UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 16-4156
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
TERRELL BATTLE,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. Louise W. Flanagan,
District Judge. (5:15-cr-00165-FL-1)
Submitted: October 20, 2016 Decided: November 10, 2016
Before MOTZ and KING, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Thomas P. McNamara, Federal Public Defender, Eric J. Brignac,
Assistant Federal Public Defender, 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Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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:
Terrell Battle pled guilty to two counts of mailing
threatening communications to a federal official, in violation
of 18 U.S.C. § 876(c) (2012), and was sentenced to two
concurrent terms of 15 months in prison. Battle now appeals,
claiming that the sentence is substantively unreasonable. We
affirm.
We review a sentence “under a deferential
abuse-of-discretion standard.” See Gall v. United States, 552
U.S. 38, 41 (2007). When reviewing for substantive
reasonableness, we “examine[] the totality of the circumstances
to see whether the sentencing court abused its discretion in
concluding that the sentence . . . satisfied the standards set
forth in [18 U.S.C. §] 3553(a).” United States v.
Mendoza-Mendoza, 597 F.3d 212, 216 (4th Cir. 2010). If the
sentence is within the correctly calculated Sentencing
Guidelines range, as it is here, we presume that the sentence is
substantively reasonable. United States v. Louthian, 756 F.3d
295, 306 (4th Cir. 2014). This presumption is rebutted only if
the defendant shows “that the sentence is unreasonable when
measured against the § 3553(a) factors.” United States v.
Dowell, 771 F.3d 162, 176 (4th Cir. 2014) (internal quotation
marks omitted).
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At Battle’s sentencing, the district court stated that it
had considered the presentence report, the Guidelines, the
§ 3553(a) factors, and Battle’s arguments for a downward
variance, which are identical to those arguments raised on
appeal. The court exercised its “extremely broad discretion” to
weigh the mitigating factors identified by Battle against the
seriousness of the offenses and Battle’s criminal history.
United States v. Jeffery, 631 F.3d 669, 679 (4th Cir. 2011).
Ultimately, the court concluded that the mitigating factors
warranted a sentence at the low end of the Guidelines range
rather than a downward variance.
We conclude that the sentence is substantively reasonable
and that Battle failed to rebut the presumption of
reasonableness we accord the within-Guidelines sentence.
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 the
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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