UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 19-4249
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
MARCUS HERMAN MORRIS,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Greenbelt.
Paula Xinis, District Judge. (8:10-cr-00029-PX-1)
Submitted: December 26, 2019 Decided: January 7, 2020
Before MOTZ, AGEE, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
James Wyda, Federal Public Defender, Cullen Macbeth, Assistant Federal Public
Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Baltimore, Maryland, for
Appellant. Robert K. Hur, United States Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, Dwight J.
Draughon, Jr., Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES
ATTORNEY, Greenbelt, Maryland, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Marcus Herman Morris appeals the district court’s judgment revoking his
supervised release and imposing a sentence of 12 months in prison, which the court ordered
to run consecutively to the sentence imposed on a new conviction of possessing a firearm
and ammunition as a felon. On appeal, Morris asserts that his revocation sentence is plainly
unreasonable because the district court improperly placed excessive weight on the wrong
factors and failed to adequately address a nonfrivolous argument for imposing a concurrent
sentence, rather than a consecutive one. We affirm.
“A district court has broad discretion when imposing a sentence upon revocation of
supervised release.” United States v. Webb, 738 F.3d 638, 640 (4th Cir. 2013). “We will
affirm a revocation sentence if it is within the statutory maximum and is not plainly
unreasonable.” United States v. Slappy, 872 F.3d 202, 207 (4th Cir. 2017) (internal
quotation marks omitted). “To consider whether a revocation sentence is plainly
unreasonable, we first must determine whether the sentence is procedurally or
substantively unreasonable.” Id. (citation omitted).
“A revocation sentence is procedurally reasonable if the district court adequately
explains the chosen sentence after considering the Sentencing Guidelines’ nonbinding
Chapter Seven policy statements and the applicable 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) [(2012)] factors.”
Id. (footnotes omitted); see 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e) (2012) (specifying § 3553(a) factors
relevant to supervised release revocation). “[A] revocation sentence is substantively
reasonable if the court sufficiently state[s] a proper basis for its conclusion that the
defendant should receive the sentence imposed.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
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Only if a sentence is either procedurally or substantively unreasonable do we determine
whether the sentence is plainly unreasonable. Id. at 208.
We have reviewed the record and conclude that the district court relied on
appropriate factors, addressed Morris’ nonfrivolous arguments for a different sentence, and
adequately justified the selected sentence. Morris’ 12-month consecutive sentence is not
unreasonable and, therefore, not plainly so. Accordingly, we grant Morris’ motion for this
court to take judicial notice of various documents in the record 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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