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Parties Involved:
Lamar Cunningham
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Argued August 5, 2015

Decided September 14, 2015

Before

DIANE P. WOOD, Chief Judge

WILLIAM J. BAUER, Circuit Judge

DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge

No. 15-1607

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

LAMAR CUNNINGHAM,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 

Eastern Division.

No. 13-CR-772-9

Elaine E. Bucklo,

Judge.

O R D E R

Lamar Cunningham pleaded guilty to distributing—and conspiring to possess with 

intent to distribute—heroin, crack cocaine, and marijuana, see 21 U.S.C. §§ 846, 841(a), and 

was sentenced below his guidelines range to 128 months’ imprisonment. Cunningham 

appeals, maintaining that the sentence is unreasonable because it overstates his criminal 

record, which included two violent felonies he committed when he was fifteen years old and 

resulted in him being designated as a career offender under the guidelines. But the judge at 

sentencing took into consideration the harsh consequences that these early felonies had on 

his guidelines calculations, and sentenced him significantly below his range of 188 to 235 

months. We affirm. 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

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Cunningham was arrested in 2011 for selling heroin, crack cocaine, and marijuana 

and possessing a gun to protect his drug-selling business. For four months, until his arrest, 

Cunningham sold drugs for the Imperial Insane Vice Lords, a violent gang that operated an 

open-air drug market on Chicago’s west side. In 2013 Cunningham and 27 of his cohorts

were indicted on drug and related violence charges.

The probation officer determined that Cunningham’s criminal history qualified him 

as a career offender under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1(b). This designation was based on two crimes he 

was convicted of in 1996, when he was fifteen years old. First, he pleaded guilty to attempted 

murder after shooting a man in the stomach and, as part of a plea agreement, was sentenced 

as an adult. He then was convicted of aggravated sexual assault with a weapon (and again 

tried as an adult). The judge ran Cunningham’s twenty-year sentence for the first crime

concurrently with his twenty-four-year sentence for the second. He was released from 

prison on those charges in 2009. Cunningham’s career-offender designation meant that he 

had a criminal-history category of VI. But even without the career-offender designation, 

Cunningham’s thirteen criminal-history points would have placed him in that same 

criminal-history category. The probation officer calculated a guidelines range of 188 to 235 

months’ imprisonment based on Cunningham’s total offense level of 31 and criminal-history 

category of VI.

In both his sentencing memorandum and at the sentencing hearing, defense counsel 

argued that the guideline range greatly overstated Cunningham’s criminal record. Counsel 

emphasized that the crimes qualifying Cunningham as a career offender were committed 

during a short period when he was only fifteen years old.

The judge sentenced Cunningham below the guidelines to 128 months’ 

imprisonment. In response to the government’s argument that Cunningham should receive 

a within-guidelines sentence, the judge said, “I really have trouble with the idea of saying 

that for horrible crimes that a 15-year-old committed, and for which he has been punished, 

that we should then take his punishment way above what it would be on this one.” The 

judge expressed similar concerns when she later addressed Cunningham: “Leaving aside the 

career offender thing here, your guideline range is really high for the amount of time you 

were involved; and that is based on criminal history, even without this.” The drug crime was 

serious, she emphasized, particularly because it involved guns. The sentence, she said, took 

into account Cunningham’s need for education, drug abuse treatment, and his prompt 

cooperation with the government, as well as her agreement that he should receive a 

23-month reduction for the time he spent in state prison for this same drug crime. 

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On appeal Cunningham contends that “the District Court misapplied the mandatory 

factors under Title 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) in that it failed to understand and consider the 

argument that Lamar Cunningham’s criminal history was overstated.” Cunningham does 

not dispute the guidelines calculations except to argue that his criminal-history category of 

VI “overstates the seriousness of his criminal history” and that he should have been 

assigned a criminal-history category of V. 

 

The judge did not misapply the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors. A below-guidelines 

sentence like Cunningham’s is presumed reasonable, and to rebut that presumption 

Cunningham needed to show that the judge’s reasoning was inconsistent with the § 3553(a) 

factors. See United States v. Warner, 792 F.3d 847, 855–56 (7th Cir. 2015); United States v. Harris, 

791 F.3d 772, 782 (7th Cir. 2015). And a judge has considerable discretion in determining 

how much weight to give any factor. See United States v. Horton, 770 F.3d 582, 586 (7th Cir. 

2014); United States v. Smith, 721 F.3d 904, 908 (7th Cir. 2013). Contrary to Cunningham’s 

assertion, the judge understood and accepted his argument that his criminal record was 

overstated. She found it troubling that he was designated a career offender (and even 

without that designation, that he faced such a steep range) for crimes he committed when he 

was fifteen years old. The judge also took into account other mitigating and aggravating 

factors. She considered the seriousness of the crime, 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A), noting that 

Cunningham had carried a gun, and that he had not been deterred by his previous time in

prison, 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(B). In mitigation, she agreed that his criminal history was 

overstated, and noted that his involvement in the drug sales was limited to four months and 

that he promptly cooperated with the government. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1). Cunningham no 

doubt preferred a deeper reduction, but nothing he argues undermines the judge’s 

appropriate weighing of the § 3553(a) factors. 

Cunningham also asserts generally that he should have qualified for a 

criminal-history category V, but he points to no reason why the court’s determination to 

place him in category VI was unreasonable. 

Cunningham further criticizes the judge for relying on the same facts that she used to 

calculate his guidelines range —drug quantity, firearm possession, and serious criminal 

history—as she did in evaluating the seriousness of his offense for purposes of § 3553(a). But 

this is not error. The sentencing statutes envision both the judge and the Sentencing 

Commission as carrying out the § 3553(a) objectives. See Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 

348 (2007). The same facts used to calculate Cunningham’s guidelines range could also be 

relevant for weighing certain § 3553(a) factors. 

AFFIRMED.

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