Case ID: f-appx_616/html/0431-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Lacey SCOTT, aka Collin Watson, Defendant-Appellant.
    No. 13-3945-cr.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    June 9, 2015.
    Jesse M. Siegel, Law Office of Jesse M. Siegel, New York, N.Y., for Appellant.
    Ian P. McGinley, Assistant U.S. Attorney for. the Southern District of New York (Michael A. Levy, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney, on the brief), New York, N.Y. for Appellee.
    Present: AMALYA L. KEARSE, ROSEMARY S. POOLER and CHRISTOPHER F. DRONEY, Circuit Judges.
   SUMMARY ORDER

Defendant-Appellant Lacey Scott appeals from the October 9, 2013 judgment of the District Court for the Southern District of New York (Sullivan, J.) convicting him of possessing a firearm after having been convicted of a felony, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and illegal reentry, in violation of 8 U.S.C. §§ 1326(a) & (b)(2). The district court sentenced Scott principally to 108 months’ imprisonment. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, procedural history, and specification of issues for review.

On appeal, Scott challenges his sentence as procedurally unreasonable. He contends that in determining his criminal history category, the' district court failed adequately to explain its basis for counting his 2005 federal sentences for firearms and drug offenses as separate sentences under U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2(a)(2) and thereby imposing three additional criminal history points.

We review a district court’s sentence for reasonableness. Under this “deferential abuse-of-discretion standard,” United States v. Caveto, 550 F.3d 180, 189 (2d Cir.2008) (internal quotation marks omitted), a district court commits procedural error where it “makes a mistake in its Guidelines calculation ... or rests its sentence on a clearly erroneous finding of fact,” id. at 190. The factual determinations underlying a district court’s Guidelines calculation are reviewed for clear error. United States v. Conca, 635 F.3d 55, 62 (2d Cir.2011). With respect to disputed issues of fact, a “district court must make findings with sufficient clarity to permit meaningful appellate review.” United States v. Skys, 637 F.3d 146, 152 (2d Cir. 2011).

Section 4A1.2(a)(2) of the Guidelines provides that where prior sentences “resulted from offenses contained in the same charging instrument” or “were imposed on the same day” those sentences are counted as a single sentence unless “imposed for offenses that were separated by an intervening arrest.” U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2(a)(2). Thus, to treat the sentences imposed in 2005 as separate sentences for the purpose of determining the number of applicable criminal history points, the district court was required to find that Scott was arrested for the August 22, 2003 firearms offense prior to committing the September 1, 2004 drug and firearms offenses.

Here, the district court relied-on facts contained iii the presentence report and the 2005 charging instrument provided by the government at sentencing in implicitly concluding that an intervening arrest occurred. Indeed, the questions posed to the parties by the district court make clear that it understood count one of that instrument “relate[d] to conduct that took place on August 22nd for which there was an arrest.” While the district court might have been more expansive in explaining the basis for determining that this arrest satisfied the Section 4A1.2(a)(2) requirement of an intervening arrest, its ultimate finding was not clearly erroneous. Counsel for Scott conceded as much at oral argument, and we note that Scott agreed in his plea agreement that he “was arrested for the offense charged in Count One [on] or about August 22, 2003.” We decline, therefore, to remand for clarification of the record where, as here, the district court’s findings were rendered with sufficient clarity to permit meaningful review.

We have considered the remainder of Scott’s arguments and find them to be without merit. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court hereby is AFFIRMED.