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Parties Involved:
Harry Keels
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

No. 18-3088 September Term, 2019

FILED ON: February 4, 2020

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

HARRY KEELS,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:17-cr-00234-5)

Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge, and WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit 

Judge.

J U D G M E N T

This case was considered on the record from the United States District Court for the District 

of Columbia and the briefs and oral arguments of the parties. The Court has accorded the issues 

full consideration and has determined that they do not warrant a published opinion. See D.C. CIR. 

R. 36(d). For the reasons set out below, it is

ORDERED and ADJUDGED that the decision of the district court be AFFIRMED.

On February 8, 2018, a federal grand jury indicted Harry Keels for conspiracy to distribute 

and possess with intent to distribute cocaine base, a violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841 and 846. Keels 

pleaded guilty, admitting that he sought to acquire and distribute cocaine from a co-conspirator. 

Given Keels’s criminal history and the nature of his offense, the United States Sentencing 

Guidelines recommended a sentence of thirty to thirty-seven months’ imprisonment. The district 

court imposed an above-Guidelines sentence of sixty months.

A sentencing judge has “legal authority to impose a sentence outside the [Guidelines] range 

either because he or she ‘departs’ from the range (as is permitted by certain Guidelines rules) or 

because he or she chooses to ‘vary’ from the Guidelines by not applying them at all.” ChavezMeza v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 1959, 1963 (2018). In this case, the district court invoked both 

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sources of legal authority to impose Keels’s above-Guidelines sentence. First, the district court

departed upward from the Guidelines range. See U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3(a)(1). Second, and “regardless 

of the propriety of the departure,” the district court varied upward based on the sentencing factors 

in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). J.A. 116.

Keels timely appealed his sentence, and we have jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a). 

We review the “reasonableness” of a sentence in two steps. United States v. Flores, 912 F.3d 613, 

618 (D.C. Cir. 2019). First, we ask whether the district court “committed significant procedural 

error.” Id. Among other things, procedural errors include the failure “to adequately explain the 

chosen sentence—including an explanation for any deviation from the Guidelines range.” Gall v. 

United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). Second, only if we find no procedural error, we consider 

“whether the sentence was objectively reasonable given the sentencing factors outlined in 18 

U.S.C. § 3553(a).” Flores, 912 F.3d at 618.

On appeal, Keels argues only that the district court committed procedural errors; he does 

not challenge the objective reasonableness of his sentence. See Oral Arg. Tr. 21:16-22. 

Specifically, Keels argues that the district court (1) failed to adequately explain the upward 

variance and (2) committed various other procedural errors in departing upward. He concedes that 

he failed to preserve his objection to the district court’s explanation of the variance, which we 

should thus review for plain error. See id. at 3:21-25.

We hold that the district court adequately explained the upward variance. To justify such a 

variance, “the district court . . . must state the specific reason why the defendant’s conduct was 

more harmful or egregious than the typical case represented by the relevant Sentencing Guidelines 

range.” United States v. Brown, 892 F.3d 385, 404 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). In this case, the district court gave “specific reason[s]” why Keels’s criminal conduct

differed from a “typical case.” Id. The district court noted that “in 2006 [Keels was] convicted 

twice of attempted possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine”—crimes similar to his 

cocaine-distribution offense in this case. J.A. 113. In United States v. Molina, we held that “offense 

similarity is a permissible basis for [sentence] enhancement.” 952 F.2d 514, 519 (D.C. Cir. 1992). 

Although the Guidelines consider prior convictions, they do not account for “the presence of 

similarity between a defendant’s current and past crimes.” Id. (emphasis omitted). Here, Keels’s 

repeated cocaine-distribution convictions distinguish him from the typical case under the 

Guidelines, and the district court could reasonably conclude that this pattern “demonstrated the 

need for greater sanctions to deter [Keels] from committing that same crime again.” Id. (internal 

quotation marks omitted); see also United States v. Ransom, 756 F.3d 770, 774 (D.C. Cir. 2014).

The district court also noted that Keels had been “involved in one way or the other in the 

drug trade” for “almost two decades.” J.A. 112. Specifically, Keels had prior convictions for 

possession of marijuana and for possession of phencyclidine (PCP) in 2001 and 2003, respectively. 

The Guidelines range did not account for these convictions, which are too outdated to be included 

in his criminal history score. See U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2(e). These possession convictions likewise

distinguish Keels from a typical defendant within the Guidelines range, and the district court could 

reasonably conclude that these convictions indicated that Keels was more likely to commit the 

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same crime again. See United States v. Bridges, 175 F.3d 1062, 1069-74 (D.C. Cir. 1999) 

(authorizing an upward departure based on the similarity of outdated convictions). Altogether, we 

cannot say that the district court plainly erred in its decision to vary upwards and impose an aboveGuidelines sentence.

Because we uphold the district court’s upward variance, we need not address Keels’s 

challenge to the departure. See United States v. Simpson, 430 F.3d 1177, 1185 (D.C. Cir. 2005)

(“If the [district court’s] alternative rationale is sufficient to support th[e] judgment, the judgment 

must be upheld.”).

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s judgment imposing an aboveGuidelines sentence of sixty months’ imprisonment.

Pursuant to D.C. Circuit Rule 36, this disposition will not be published. The Clerk is 

directed to withhold issuance of the mandate herein until seven days after resolution of any timely 

petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc. See FED. R. APP. P. 41(b); D.C. CIR. R. 41(a)(1).

FOR THE COURT:

Mark J. Langer, Clerk

BY: /s/

Daniel J. Reidy

Deputy Clerk

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