UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 12-4122
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
RICHARD PATRICK PATE,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Charleston. Patrick Michael Duffy, Senior
District Judge. (2:07-cr-00130-PMD-1)
Submitted: November 26, 2012 Decided: January 7, 2013
Before KING, WYNN, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges.
Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Cameron J. Blazer, Assistant Federal Public Defender,
Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellant. William N. Nettles,
United States Attorney, Alston C. Badger, Assistant United
States Attorney, Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Richard Patrick Pate appeals the twenty-four-month
term of imprisonment imposed after revocation of his supervised
release. Pate argues that the sentence runs afoul of Tapia v.
United States, 131 S. Ct. 2382 (2011). We agree. Accordingly,
we vacate the judgment and remand for resentencing.
We will affirm a sentence imposed after revocation of
supervised release if it is not plainly unreasonable. United
States v. Thompson, 595 F.3d 544, 546 (4th Cir. 2010). “For a
sentence to be plainly unreasonable, . . . it must run afoul of
clearly settled law.” Id. at 548.
In Tapia, the Supreme Court held that a district court
could not impose or lengthen a term of imprisonment in order to
promote an offender’s rehabilitation. Tapia, 131 S. Ct. at
2392-93. We recently held that Tapia applies to revocation
sentences. United States v. Bennett, __ F.3d __, __, 2012 WL
5265802, at *1-*3 (4th Cir. Oct. 25, 2012) (No. 11-4401).
Here, the applicable Guidelines range was three to
nine months. U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual (“USSG”)
§ 7B1.4(a), p.s. (2011). The district court advised Pate that
“nine months in jail is [not] going to help you, but I’m going
to give you two years in jail so that you can get the best drug
treatment that we have available.” (J.A. 30). The court then
sentenced Pate to twenty-four months’ imprisonment, the
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statutory maximum provided in 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3) (2006),
which was fifteen months longer than the high end of the
Guidelines range. Our review of the proceeding confirms that
the district court selected its chosen sentence based on Pate’s
rehabilitative needs, a rationale expressly prohibited in Tapia
and Bennett. Of course, we acknowledge that the district court
did not have the benefit of our decision in Bennett when it
sentenced Pate on the supervised release violations.
Nevertheless, we find that Tapia alone constituted clearly
settled law on this matter, as there was no reason to believe
its holding would not apply in this context. We thus conclude
that Pate’s sentence is plainly unreasonable.
Accordingly, we vacate the judgment of the district
court and remand for resentencing. 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.
VACATED AND REMANDED
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