UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 16-4175
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
MARKUS ODON MCCORMICK,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. Terrence W. Boyle,
District Judge. (5:10-cr-00320-BO-1)
Submitted: October 7, 2016 Decided: October 24, 2016
Before WILKINSON, NIEMEYER, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Thomas P. McNamara, Federal Public Defender, Jennifer C.
Leisten, Research & Writing Attorney, Raleigh, North Carolina,
for Appellant. John Stuart Bruce, 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Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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:
Markus Odon McCormick appeals from the district court’s
judgment revoking his supervised release and sentencing him to
50 months’ imprisonment. McCormick argues on appeal that this
sentence is plainly unreasonable because it is greater than
necessary to achieve the purposes of sentencing. We affirm.
“We 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.) (quoting United States v. Crudup, 461 F.3d
433, 437 (4th Cir. 2006)), cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 494 (2015).
“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
inform our review of revocation sentences as well.” Id.
(internal quotation marks and alteration omitted).
A supervised release revocation sentence is procedurally
reasonable if the district court has considered the Sentencing
Guidelines’ Chapter Seven advisory policy statement range and
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the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2012) factors it is permitted to
consider in a supervised release revocation case, see 18 U.S.C.
§ 3583(e) (2012); Crudup, 461 F.3d at 439-40, 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 we find a revocation sentence unreasonable must we
decide whether it is “plainly” so. United States v. Moulden,
478 F.3d 652, 657 (4th Cir. 2007). A sentence is plainly
unreasonable if it is clearly or obviously unreasonable. Id.
We reject McCormick’s contention that his sentence is
greater than necessary to achieve the purposes of sentencing in
his case. It essentially asks this court to substitute its
judgment for that of the district court. While this court may
have weighed relevant § 3553(a) factors differently had it
imposed the revocation sentence, we defer to the district
court’s decision that an above-policy statement range sentence
of 50 months’ imprisonment achieved the purposes of sentencing
in McCormick’s case. See Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51
(2007) (explaining that appellate courts “must give due
deference to the district court’s decision that the § 3553(a)
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factors, on a whole, justify” the sentence imposed). 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, see United States v. Jeffery,
631 F.3d 669, 679 (4th Cir. 2011), and the deferential posture
we take in reviewing the imposition of a revocation sentence,
Padgett, 788 F.3d at 373, McCormick fails to establish that his
50-month prison term is substantively unreasonable. *
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
* Near the end of his brief, McCormick appears to raise
procedural challenges to the 50-month sentence, arguing that the
district court failed to address his arguments in mitigation and
failed to explain adequately why the 50-month sentence was
sufficient. We reject these challenges. McCormick does not
specify what was inadequate about the district court’s
explanation of the sentence. Further, the district court’s
order detailing its reasons for imposing the sentence and its
comments at the revocation hearing make clear that it considered
both McCormick’s allocution and the arguments of McCormick’s
counsel in support of continued supervision. The court viewed
McCormick’s allocution as having a “negative value” for
McCormick and found that counsel’s arguments did not outweigh
the considerations that supported imposition of the 50-month
sentence.
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