Case ID: f-appx_495/html/0169-01.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. Gregory THOMAS, a.k.a. Little Earl, a.k.a. E-Z, Defendant-Appellant.
    No. 11-3761-cr.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    Sept. 7, 2012.
    James E. Long, Esq., Albany, NY, for Appellant.
    John G. Duncan, John M. Katko, Elizabeth S. Riker, Assistant United States Attorneys, for Richard S. Hartunian, United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York, Syracuse, NY, for Appellee.
    PRESENT: RALPH K. WINTER, ROBERT D. SACK, and REENA RAGGI, Circuit Judges.
   SUMMARY ORDER

Gregory Thomas, whose conviction for racketeering was affirmed by this court at the same time that we remanded for re-sentencing to ensure that the district court understood the scope of its discretion to vary from the Sentencing Guidelines in light of Kimbrough v. United States, 552 U.S. 85, 128 S.Ct. 558, 169 L.Ed.2d 481 (2007), see United States v. Applins, 637 F.3d 59, 62 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 132 S.Ct. 816, 181 L.Ed.2d 541 (2011), now appeals from the 292-month prison term imposed on remand. Thomas contends that this sentence — effectively a 68-month downward variance from the 360-month Guidelines sentence originally imposed — is procedurally and substantively unreasonable. In reviewing Thomas’s sentence “under a ‘deferential abuse-of-discretion standard,’ ” United States v. Cavera, 550 F.3d 180, 189 (2d Cir.2008) (en banc) (quoting Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41, 128 S.Ct. 586, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007)), we assume the parties’ familiarity with the facts and the record of prior proceedings, which we reference only as necessary to explain our decision to affirm.

1.Procedural Error

Thomas submits that various procedural errors in the district court’s Guidelines calculation render his racketeering conspiracy sentence unreasonable. Thomas (like his co-defendants) raised virtually identical procedural challenges to his original, 360-month prison term on his first appeal. Where, as here, “this Court has, on the prior appeal, adjudicated [such] challenges,” the law-of-the-case doctrine ordinarily “forecloses the parties from renewing their previously adjudicated challenges on a subsequent appeal, even if the district court has imposed a new sentence on ... remand.” United States v. Carr, 557 F.3d 93, 103-04 (2d Cir.2009). We identify no “compelling circumstances” that could warrant recognition of an exception to that doctrine here. Id. at 104.

Even if the law-of-the-case doctrine did not bar Thomas’s procedural challenges to his sentence, we would reject all of these challenges on the merits. The district court did not err in adopting the findings of the presentence report (“PSR”) with respect to the quantities sold by Thomas, and in attributing to Thomas the reasonably foreseeable sales of his coconspira-tors. See U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3, cmt. n. 2 (providing that, in “case of a jointly undertaken criminal activity,” defendant is accountable for “all reasonably foreseeable quantities of contraband that were within the scope of the criminal activity that he jointly undertook”); United States v. Ware, 577 F.3d 442, 452 (2d Cir.2009) (holding that district court may satisfy factfinding obligations by adopting factual statements in PSR, so long as PSR states enough facts to permit meaningful appellate review); United States v. Florez, 447 F.3d 145, 156 (2d Cir.2006) (holding that district court is not bound by jury’s drug quantity finding at sentencing).

2. Substantive Reasonableness

To the extent Thomas’s brief may be construed as arguing that his 292-month sentence for racketeering is substantively unreasonable, we are not persuaded. In evaluating the totality of such a claim, our task is not to decide what sentence we think is appropriate. See Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. at 51, 128 S.Ct. 586. Rather, we consider only “whether the sentence imposed falls within the broad range that can be considered reasonable.” United States v. Jones, 531 F.3d 163, 174 (2d Cir.2008). Having reviewed the PSR and the resentencing record, we conclude that this is not one of the “exceptional cases where the trial court’s decision cannot be located within the range of permissible decisions.” United States v. Cavera, 550 F.3d at 189 (internal quotation marks omitted).

3. Conclusion

Having identified no merit in Thomas’s reasonableness challenges to his sentence for racketeering conspiracy, the district court’s judgment is AFFIRMED.