UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 15-4701
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
JAMIEO SIMPSON,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western
District of North Carolina, at Charlotte. Frank D. Whitney,
Chief District Judge. (3:04-cr-00130-FDW-DSC-1)
Submitted: May 20, 2016 Decided: June 2, 2016
Before WILKINSON and GREGORY, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Matthew Collin Joseph, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellant.
Jill Westmoreland Rose, United States Attorney, Anthony J.
Enright, Assistant United States Attorney, Charlotte, North
Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Jamieo Simpson appeals from the district court’s judgment
revoking his probation and sentencing him to 48 months’
imprisonment and 3 years of supervised release. On appeal,
Simpson argues that his 48-month sentence is substantively
unreasonable. We affirm.
This court “will not disturb a district court’s revocation
sentence unless it falls outside the statutory maximum or is
otherwise ‘plainly unreasonable.’” United States v. Padgett,
788 F.3d 370, 373 (4th Cir. 2015) (quoting United States v.
Crudup, 461 F.3d 433, 437 (4th Cir. 2006)) (addressing sentences
resulting from revocation of supervised release); see United
States v. Moulden, 478 F.3d 652, 655 (4th Cir. 2007) (explaining
that probation revocation sentences, like sentences resulting
from revocation of supervised release, are reviewed to
determined whether they are “plainly unreasonable”). “When
reviewing whether a revocation sentence is plainly unreasonable,
we must first determine whether it is unreasonable at all.”
United States v. Thompson, 595 F.3d 544, 546 (4th Cir. 2010).
In making such a determination, “we strike a more deferential
appellate posture than we do when reviewing original sentences.”
Padgett, 788 F.3d at 373 (internal quotation marks omitted).
“Nonetheless, the same procedural and substantive
considerations that guide our review of original sentences
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inform our review of revocation sentences.” Id. (internal
quotation marks and alteration omitted). A probation revocation
sentence is procedurally reasonable if the district court has
considered the Guidelines’ Chapter Seven advisory policy
statement range and the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2012) factors,
see 18 U.S.C. § 3565(a) (2012); Moulden, 478 F.3d at 656, and
has adequately explained the sentence chosen, although it need
not explain the sentence in as much detail as when imposing an
original sentence. Thompson, 595 F.3d at 547. A revocation
sentence is substantively reasonable if the district court
states a proper basis for concluding the defendant should
receive the sentence imposed, up to the statutory maximum.
Crudup, 461 F.3d at 440. Only if a sentence is found
unreasonable will we decide whether it is “plainly” so.
Moulden, 478 F.3d at 657. A sentence is plainly unreasonable if
it is clearly or obviously unreasonable. Crudup, 461 F.3d at
439.
Simpson contends that his 48-month revocation sentence is
substantively unreasonable because the district court punished
him for his violative behavior in committing second-degree
murder rather than for his breach of trust in violating the
terms of his probation. In Simpson’s view, there was no
justifiable reason that existed to support the imposition of an
upward departure from the advisory policy statement range of 24
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to 30 months’ imprisonment, and his sentence is greater than
necessary to achieve the purposes of sentencing in his case.
The nature and circumstances of Simpson’s violative conduct
in committing the murder and the murder’s place in Simpson’s
criminal history, however, were matters properly considered by
the district court in imposing the 48-month sentence.
See 18 U.S.C. §§ 3553(a)(1), 3565(a). Additionally, contrary to
Simpson’s assertion, the record makes clear that the district
court imposed the 48-month term in light of these matters and
the need for the sentence to sanction Simpson’s breach of trust,
as it was permitted to do. See U.S. Sentencing Guidelines
Manual ch. 7, pt. A, introductory cmt. 3(b) (“[A]t revocation
the [district] court should sanction primarily the defendant’s
breach of trust, while taking into account, to a limited degree,
the seriousness of the underlying violation and the criminal
history of the violator.”). Further, in light of the “extremely
broad” discretion afforded to a district court in determining
the weight to be given each of the § 3553(a) factors in imposing
sentence, United States v. Jeffery, 631 F.3d 669, 679 (4th Cir.
2011), and the deferential posture this court takes in reviewing
the imposition of a revocation sentence, Padgett, 788 F.3d at
373, we refuse to substitute our judgment for the district
court’s that the 48-month sentence achieved the purposes of
sentencing in Simpson’s case. See United States v.
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Rivera-Santana, 668 F.3d 95, 105 (4th Cir. 2012) (stating it was
within district court’s discretion to accord more weight to a
host of aggravating factors in defendant’s case and decide that
the sentence imposed would serve the § 3553 factors on the
whole). We therefore conclude that the revocation sentence is
not substantively unreasonable and 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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