United States v. Brandon Turner

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-4060

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

BRANDON MARQUIS TURNER,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle
District of North Carolina, at Greensboro. William L. Osteen,
Jr., Chief District Judge. (1:12-cr-00017-WO-1)

Submitted: August 25, 2014 Decided: August 27, 2014

Before TRAXLER, Chief Judge, and WILKINSON and AGEE, Circuit
Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Louis C. Allen, Federal Public Defender, Mireille P. Clough,
Assistant Federal Public Defender, Winston-Salem, North
Carolina, for Appellant. Terry Michael Meinecke, Assistant
United States Attorney, Greensboro, North Carolina, for
Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:

Brandon Marquis Turner pled guilty, pursuant to a plea

agreement, to maintaining a drug involved premises, in violation

of 21 U.S.C. § 856(a)(1) (2012) (Count One), and possessing

firearms in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, in

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i) (2012) (Count Two).

The district court sentenced Turner to twenty-one months’

imprisonment on Count One, a downward variance from the twenty-

seven to thirty-three-month Guidelines range, and a consecutive

sentence of sixty months, the statutory mandatory minimum, on

Count Two. * Turner appeals.

Counsel has filed a brief pursuant to Anders v.

California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), stating that there are no

meritorious grounds for appeal but questioning whether Turner’s

sentence is reasonable. Turner was advised of his right to file

*
The district court initially sentenced Turner to thirty
months on Count One and a consecutive sixty months on Count Two,
and Turner appealed. Without addressing the merits of the
appeal, this court granted the parties’ joint motion to remand
for a new sentencing hearing where the district court could
consider the applicability, if any, of United States v. Davis,
720 F.3d 215, 217, 219-20 (4th Cir. 2013). In light of Davis,
the district court removed three criminal history points from
Turner’s criminal history score, reducing his criminal history
category to V and his Guidelines range on Count One to twenty-
seven to thirty-one months. The court resentenced Turner to a
downward variance sentence of twenty-one months on Count One and
sixty months on Count Two. It is from this sentence that Turner
now appeals.

2
a pro se supplemental brief, but he did not file one. We

affirm.

We review Turner’s sentence for reasonableness “under

a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.” Gall v. United

States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007). A sentence is procedurally

reasonable if the court properly calculates the defendant’s

advisory Guidelines range, gives the parties an opportunity to

argue for an appropriate sentence, considers the 18 U.S.C.

§ 3553(a) (2012) factors, does not rely on clearly erroneous

facts, and sufficiently explains the selected sentence. Id. at

49-51. We conclude that Turner’s sentence is procedurally

reasonable. Further, Turner has also failed to rebut the

presumption that his below-Guidelines sentence is substantively

reasonable. United States v. Susi, 674 F.3d 278, 289 (4th Cir.

2012) (explaining presumption); United States v. Montes-Pineda,

445 F.3d 375, 379 (4th Cir. 2006) (explaining that defendant may

rebut presumption by showing “that the sentence is unreasonable

when measured against the § 3553(a) factors” (internal quotation

marks omitted)).

In accordance with Anders, we have reviewed the

remainder of the record in this case and have found no

meritorious grounds for appeal. We therefore affirm the

district court’s judgment. This court requires that counsel

inform Turner, in writing, of the right to petition the Supreme

3
Court of the United States for further review. If Turner

requests that a petition be filed, but counsel believes that

such a petition would be frivolous, then counsel may move in

this court for leave to withdraw from representation. Counsel’s

motion must state that a copy thereof was served on Turner. 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

4