UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 14-4215
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
JALIL G. BURTON,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. James C. Dever III,
Chief District Judge. (5:13-cr-00249-D-1)
Submitted: December 16, 2014 Decided: February 24, 2015
Before KEENAN and DIAZ, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Mitchell G. Styers, BANZET, THOMPSON & STYERS, PLLC, Warrenton,
North Carolina, for Appellant. Thomas G. Walker, 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Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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:
Jalil Burton was sentenced to forty-two months’
imprisonment and ordered to pay $133,300 in restitution for
conspiring to pass counterfeit currency, in violation of 18
U.S.C. § 371 (2012). On appeal, Burton contends that (1) the
district court clearly erred in calculating his Guidelines
range, (2) his sentence was unreasonable, and (3) the district
court abused its discretion in fashioning its restitution order.
We affirm.
In assessing a challenge to the district court’s
application of the Guidelines, we review the district court’s
factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de
novo. United States v. Alvarado Perez, 609 F.3d 609, 612 (4th
Cir. 2010). A procedural sentencing error is harmless when “the
district court would have reached the same result even if it had
decided the [G]uidelines issue[s] the other way,” and “the
sentence would be reasonable even if the [G]uidelines issue[s]
had been decided in the defendant’s favor.” United States v.
Savillon-Matute, 636 F.3d 119, 123 (4th Cir. 2011) (internal
quotation marks omitted).
We have reviewed the record and conclude that, even if
the district court erred in calculating Burton’s Guidelines
range, any such errors were harmless. Savillon-Matute, 636 F.3d
at 123-24; United States v. Hargrove, 701 F.3d 156, 161-63 (4th
2
Cir. 2012) (discussing assumed error harmlessness inquiry). The
first prong of the harmless error test is satisfied by the
district court’s explicit statement that it would impose the
same forty-two-month sentence even if it had wrongly calculated
Burton’s Guidelines range. Under the second prong, we consider
whether the district court’s sentence was substantively
reasonable. We “examine the totality of the circumstances to
see whether the sentencing court abused its discretion in
concluding the sentence it chose satisfied the standards set
forth” in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2012). United States v. Gomez-
Jimenez, 750 F.3d 370, 383 (4th Cir.) (alteration and internal
quotation marks omitted), cert. denied, 135 S. Ct. 305 (2014).
“In reviewing a variant sentence, we consider whether the
sentencing court acted reasonably both with respect to its
decision to impose such a sentence and with respect to the
extent of the divergence from the sentencing range.” United
States v. Washington, 743 F.3d 938, 944 (4th Cir. 2014). Here,
the district court explicitly referenced several § 3553(a)
factors in announcing its sentence, and we conclude that the
district court’s sentence was substantively reasonable. Because
both prongs of the harmless error test have been met, we reject
Burton’s challenges to the district court’s Guidelines
calculation and sentence.
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The subject of Burton’s final challenge, the district
court’s restitution order, is reviewed for abuse of discretion.
United States v. Leftwich, 628 F.3d 665, 667 (4th Cir. 2010).
Under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (“MVRA”), 18 U.S.C.
§§ 3663A-3664 (2012), the district court must order the
defendant to make restitution to victims of an offense against
property. § 3663A(a), (c)(1)(A)(ii). When “return of the
property . . . is impossible, impractical, or inadequate,” the
defendant must pay “the greater of— (I) the value of the
property on the date of . . . loss . . . or (II) the value of
the property on the date of sentencing, less” the value of the
property, if any, that is returned. § 3663A(b)(1)(B).
Under the MVRA, a “victim” is “a person directly and
proximately harmed as a result of the commission of an offense
for which restitution may be ordered.” § 3663A. In a
conspiracy, this includes “any person directly harmed by the
defendant’s criminal conduct in the course of the scheme,
conspiracy, or pattern.” § 3663A(a)(2). In other words, “for
purposes of ordering restitution under a comparable statute,
losses caused by a conspiracy include not only those resulting
from the defendant’s individual actions but also others caused
by the conspiracy itself.” United States v. Newsome, 322 F.3d
328, 341 (4th Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks omitted).
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We have reviewed the record and conclude that the
district court did not abuse its discretion in fashioning the
restitution order. In particular, the court appropriately
weighed the thorough spreadsheet presented by the government,
detailing the conspiracy’s numerous transactions.
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment.
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 the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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