14-4789-cr
United States v. Goins
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A
SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED
BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1.
WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY
MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE
NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY
OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.
At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held
at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New
York, on the 18th day of November, two thousand fifteen.
PRESENT: CHESTER J. STRAUB,
REENA RAGGI,
RICHARD C. WESLEY,
Circuit Judges.
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v. No. 14-4789-cr
CHRISTOPHER GOINS, AKA Mad Ball,
Defendant-Appellant,
TERRENCE STEELE, AKA Tee-Fur, AKA T, AKA
T-Fur,
Defendant.
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FOR APPELLANT: Allison M. Near, Sheehan, Reeve & Near, New
Haven, Connecticut.
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FOR APPELLEE: H. Gordon Hall, Assistant United States
Attorney (William J. Nardini, Assistant United
States Attorney, on the brief), for Deidre M.
Daly, United States Attorney for the District of
Connecticut, New Haven, Connecticut.
Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of
Connecticut (Ellen Bree Burns, Judge).
UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED,
AND DECREED that the judgment entered on January 14, 2015, is AFFIRMED.
Defendant Christopher Goins was convicted in 2008 of conspiracy to distribute
cocaine base, see 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(A)(iii), 846, and sentenced to a
below-Guidelines and below-statutory minimum prison term of 72 months, as well as 10
years’ supervised release, which he began serving in December 2010. Goins now
appeals from a judgment finding him to have violated supervised release by: (1)
unlawfully possessing a controlled substance; (2) unlawfully possessing a firearm or
other dangerous weapon; and (3) committing another federal, state, or local crime while
on supervision. Specifically, he contends that the 51-month sentence imposed for his
violations is procedurally and substantively unreasonable.
We review a challenged sentence for “‘reasonableness,’ ‘a particularly deferential
form of abuse-of-discretion review’ that we apply both to the procedures used to arrive at
the sentence (procedural reasonableness) and to the length of the sentence (substantive
reasonableness).” United States v. Broxmeyer, 699 F.3d 265, 278 (2d Cir. 2012)
(quoting United States v. Cavera, 550 F.3d 180, 188 & n.5 (2d Cir. 2008) (en banc)); see
also United States v. Verkhoglyad, 516 F.3d 122, 127 (2d Cir. 2008) (applying
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reasonableness review to sentence for supervised release violation). While the parties
dispute whether Goins’s failure to raise certain procedural arguments in the district court
limits our review to plain error, we need not conclusively decide the issue of forfeiture
because we conclude that Goins fails to demonstrate abuse of discretion in any event. In
discussing Goins’s claims, we assume the parties’ familiarity with the facts and the
record of prior proceedings, which we reference only as necessary to explain our decision
to affirm.
1. Procedural Reasonableness
A sentence is procedurally unreasonable if the district court “fails to calculate (or
improperly calculates) the Sentencing Guidelines range, treats the Sentencing Guidelines
as mandatory, fails to consider the § 3553(a) factors, . . . or fails adequately to explain the
chosen sentence.” United States v. Chu, 714 F.3d 742, 746 (2d Cir. 2013) (internal
quotation marks omitted). Goins asserts error on each of these grounds.
a. Failure To Calculate Sentencing Range and Consider Other § 3553(a)
Factors
Goins first argues that the district court failed to calculate the sentencing range
applicable under U.S.S.G. § 7B1.4(a) before imposing sentence. See 18 U.S.C.
§ 3583(e) (authorizing supervised release revocation upon consideration, among other
things, of § 3553(a)(4) requirement to consider applicable Sentencing Guidelines and
policy statements). We are not persuaded.
In rejecting a similar argument in United States v. Verkhoglyad, this court
explained that, absent record evidence to the contrary, “we presume that a sentencing
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judge has faithfully discharged her duty to consider” the § 3553(a) factors, including the
Guidelines referenced in § 3553(a)(4). 516 F.3d at 129 (internal quotation marks
omitted). We require no “specific verbal formulations to demonstrate the adequate
discharge” of this duty. Id. (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted).
Nothing in the record here signals dereliction of this duty. To the contrary,
because the Violation Report specifically identified 51 to 63 months as Goins’s
applicable Guidelines range, Goins raised no objection to this range, and the district court
imposed a sentence within—indeed, at the low end of—the range despite grounds
supporting an upward departure, see U.S.S.G. § 7B1.4 cmt. n.4, the record supports the
presumption that the district court adequately considered the § 7B1.4(a) range in this
case. Accordingly, we conclude that this claim of procedural error fails on the merits.
Insofar as Goins challenges the district court’s failure to consider other § 3553(a)
factors, the only § 3553(a) omission identified by Goins is (a)(4); and the record confirms
consideration of the other factors. To the extent Goins disagrees with the weight
assigned these factors, he fails to demonstrate any abuse of the broad discretion accorded
sentencing judges in that respect. See United States v. Fernandez, 443 F.3d 19, 32 (2d
Cir. 2006) (recognizing that weight to be afforded § 3553(a) factors is “matter firmly
committed to the discretion of the sentencing judge” and generally beyond appellate
review), abrogated on other grounds, Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338 (2007).
b. Treatment of Guidelines as Mandatory
The district court imposed the challenged 51-month sentence to run consecutively
to six years’ incarceration that Goins is serving in state court for the crimes underlying
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his supervision violation. Goins submits that the court’s failure to state any reason for
imposing a consecutive sentence indicates its mistaken treatment of U.S.S.G. § 7B1.3(f)
(stating that sentence for supervised release violation “shall be ordered to be served
consecutively to any sentence of imprisonment that the defendant is serving, whether or
not the sentence of imprisonment being served resulted from the conduct that is the basis
of the revocation”) as mandatory.
