Case ID: f-appx_282/html/0369-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James R. COPE, Defendant-Appellant.
    No. 06-6457.
    United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
    June 17, 2008.
    Before: GIBBONS and SUTTON, Circuit Judges; and ACKERMAN, District Judge.
    
    
      
       The Honorable Harold A. Ackerman, Senior United States District Judge for the District of New Jersey, sitting by designation.
    
   PER CURIAM.

James Cope challenges the reasonableness of his 188-month prison sentence, which the district court issued after a Booker remand and which mirrors the sentence the district court originally imposed. We affirm.

I.

A jury found Cope guilty of attempting to manufacture and possessing with intent to distribute methamphetamine, see 21 U.S.C. §§ 846, 841(a)(1), possessing pseudoephedrine and other products used to manufacture methamphetamine, see id. §§ 841(c)(2), 848(a)(6), and being a felon in possession of a firearm, see 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). Cope’s guidelines range was 151-188 months, and the district court sentenced him at the top of the range.

We affirmed Cope’s convictions on appeal but vacated his sentence based on United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005). See United States v. Marshall, 192 Fed.Appx. 504, 512, 515 (6th Cir.2006). On remand, the district court recognized the advisory nature of the guidelines but still rejected Cope’s request for a below-guidelines sentence. It then gave Cope the same 188-month sentence it had originally imposed.

II.

In challenging the reasonableness of his sentence, Cope does not take issue with any procedural component of the sentence — the district court’s calculation of the guidelines sentence, its appreciation of the advisory nature of the guidelines or any other process-driven aspect of the sentence or sentencing hearing. He instead targets the “substantive reasonableness” of his sentence, Gall v. United States, — U.S. —, 128 S.Ct. 586, 597, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007), claiming it should have been shorter.

We apply abuse-of-discretion review to challenges to the length of a sentence. See id. at 594. And when the national views of the Sentencing Commission and the independent views of a district court judge align — as they do when the judge agrees that a guidelines sentence is appropriate — we grant this “double determination” a presumption of reasonableness. United States v. Vonner, 516 F.3d 382, 389 (6th Cir.2008) (en banc); see also Rita v. United States, — U.S. —, 127 S.Ct. 2456, 2463, 168 L.Ed.2d 203 (2007). Cope has not rebutted the presumption here, much less shown that the district court otherwise abused its discretion in imposing this sentence.

The district court had ample bases for concluding that a 188-month sentence satisfied the factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). Cope had “a significant criminal history,” including two prior felony drug convictions, and had been “involved in the illegal drug trade for a significant period of time.” JA 68; see 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(C). The court reasonably found it “even more disturbing” that Cope’s criminal conduct involved both marijuana and methamphetamine, JA 68, noting that methamphetamine offenses are particularly “serious,” JA 70; see 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A). Under these circumstances, the court reasonably determined that a “sentence either at the top or above the particular guideline range is necessary in order to deter others from engaging in such conduct,” JA 70; see 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(B), and reasonably determined that a within-guidelines sentence of 188 months was “sufficient but not greater than necessary to serve the statutory purposes,” JA 71; see 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).

In resisting this conclusion, Cope argues that two considerations mandate a below-guidelines sentence: (1) his prior military service in Vietnam and accompanying post-traumatic stress disorder; and (2) his acceptance of responsibility. As to the first point, the court observed that, “even individuals with [this] disorder[] have to take responsibility for them actions,” JA 68, a stance that no guideline or precedent prevents a trial court from taking and a stance supported by the seriousness of these offenses. To the extent Cope also means to argue that he was entitled to a departure from the guidelines based upon his post-traumatic stress disorder, see U.S.S.G. § 5K2.13, we may not review a district court’s determination on this score when, as here, the district court appreciated its discretion to grant the departure, see United States v. Puckett, 422 F.3d 340, 344-45 (6th Cir.2005); see also United States v. McBride, 434 F.3d 470, 476 (6th Cir.2006) (“Puckett ... precludes our review of that narrow determination of a denial of a Chapter 5 Guideline departure within the context of the Guideline calculation.”).

As to the second point, it is far from clear that Cope even sought a lower sentence on the ground that he accepted responsibility for his crimes. He points to no place in the transcript where he made any such argument. The record, at all events, provides little support for such a contention. Cope at most said only that he was “sort of guilty,” JA 64, and, even then, he made this statement not so much to show his acceptance of responsibility but to attempt to reduce the relative culpability of his co-defendant, see id. (“What I [did] wrong is undoable now. But making meth, I was never guilty of making meth or nothing like that. But I was sort of guilty of some of these things. But the girl behind m[y] back here, Tammy, if there’s any way you could give her any relief whatsoever, she’s as innocent as heck of knowing anything about anything I had.”).

In view of the wide berth we give district courts in weighing the “competing” sentencing considerations, see United States v. Grossman, 513 F.3d 592, 596 (6th Cir.2008), Cope’s lengthy criminal record and the presumption of reasonableness for a within-guidelines sentence, the court did not abuse its discretion in imposing this sentence. On this record, “we simply cannot say that [Cope’s] special circumstances are special enough that, in light of § 3553(a), they require a sentence lower than the sentence the Guidelines provide.” Rita, 127 S.Ct. at 2470 (emphasis added).

III.

For these reasons, we affirm.