Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-14-04016/USCOURTS-ca4-14-04016-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Phillip Whitehurst
Appellant

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-4016

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

PHILLIP WHITEHURST, a/k/a L’il Phil, a/k/a Lil Phil, a/k/a 

Philip Whitehurst,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

Maryland, at Greenbelt. Alexander Williams, Jr., District 

Judge. (8:11-cr-00567-AW-8)

Submitted: March 24, 2015 Decided: March 31, 2015

Before MOTZ, KING, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Marnitta L. King, KING LAW, P.A., Largo, Maryland, for 

Appellant. Rod J. Rosenstein, United States Attorney, Arun G. 

Rao, David I. Salem, Thomas M. Sullivan, Assistant United States 

Attorney, Greenbelt, Maryland, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Phillip Whitehurst pled guilty to: Count 1, conspiracy to 

distribute and possess with intent to distribute 5 kilograms or 

more of cocaine and 280 grams or more of cocaine base; Count 2,

possession with intent to distribute cocaine; and Count 3, 

possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He received an 

aggregate sentence of 294 months of imprisonment, below his 

properly calculated advisory Sentencing Guidelines range of 360 

months-life (with concurrent sentences of 240 months and 120 

months for Counts 2 and 3 respectively). On appeal, Whitehurst 

alleges the district court procedurally erred in calculating the 

drug weight attributable to him. For the reasons that follow, 

we affirm.

We generally review any criminal sentence for 

reasonableness under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard. 

Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007); United States v. 

Rivera–Santana, 668 F.3d 95, 100 (4th Cir. 2012). Whitehurst 

only alleges procedural error, here that the district court 

attributed too much cocaine base “crack” to him. We must ensure 

that the district court committed no significant procedural 

error, such as failing to calculate (or improperly calculating) 

the Sentencing Guidelines range, treating the Guidelines as 

mandatory, failing to consider the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2012) 

factors, selecting a sentence based on clearly erroneous facts, 

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or failing to adequately explain the chosen sentence—including 

an explanation for any deviation from the Guidelines range. 

Gall, 552 U.S. at 51; United States v. Carter, 564 F.3d 325, 

328-29 (4th Cir. 2009). We review the district court’s 

calculation of the quantity of drugs attributable to a defendant 

for sentencing purposes for clear error. United States v. 

Randall, 171 F.3d 195, 210 (4th Cir. 1999).

Our review of the record reveals no clear error by the 

district court in finding Whitehurst responsible for between 2.8 

and 8.4 kilograms of crack. The district court based its 

decision on the testimony of a government agent at the 

sentencing hearing, the recommendations in the presentence 

report, and the trial testimony of witnesses in a co-defendant’s 

trial. In these circumstances we find that information relied 

upon by the district court had “sufficient indicia of 

reliability to support its probable accuracy.” U.S. Sentencing 

Guidelines Manual, (“USSG”) § 6A1.3(a) (2013). Accordingly, we 

find no clear error and affirm Whitehurst’s sentence. Randall, 

171 F.3d at 210. We deny Whitehurst’s pending motions to allow 

defendant to file an appeal and motion for other relief.

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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