The record belies Goins’s argument that the district court failed to state reasons for
imposing a consecutive 51-month sentence (rather than the consecutive sentence of a year
and a day urged by his attorney). In explaining its sentence, the district court
specifically referenced Goins’s persistent engagement in serious criminal conduct, even
while on supervision and despite the needs of his children. Indeed, the court, which
knew the opportunity it had afforded Goins with its initial lenient sentence, concluded
from Goins’s continuing criminal activity that he was intent on “just throw[ing] his life
away.” D.A. 50. Thus, the district court determined that Goins needed to be
incarcerated “for quite a long time” to think about his future and that of his children:
“They’re so important, and they can’t have a father who offends the law and keeps
coming to court, and that’s what you have been doing.” Id. at 51. Moreover, in light
of Goins’s demonstrated resistance to supervision, the court imposed the 51-month
sentence with “no supervised release after that, but that sentence is consecutive to your
state sentence.” Id. These statements sufficiently explain the district court’s reasons
for imposing a consecutive sentence to preclude the inference that it did so as a matter of
mandate rather than discretion.
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Further, nothing else in the record indicates that the experienced district judge
thought that U.S.S.G. § 7B1.3(f) was mandatory. Indeed, as a policy statement, the
provision’s application has always been discretionary and not mandatory. See U.S.S.G.
§ 7, Pt. A. 3(a) (distinguishing between Guidelines and “advisory policy statements”);
United States v. Verkhoglyad, 516 F.3d at 128 (stating that even prior to United States v.
Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), “it was understood that such policy statements were only
advisory”); United States v. Carlton, 442 F.3d 802, 808 (2d Cir. 2006) (stating that
“sentences imposed pursuant to [18 U.S.C.] § 3583(e)(3) are, and always have been,
discretionary”). In these circumstances, we identify no procedural error in the district
court’s imposition of a consecutive sentence.
c. Failure To Articulate Reasons for Sentence
Goins asserts that the district court failed to articulate reasons for its sentence as
required by 18 U.S.C. § 3553(c). That obligation requires “no specific formulas or
incantation,” but only enough detail to allow a reviewing court to understand the rationale
for the sentence imposed. United States v. Cassesse, 685 F.3d 186, 192 (2d Cir. 2012);
United States v. Verkhoglyad, 516 F.3d at 133. Further, “[w]here, as here, the sentence
concerns a violation of supervised release and the ultimate sentence is within the
recommended range,” compliance with § 3553(c) “can be minimal.” United States v.
Cassesse, 685 F.3d at 192. The record already cited in rejecting Goins’s challenge to
imposition of a consecutive sentence demonstrates that the district court sufficiently
explained its sentence to defeat Goins’s § 3553(c) argument.
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In sum, we conclude that each of Goins’s procedural challenges to his sentence
fails on the merits.
2. Substantive Reasonableness
Goins argues that his consecutive 51-month sentence is substantively unreasonable
in light of (1) his six-year state sentence, and (2) the external pressures he was facing at
the time of the admitted violations. He bears a heavy burden because our review for
substantive unreasonableness is “particularly deferential.” United States v. Broxmeyer,
699 F.3d at 289. Indeed, we will set aside a sentence as substantively unreasonable only
if it “cannot be located within the range of permissible decisions” available to a
sentencing court, United States v. Cavera, 550 F.3d at 189 (internal quotation marks
omitted), which is to say, when the sentence is so “shockingly high, shockingly low, or
otherwise unsupportable as a matter of law” that allowing it to stand would “damage the
administration of justice,” United States v. Rigas, 583 F.3d 108, 123 (2d Cir. 2009).
That is not this case.
Goins was on supervision for drug trafficking as a career offender, for which
crime he originally faced a statutory minimum term of 20 years’ incarceration and a
Guidelines range of 262 to 327 months’ imprisonment. Nonetheless, the district court
sentenced him to 72 months in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release.
Within three years of his release from prison, however, Goins was again trafficking in
crack cocaine and in unlawful possession of a firearm. This reflected a considerable
breach of trust, for which U.S.S.G § 7B1.4 recommended a prison sentence of between
51 and 63 months to run consecutively to any other sentence being served. In these
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circumstances, we identify no abuse of discretion in the district court’s imposition of a
sentence at the low end of this range. Cf. United States v. Verkhoglyad, 516 F.3d at 136
(rejecting substantive challenge to sentence outside § 7B1.4 range based on totality of
circumstances).
In urging otherwise, Goins insists that the district court failed to understand the
effect of consecutive sentences, and sanctioned him not for his breach of the court’s trust,
but instead for the conduct underlying his violation, which was already taken into account
by his state term of imprisonment. This argument is contradicted by the record, which
shows that the district court repeatedly acknowledged that Goins was going to serve a
state sentence, and imposed a consecutive federal sentence to account for his serious
breach of the court’s own trust in imposing a reduced term of incarceration, with an
accompanying longer term of supervision, for his initial crime of conviction. To the
extent the seriousness of Goins’s breach of trust was evident from the seriousness of his
underlying criminal conduct, the district court was not required to ignore the latter in
determining a substantively reasonable sentence for the breach of trust.
Because the challenged consecutive sentence falls within the range of reasonable
sentences available to the district court for Goins’s violations of supervision, his
substantive reasonableness argument fails on the merits.
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3. Conclusion
We have considered the defendant’s remaining arguments, and we conclude that
they are without merit. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
FOR THE COURT:
CATHERINE O’HAGAN WOLFE, Clerk of Court
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