Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-14-02600/USCOURTS-ca8-14-02600-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Dante M. Williams
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 14-2600

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United States of America,

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

Dante M. Williams,

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant.

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Western District of Missouri - Kansas City

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 Submitted: February 9, 2015

 Filed: June 25, 2015 

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Before LOKEN, SMITH, and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges.

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COLLOTON, Circuit Judge.

Dante Williams pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm as a

previously convicted felon. The district court sentenced himto thirty-seven months’ 1

imprisonment. Williams appeals the sentence, arguing that it is substantively

The Honorable Dean Whipple, United States District Judge for the Western 1

District of Missouri.

Appellate Case: 14-2600 Page: 1 Date Filed: 06/25/2015 Entry ID: 4288685 
unreasonable because the district court gave undue weight to the nature and

circumstances of his offense, ignored mitigating factors, and accorded impermissible

weight to the fact that Williams was prosecuted in federal court. We affirm.

During a traffic stop on January 7, 2012, Williams left the vehicle and ran from

police officers. Officers saw Williams drop a black handgun, which was later

identified as a loaded Glock 9 millimeter pistol. 

Williams pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm as a previously

convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). At sentencing, Williams asked

the court to vary downward from the advisory guidelines sentencing range pursuant

to 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) and sentence him to probation. He cited as mitigating factors

his stable employment history, his provision of financial support for his family, his

involvement with his community and church, the age of his prior felony convictions,

and the fact that he lived and worked in a high-crime area.

The district court denied Williams’s request for a sentence of probation,

observing that Williams fled from police and that the gun he possessed was fully

loaded. The court then sentenced him to thirty-seven months’ imprisonment, at the

bottom of the advisory guideline range, citing the factors listed in § 3553(a). After

imposing the sentence, the court said:

[T]his case is a run-of-the-mill felon-in-possession case. For some

reason, the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department has to have their

felon-in-possession cases brought into federal court. This ought to have

stayed in the State of Missouri, but, apparently, the U.S. Attorney’s

Office letsthe police department decide to bring these cases up here, and

if they’re going to bring them up here, I’m going to follow the

Guidelines.

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Now, you can send a message to whoever you want to, and this, it’s not

you, Mr. Williams, but that’s why you’re being sentenced, because the

U.S. attorney has to have these cases up here. They can’t leave them in

the state court. That’s why you’re getting a sentence. 

Williams argues that his sentence wassubstantively unreasonable. We review

the reasonableness of a sentence under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard. 

Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). Williams contends that the district

court placed undue weight on the circumstances of his offense and ignored mitigating

factors. Williams also complains that the court improperly considered that Williams

was prosecuted in federal court. 

Williams’s sentence was within the advisory range recommended by the

Sentencing Commission, so we presume that it is substantively reasonable. United

States v. Barron, 557 F.3d 866, 870 (8th Cir. 2009); see Rita v. United States, 551

U.S. 338, 347 (2007). Williams advanced his mitigating factors at the sentencing

hearing and in a sentencing memorandum, and we presume that the district court

considered them. United States v. Timberlake, 679 F.3d 1008, 1012 (8th Cir. 2012). 

The district court has “substantial latitude to determine how much weight to give the

variousfactors under § 3553(a).” Id.(internal quotation omitted). It was not an abuse

of discretion for the district court to conclude that the nature and circumstances of the

offense called for a term of thirty-seven months.

The district court’s commentary about the prosecutorial discretion of the

United States Attorney in gun cases does not establish an unreasonable sentence. 

Under our system of separated powers, the United States Attorney—not the district

court—has authority to decide whether federal prosecution ofrecidivists who possess

firearms is sufficiently important to the safety of the community to warrant the

dedication of federal resources. The district court correctly observed that once the

United States Attorney elects to prosecute a case in federal court, the court isrequired

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at sentencing to consider the federal sentencing guidelines, 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(4),

along with the other statutory considerations mentioned by the court. Despite the

district court’s statement that it would “follow” the guidelines, the court elsewhere

made clear that it properly treated the guidelines as “advisory,” S. Tr. 11, and there

was no abuse of discretion in sentencing Williams at the bottom of the advisory

range.

The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

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