clothing and discard it in the street. At the end of the chase,
the man was apprehended and identified as Morris. Morris told
the officers that he carried the gun, but only for protection.
No witness was asked to perform a courtroom identification
of Morris. When asked on direct examination, “[d]o you
recognize Mr. Morris here today?” Officer Spada testified that
he did, J.A. 69, although the record does not show that he
pointed or gestured to Morris. When asked if there was “any
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question in [his] mind” that the individual who threw the gun
was “Mr. Morris,” Officer Spada answered that there was “[n]o
question at all.” J.A. 77. Following the government’s case in
chief, Morris moved for a judgment of acquittal pursuant to Fed.
R. Crim. P. 29. That motion was denied. A jury found Morris
guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
B.
The presentence report (“PSR”) placed Morris at an offense
level of 20 and a criminal history category of IV. His advisory
Guidelines sentence ranged from 51 to 63 months. Morris did not
object to the PSR or the Guidelines calculation. At the
sentencing hearing, the district court accepted the PSR, adopted
its findings, and then heard the parties’ arguments.
Morris argued for a below-Guidelines sentence of 42 months
because he did not fire the gun he was convicted of possessing
and because his personal history and relative youth placed him
at a particularly high risk of criminality. Morris also argued
that his criminal history was exaggerated by non-serious
offenses and that a 42-month sentence would provide just
punishment, as the longest he had ever received. The government
argued for a sentence within the Guidelines range.
The district court sentenced Morris to 51 months’
imprisonment, saying that it had “considered all the arguments
of the parties” and that it was denying Morris’s motion for a
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below-Guidelines sentence “primarily because you can’t run from
your history. That Guidelines Range was earned and is
appropriate.” J.A. 201. This appeal followed.
II.
We review de novo the district court’s denial of a Rule 29
motion for judgment of acquittal. United States v. Green, 599
F.3d 360, 367 (4th Cir. 2010). A guilty verdict survives “if,
viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the
prosecution, the verdict is supported by substantial evidence.”
United States v. Smith, 451 F.3d 209, 216 (4th Cir. 2006)
(internal citation and quotation marks omitted). We may only
set aside a conviction if “no rational trier of fact could have
found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable
doubt.” United States v. Royal, 731 F.3d 333, 337 (4th Cir.
2013).
We review criminal sentences for substantive and procedural
reasonableness using an abuse of discretion standard. United
States v. Lynn, 592 F.3d 572, 575-76 (4th Cir. 2010). If we
find an abuse of discretion, the sentence can stand only if the
error was harmless. Id.
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III.
Morris argues that the government did not present
sufficient evidence to support the jury’s guilty verdict for two
reasons.
First, Morris argues that because no witness identified him
in court, the government did not present sufficient evidence of
his identity as the man who possessed the firearm. This
argument is meritless because a courtroom identification is not
required to show sufficient evidence of a defendant’s identity
if other evidence of identity is sufficient. United States v.
Taylor, 900 F.2d 779, 782 (4th Cir. 1990) (testimony of one
witness who identified the defendant by name as the person who
committed the crime was sufficient evidence of the defendant’s
identity, even without a courtroom identification).
Second, Morris argues that the government’s evidence of his
identity as the individual who possessed the firearm was
insufficient. We cannot agree. The testimony of one witness
that a defendant was the person who committed the crime is
sufficient evidence of a defendant’s identity to support a
conviction. United States v. Holley, 502 F.2d 273, 274 (4th
Cir. 1974). At trial, the jury heard extensive testimony from
multiple witnesses who saw, chased, and apprehended Morris, and
who recognized him as the same individual throughout the
encounter. Officer Spada testified that he saw Morris discard
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the firearm, and that Morris admitted to possessing the firearm.
These facts constituted substantial evidence that Morris
possessed the firearm.
IV.
Morris next argues that his sentence is procedurally
unreasonable because the district court did not provide a
sufficiently individualized explanation for choosing a 51-month
sentence, rejecting Morris’s arguments for a below-Guidelines
sentence. We may presume that Morris’s within-Guidelines
sentence was substantively reasonable. United States v.
Mendoza-Mendoza, 597 F.3d 212, 216–17 (4th Cir. 2010). However,
we need not reach the question of whether the district court
erred. Even if we assume that the district court’s explanation
of Morris’s sentence was insufficient, we agree with the
government that any error was harmless.
For a procedural sentencing error to be found harmless, the
government must show that the error “did not have a substantial
and injurious influence on the result.” United States v.
Boulware, 604 F.3d 832, 838 (4th Cir. 2010) (internal quotation
marks and citation omitted). The government bears the burden of
showing that the error was harmless, but it can meet this burden
by showing that it would be “unrealistic” to think that the
error affected the sentence length. Id. at 840.
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To determine whether a district court’s failure to explain
a sentencing decision was harmless error, we consider two
primary factors. The first is the strength or weakness of a
party’s arguments that the district court did not address. Id.
at 839–40. The second is an indication in the record that the
district court considered and understood those arguments. Id.
Morris’s arguments for a below-Guidelines sentence were
weak. Like the defendant’s arguments in Boulware, many of
Morris’s arguments were based on circumstances that are “not
atypical for a defendant.” Id. at 840. He admits that his
arguments about his personal history could be made by many
people. Similarly, Morris’s argument that his criminal history
was exaggerated was weak because his criminal history was
substantial. His argument that he did not use the firearm he
was convicted of possessing, and only carried it for protection,
has little to do with why he should be sentenced below the
Guidelines range for being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Where, as here, the government can show that the district
court fully considered a party’s arguments for a particular
sentence, but failed to explicitly address them, that failure is
a harmless error. Boulware, 604 F.3d at 840. In the present
case, the district court’s statement that it had “considered all
of the arguments of the parties,” J.A. 201 (emphasis added),
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demonstrates that it fully considered Morris’s arguments for a
below-Guidelines sentence.
Considering these facts, we can say with “fair assurance”
that that the district court would not impose a different
sentence if it were forced to explain its reasoning, and the
district court’s failure to do so could not have had a
“substantial and injurious influence” on Morris’s sentence.
Boulware, 604 F.3d at 840, 838 (internal quotation marks and
citation omitted). For these reasons, we hold that even if we
assume Morris’s sentence was procedurally unreasonable, any
error was harmless.
V.
Accordingly, we affirm Morris’s conviction and sentence.
We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before
this court and argument would not aid in the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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