United States v. Jeronza Thorne

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 16-4060

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

JERONZA THORNE,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western
District of North Carolina, at Charlotte. Max O. Cogburn, Jr.,
District Judge. (3:13-cr-00293-MOC-1)

Submitted: September 29, 2016 Decided: October 3, 2016

Before SHEDD, KEENAN, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Sandra Barrett, Asheville, 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Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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:

Jeronza Thorne was convicted by a jury of various offenses

arising out of his participation in a stash house robbery

conspiracy. The district court sentenced him to 137 months’

imprisonment, a term at the bottom of the applicable Sentencing

Guidelines range. Thorne now appeals, arguing that the district

court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the indictment,

which claimed outrageous Government conduct. Further, Thorne

alleges that the Government’s conduct amounted to sentencing

manipulation and thus merited a downward departure at

sentencing.

In reviewing the denial of a motion to dismiss an

indictment, we review the district court’s factual findings for

clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. United States v.

Woolfolk, 399 F.3d 590, 594 (4th Cir. 2005). We review a

sentence for procedural and substantive reasonableness under an

abuse-of-discretion standard. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S.

38, 51 (2007).

The Supreme Court has recognized that, in an extreme case,

governmental misconduct may be so outrageous that it requires

dismissal of charges against a defendant under the Due Process

Clause of the Fifth Amendment. United States v. Russell, 411

U.S. 423, 432 (1973). “In order to constitute a due process

violation, the government’s conduct must be so outrageous as to

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shock the conscience of the court” or be “offensive to

traditional notions of fundamental fairness.” United States v.

Osborne, 935 F.2d 32, 36, 37 (4th Cir. 1991) (internal quotation

marks omitted). “Outrageous is not a label properly applied to

conduct because it is a sting or reverse sting operation

involving contraband.” United States v. Goodwin, 854 F.2d 33,

37 (4th Cir. 1988).

We have rejected arguments of outrageous Government conduct

in other stash house robbery sting operations. United States v.

Hare, 820 F.3d 93, 102-04 (4th Cir. 2016), petition for cert.

filed, __ U.S.L.W. __ (U.S. July 18, 2016) (No. 16-5348).

Thorne attempts to distinguish his case from Hare, asserting

that the Government acted outrageously in his case by failing to

seek his detention for charged supervised release violations,

which would have prevented him from being able to continue in

the conspiracy. We agree with the district court that the

Government’s conduct in this case is not offensive to societal

principles of fairness. Osborne, 935 F.2d at 37. Because

Thorne’s sentencing argument turns on his unsuccessful

allegation of outrageous Government conduct, we also reject that

claim.

Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal

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contentions are adequately presented in the materials before

this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED