Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-15-02772/USCOURTS-ca8-15-02772-1/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
David Lee Phinney
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 15-2772

___________________________

United States of America

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

David Lee Phinney

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Western District of Missouri - St. Joseph

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 Submitted: April 11, 2016

 Filed: August 18, 2016 (Corrected August 22, 2016)

[Unpublished]

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Before GRUENDER and KELLY, Circuit Judges, and ERICKSEN, District 1

Judge.

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The Honorable Joan N. Ericksen, United States District Judge for the District 1

of Minnesota, sitting by designation.

Appellate Case: 15-2772 Page: 1 Date Filed: 08/22/2016 Entry ID: 4439888 
PER CURIAM.

David Lee Phinney challenges the sentence imposed by the district court for

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violating the terms of his supervised release. We affirm.

Less than two months after beginning his five-year term of supervised release

for conspiring to distribute methamphetamine, Phinney was arrested for violating

several of his conditions of release. Phinney admitted to violating the mandatory

condition that required him “not [to] commit another federal, state, or local crime,”

as well asthe standard conditionsrequiring him to notify his probation officer within

three days of being arrested or questioned by law enforcement, and not to associate

with persons engaged in criminal activity or, absent permission from his probation

officer, with felons. The violations were based on Phinney taking part in a fight (for

which he was convicted of felony second-degree assault) and being a passenger in a

vehicle with three other felons that was stopped by police for a traffic violation.

The parties agree that the district court correctly calculated Phinney’s advisory

range under the United States SentencingGuidelines as 46–57 months’imprisonment,

and that Phinney was statutorily eligible for up to a lifetime of supervised release. 

The district court sentenced Phinney to 48 months’ imprisonment followed by ten

years of supervised release.

We review a district court’s revocation sentencing decisions using the same

standards that we apply to initial sentencing decisions. United States v. Miller, 557

F.3d 910, 915–16 (8th Cir. 2009). “In reviewing a challenge to a sentence, we ‘must

first ensure that the district court committed no significant procedural error.’” United

States v. Dace, 660 F.3d 1011, 1013 (8th Cir. 2011) (quoting Gall v. United States,

The Honorable Greg Kays, Chief Judge, United States District Court for the

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Western District of Missouri.

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552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007)). When it comes to procedural error, “we review a district

court’s factual findings for clear error and its interpretation and application of the

guidelines de novo.” Id. (quotation and citation omitted). “If we discover no

procedural error, we then consider the substantive reasonableness of the sentence

imposed under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.” United States v.

Timberlake, 679 F.3d 1008, 1011 (8th Cir. 2012) (citation omitted).

Phinney argues that the district court erred by failing to consider the statutory

factors it was required to, failing to adequately explain its sentence, and basing its

decision on clearly erroneous facts. Although Phinney characterizesthese challenges

as being directed at the sentence’s substantive unreasonableness, they in fact concern

whether the district court committed procedural error. See Gall, 552 U.S. at 51. The

distinction matters because where a defendant fails to raise procedural objections at

sentencing – as is the case here – we can correct only plain errors. See Miller, 557

F.3d at 916. Claims that the length of a sentence is substantively unreasonable, by

contrast, are not reviewed for plain error even in the absence of an objection before

the district court. See United States v. Wiley, 509 F.3d 474, 476–77 (8th Cir. 2007).

Phinney raises no instance of plain procedural error. First, a district court is

required to consider the factors cited in 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e) when imposing a

sentence in the context of a supervised release revocation. The district court stated

that it considered the statutory factors and elaborated on its analysis of a number of

them, such as “the history and characteristics of the defendant” and the need “to

protect the public from further crimes of the defendant,” noting Phinney’s category

V criminal history and the violence he exhibited during the fight. That defeats any

claim of plain error based on failing to consider the necessary sentencing factors, for

sentencing courts need not mechanically list each factor to satisfy their statutory

duties. United States v. Olson, 716 F.3d 1052, 1057 (8th Cir. 2013).

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Second, 18 U.S.C. § 3553(c) requires the district court to “state in open court

the reasons for its imposition of the particular sentence.” No “lengthy explanation”

is required, so long as the sentencing judge “set[s] forth enough to satisfy the

appellate court that he has considered the parties’ arguments and has a reasoned basis

for exercising his own legal decisionmaking authority.” Rita v. United States, 551

U.S. 338, 356 (2007). Having reviewed the sentencing transcript, we find that the

district court committed no plain error on this score.

Third, Phinney contendsthat the district court relied on clearly erroneous facts,

because it mistakenly stated at one point in the sentencing hearing that Phinney had

stabbed another man. But Phinney’s attorney promptly corrected the mistake, which

was based on an offense report describing the fight, while acknowledging that

Phinney pushed the other man to the ground and beat him. The district court

acknowledged the misstatement and did not rely on any purported stabbing when

imposing the sentence.

Finally, Phinney challenges the length of his sentence as substantively

unreasonable. We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion by

imposing a substantively unreasonable sentence. Both the four-year prison term and

the lengthy period of supervised release were within the district court’s discretion to

impose based on the factors it considered, including Phinney’s extensive criminal

history, the fact that he had committed another crime soon after being placed on

supervised release, and the violence he displayed during the fight.

Affirmed.

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