Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-19-04678/USCOURTS-ca4-19-04678-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Akeem Teron Flood
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 19-4678

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

 Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

AKEEM TERON FLOOD,

 Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at 

Raleigh. James C. Dever III, District Judge. (5:18-cr-00509-D-1)

Submitted: May 6, 2020 Decided: June 4, 2020

Before NIEMEYER and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judges, and SHEDD, Senior Circuit 

Judge.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

G. Alan DuBois, Federal Public Defender, Jennifer C. Leisten, Assistant Federal Public 

Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Raleigh, North Carolina, 

for Appellant. Robert J. Higdon, Jr., United States Attorney, Jennifer P. May-Parker, 

Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, 

Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Akeem Teron Flood appeals from his 84-month sentence imposed pursuant to his 

guilty plea to possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, in violation 

of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (2018). Flood’s Sentencing Guidelines range was originally 

calculated to be 60 months; the district court departed upwards under U.S. Sentencing 

Guidelines Manual § § 2K2.4, Application Note 2(B) (2018). Flood contends on appeal 

that his sentence is both substantively and procedurally unreasonable. We affirm.

We review a sentence for reasonableness, applying an abuse of discretion standard. 

Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 46 (2007). In assessing procedural reasonableness, we

consider whether the district court improperly calculated the Sentencing Guidelines range, 

insufficiently considered the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2018) sentencing factors, or 

inadequately explained the sentence imposed. Gall, 552 U.S. at 51. Moreover, “[w]here 

the defendant or prosecutor presents nonfrivolous reasons for imposing a different sentence 

than that set forth in the advisory Guidelines, a district judge should address the party’s 

arguments and explain why he has rejected those arguments.” United States v. Bollinger, 

798 F.3d 201, 220 (4th Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks omitted). “A sentencing 

court’s explanation is sufficient if it, although somewhat briefly, outlines the defendant’s 

particular history and characteristics not merely in passing or after the fact, but as part of 

its analysis of the statutory factors and in response to defense counsel’s arguments” for a 

lower sentence. United States v. Blue, 877 F.3d 513, 519 (4th Cir. 2017) (brackets and 

internal quotation marks omitted). 

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When reviewing the substantive reasonableness of a sentence, this court 

“examine[s] the totality of the circumstances to see whether the sentencing court abused 

its discretion in concluding that the sentence it chose satisfied the standards set forth in 

§ 3553(a).” United States v. Gomez-Jimenez, 750 F.3d 370, 383 (4th Cir. 2014) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). Where the sentencing court imposed a variance sentence, we

determine “whether the sentencing court acted reasonably both with respect to its decision 

to impose such a sentence and with respect to the extent of the divergence from the 

sentencing range.” United States v. Washington, 743 F.3d 938, 944 (4th Cir. 2014) 

(internal quotation marks omitted).

Flood contends that the district court erred by focusing exclusively on his prior 

criminal record, at the expense of relevant mitigating factors. In addition, the district court 

allegedly disregarded the fact that a portion of Flood’s criminal behavior occurred when 

he was a minor. Finally, Flood contends that the district court failed to explain how it 

selected the imposed sentence and did not provide proper reasoning. 

Flood relies heavily on our decision in United States v. Howard, 773 F.3d 519 (4th 

Cir. 2014). In Howard, the defendant faced a Guidelines range of 120 to 121 months, plus 

60 months consecutive, but the district court imposed an upward departure sentence of life 

imprisonment. 773 F.3d at 528. The district court in Howard based its upward departure 

sentence on Howard’s past criminal record, deeming him a de facto career criminal. Id. 

We found the upward departure substantively unreasonable where Howard sustained the 

majority of his prior convictions when he was a juvenile and Howard’s prior convictions 

all predated the offense of conviction by 13 years. See id. at 529-30. In so holding, we

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emphasized the extent of the departure to a sentence of life imprisonment and the district 

court’s failure to recognize that, in light of the fact that Howard was middle-aged at the 

time of sentencing, a lesser sentence would result in Howard being released at a time when 

his likelihood of reoffending would be diminished based on his advanced age. Id. at 

528-33.

We find that Flood’s upward departure sentence does not resemble the sentence at 

issue in Howard. First, Flood’s past convictions were only one of several factors the 

district court relied upon when determining the appropriate sentence. Second, Flood 

committed a significant portion of his prior convictions after reaching the age of majority. 

In addition, Flood, who was 27 at the time of sentencing, spent a substantial amount of 

time in prison and regularly reoffended shortly after each release. While his last felony 

was committed approximately three years prior to engaging in the conduct giving rise to 

his offense of conviction, Flood was incarcerated for a portion of that time and did, in fact, 

sustain an intervening misdemeanor conviction. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the 

extent of the variance in Flood’s case, an increase of 24 months from 60 months to 84 

months, pales in comparison to the extent of the departure and the permanence of the life 

sentence at issue in Howard. Flood will be in his 30’s when he is released, with much of 

his life in front of him. Accordingly, Flood’s sentence is neither procedurally nor 

substantively unreasonable under Howard.

In addition, contrary to Flood’s contentions, the district court addressed the 

mitigating factors in Flood’s background. The court explicitly took into consideration 

Flood’s family, job, and education and implicitly found that Flood’s failure to reform 

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despite prior leniency and the dangerous nature of his convictions required a longer 

sentence, despite any mitigating factors. See United States v. Montes-Pineda, 445 F.3d 

375, 381 (4th Cir. 2006) (“The context surrounding a district court’s explanation may

imbue it with enough content for us to evaluate both whether the court considered the 

§ 3553(a) factors and whether it did so properly.”). Accordingly, we find that Flood’s 

sentence is procedurally reasonable.

Flood’s primary argument on appeal is that his 84-month sentence was lengthier 

than necessary. As noted by the district court, Flood was a serial recidivist, who showed 

no signs of conforming his behavior to the law. Contrary to Flood’s contentions, the district 

court did not focus disproportionately on any single § 3553(a) factor. Instead, the court 

noted the disturbing circumstances of Flood’s instant offense, his long criminal history 

(especially for one so young), his inability to reform his behavior despite prior leniency, 

and the need to protect the public. 

Although Flood clearly believes that the district court should have given greater 

mitigating effect to the factors he raised at sentencing, we do not substitute our § 3553(a) 

calculus for that of the district court. See Gall, 552 U.S. at 51-52 (recognizing that “[t]he 

sentencing judge is in a superior position to find facts and judge their import under 

§ 3553(a) in the individual case,” given sentencing judge’s “institutional advantage” and 

increased familiarity with individual defendant and case record (internal quotation marks 

omitted)); see also United States v. Jeffery, 631 F.3d 669, 679 (4th Cir. 2011) (observing 

that sentencing courts “have extremely broad discretion when determining the weight to 

be given each of the § 3553(a) factors”). Moreover, we routinely uphold as substantively 

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reasonable larger deviations producing longer sentences than this one. See, e.g., United 

States v. Myers, 589 F.3d 117, 120–23, 125–27 (4th Cir. 2009) (affirming an upward 

departure from 121 months to 360 months based on three stale convictions); United 

States v. Lawrence, 349 F.3d 724, 727 (4th Cir. 2003) (affirming upward departure from 

96 to 262 months based in part on a defendant’s “extensive juvenile record”). We therefore 

find that Flood’s sentence is substantively reasonable.

Accordingly, we affirm Flood’s sentence. We dispense with oral argument because 

the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court 

and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED

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