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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 17-13167
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 3:09-cr-00132-WHA-WC-1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
ALJAWON MILES,
a.k.a. Juwan Golden,
Defendant-Appellant.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Alabama
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(March 8, 2018)
Before WILSON, MARTIN, and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
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Aljawon Miles appeals his conviction and 24-month sentence imposed after
the district court found that he twice-violated his supervised release condition to
not commit a federal, state, or local crime. The district court found that Miles, an
adult sex offender, violated Alabama Code section 15-20A-11 by residing at a
residence within 2,000 feet of a school and Alabama Code section 15-20A-10 by
failing to register that address with local law enforcement. On appeal, Miles
argues that there was insufficient evidence to establish that he lived at the
residence in question because no one testified as to a particular night that he stayed
at the residence and the weight of the evidence was in favor of Miles not residing
there. Further, Miles contends that his sentence is procedurally unreasonable
because the district court failed to provide any explanation for the sentence, to
acknowledge the parties’ arguments, or to meaningfully consider any of the 18
U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors. After careful review of the parties’ briefs and the record,
we vacate Miles’s sentence on the procedural reasonableness ground and remand
for resentencing.
I.
A.
We review the district court’s determination that a defendant violated the
terms of his supervised release for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Frazier,
26 F.3d 110, 112 (11th Cir. 1994). We review a district court’s factual findings for
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clear error. United States v. Ford, 784 F.3d 1386, 1396 (11th Cir. 2015). We will
not disturb the district court’s findings of fact unless we have “a definite and firm
conviction that a mistake has been made.” Id. Credibility determinations are the
province of the factfinder, and we ordinarily will not review such a determination.
United States v. Copeland, 20 F.3d 412, 413 (11th Cir. 1994) (per curiam). A
district court’s credibility determination must be accepted unless it is so
inconsistent or improbable on its face that no reasonable factfinder could accept it,
and therefore is clearly erroneous. United States v. Ramirez-Chilel, 289 F.3d 744,
749 (11th Cir. 2002).
Under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3), a district court may revoke a term of
supervised release if it finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant
violated a condition of his release. United States v. Sweeting, 437 F.3d 1105, 1107
(11th Cir. 2006) (per curiam). A preponderance of the evidence simply requires
the factfinder to believe that the existence of the fact is more probable than its
nonexistence. United States v. Trainor, 376 F.3d 1325, 1331 (11th Cir. 2004).
B.
Alabama Code section 15-20A-11 provides that an adult sex offender may
not “establish a residence or maintain a residence after release or conviction within
2,000 feet of the property on which any school, childcare facility, or resident camp
facility is located.” Ala. Code § 15-20A-11(a). Section 15-20A-10 of the
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Alabama Code requires an adult sex offender to register with local law
enforcement immediately after establishing a new residence. Ala. Code § 15-20A-
10(b), (e).
C.
There was sufficient evidence for the district court to find that Miles lived at
the residence even though the lease was in his girlfriend’s name. 1
First, the mother of Miles’s girlfriend testified that Miles was living at the
residence and that she removed Miles’s clothes from the residence and put them in
a box outside. Second, an AT&T document showed that Miles was paying for a
service account at the residence. Even if, as Miles argues, he could have been
paying for his girlfriend’s service because of her financial difficulties, the court
only needed to find by a preponderance of the evidence that Miles lived at the
residence.
Finally, the text messages between Miles and the landlord of the residence
indicated that Miles exercised control and responsibility over the residence,
making it more probable than not that he resided there. In the text exchanges,
which started more than two months before his arrest for the alleged violations,
Miles generally responded within a few minutes to the landlord’s inquiries about
1
The parties agree that the residence is within 2,000 feet of a school and that Miles residing
there without registering his address would violate Alabama Code sections 15-20A-11 and 15-
20A-10. They also agree that those Alabama Code violations would each violate Miles’s
supervised release condition to not commit a federal, state, or local crime.
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the residence’s maintenance issues. He also referred to his girlfriend as his “wife”
and asked the landlord to remove her name from the lease and to replace it with his
own. In support of his request, he told the landlord that he paid the rent.
While each individual piece of evidence may not be determinative, when
taken together, the evidence does not lead to a definite and firm conclusion that the
district court erred in finding that Miles resided at the residence in violation of two
Alabama laws. Thus, the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining
that Miles violated his supervised release condition to not commit a federal, state,
or local crime, because he committed two Alabama state crimes.
II.
A.
We review the reasonableness of a district court’s sentence imposed after the
revocation of supervised release for an abuse of discretion. United States v.
Trailer, 827 F.3d 933, 935–36 (11th Cir. 2016) (per curiam). When considering
whether a sentence was procedurally reasonable, we assess whether the district
court made a significant error, such as treating the Sentencing Guidelines as
mandatory, miscalculating the guideline range, failing to consider the 18 U.S.C.
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§ 3553(a) factors,2 basing the sentence on clearly erroneous facts, or failing to
adequately explain the sentence. Id. at 936.
The weight accorded to any given § 3553(a) factor is a matter committed to
the sound discretion of the district court. United States v. Clay, 483 F.3d 739, 743
(11th Cir. 2007). Nothing requires the district court to state on the record that it
has explicitly considered each of the § 3553(a) factors or to discuss each of the
§ 3553(a) factors. United States v. Dorman, 488 F.3d 936, 944 (11th Cir. 2007).
We have held that a district court’s statement that it considered the defendant’s
sentencing arguments and the § 3553(a) factors can alone be sufficient for us to
uphold a sentence. See United States v. McGarity, 669 F.3d 1218, 1263 (11th Cir.
2012). In essence, a district court should simply set forth enough to satisfy us that
it has considered the parties’ arguments and has a reasoned basis for exercising its
own legal decisionmaking authority. Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 356, 127
S. Ct. 2456, 2468 (2007).
B.
Because the district court did not explicitly address the parties’ arguments
pertaining to Miles’s sentence, much less say that it had considered those
2
The 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors relevant to supervised release, see 18 U.S.C. § 3583(c), include
(1) the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of the
defendant; (2) the need to deter criminal conduct; (3) the need to protect the public; (4) the need
to provide the defendant with medical care or other correctional treatment; (5) the applicable
guideline range; (6) the pertinent policy statements of the Sentencing Commission; (7) the need
to avoid unwarranted sentencing disparities; and (8) the need to provide restitution to victims. 18
U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(B)–(D), and (a)(4)–(7).
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arguments, Miles’s 24-month sentence was procedurally unreasonable. Before
pronouncing Miles’s guilt, the district court did say that it “carefully reviewed the
charges and evidence presented.” However, at the sentencing phase, the court
made no reference to the parties’ arguments pertaining to Miles’s sentence, and
only stated that it had considered the advisory Guidelines and “the reasonableness
of the sentence under the lens of 18 U.S.C. § 3553.” Thus, we have no basis on
which to conclude that the district court actually considered the parties’ sentencing
arguments and in turn had a reasoned basis for its 24-month sentencing
determination. Therefore, on the record before us, Miles’s sentence cannot stand
because it is procedurally unreasonable.
III.
For the foregoing reasons, we vacate and remand for the district court to
establish at resentencing that it has engaged in reasoned judgment by considering
the Guidelines, the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, and the parties’ sentencing
arguments.
VACATED AND REMANDED.
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