Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-14-04816/USCOURTS-ca4-14-04816-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Kirk Antony Chandler
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-4816

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

KIRK ANTONY CHANDLER,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle 

District of North Carolina, at Greensboro. Catherine C. Eagles, 

District Judge. (1:14-cr-00106-CCE-1)

Submitted: June 25, 2015 Decided: June 29, 2015

Before GREGORY, FLOYD, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Stacey D. Rubain, QUANDER & RUBAIN, P.A., Winston-Salem, North 

Carolina, for Appellant. Anand P. Ramaswamy, Assistant United

States Attorney, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Kirk Antony Chandler pled guilty without a plea agreement to 

one count of receiving child pornography, in violation of 18 

U.S.C.A. § 2252A(a)(2), (b)(1) (West Supp. 2014), and was sentenced 

to 90 months in prison. Chandler’s attorney has filed a brief in 

accordance with Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), stating 

that there are no meritorious grounds for appeal, but questioning 

whether the district court complied with Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 when 

it accepted Chandler’s guilty plea and whether Chandler’s sentence 

is reasonable. Chandler has not filed a pro se supplemental brief 

despite receiving notice of his right to do so, and the Government 

has declined to file a responsive brief. Finding no error, we 

affirm.

Because Chandler did not move in the district court to 

withdraw his plea, we review the guilty plea hearing for plain 

error. United States v. Martinez, 277 F.3d 517, 525 (4th Cir. 

2002). To establish plain error, Chandler must show: (1) there 

was error; (2) the error was plain; and (3) the error affected his 

substantial rights. Henderson v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 1121, 

1126-27 (2013); United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732 (1993). 

In the guilty plea context, a defendant meets his burden of 

demonstrating that an error affected his substantial rights by 

“show[ing] a reasonable probability that, but for the error, he 

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would not have entered the plea.” United States v. Massenburg, 

564 F.3d 337, 343 (4th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). We have reviewed the transcript of Chandler’s Rule 11 

hearing and conclude that the district court complied with Rule 

11, that Chandler’s guilty plea was knowing and voluntary, and 

that there was a factual basis for the plea. Accordingly, we

affirm Chandler’s conviction.

We review Chandler’s sentence for reasonableness, applying an 

abuse-of-discretion standard. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 

46, 51 (2007). This review requires consideration of both the 

procedural and substantive reasonableness of the sentence. Id. at 

51. We first assess whether the district court properly calculated 

the advisory Guidelines range, considered the factors set forth at 

18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2012), analyzed any arguments presented by 

the parties, and sufficiently explained the selected sentence. 

Id. at 49–51; see United States v. Lynn, 592 F.3d 572, 575–76 (4th 

Cir. 2010). If we find no procedural error, we review the sentence 

for substantive reasonableness, “examin[ing] the totality of the 

circumstances[.]” United States v. Mendoza–Mendoza, 597 F.3d 212, 

216 (4th Cir. 2010). “Any sentence that is within or below a 

properly calculated Guidelines range is presumptively 

[substantively] reasonable” and “[s]uch a presumption can only be 

rebutted by showing that the sentence is unreasonable when measured 

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against the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors.” United States v. 

Louthian, 756 F.3d 295, 306 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 135 S. Ct. 

421 (2014). 

We conclude that Chandler’s sentence is procedurally and 

substantively reasonable. The district court correctly calculated 

Chandler’s Guidelines range; granted, in part, Chandler’s motion 

for a downward variance; and adequately explained its reasons for 

imposing the 90-month variant sentence. Moreover, Chandler offers 

nothing to rebut the presumption of reasonableness this court 

affords his below-Guidelines sentence. See United States v. Yooho 

Weon, 722 F.3d 583, 590 (4th Cir. 2013). Thus, we affirm 

Chandler’s sentence.

In accordance with Anders, we have reviewed the record in 

this case and have found no meritorious issues for appeal. We 

therefore affirm the district court’s judgment. This court 

requires counsel to inform Chandler, in writing, of the right to 

petition the Supreme Court of the United States for further review. 

If Chandler requests that a petition be filed, but counsel believes 

that such a petition would be frivolous, then counsel may move in 

this court to withdraw from representation. Counsel’s motion must 

state that a copy of the motion was served on Chandler. We dispense 

with oral argument because the facts and legal arguments are 

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adequately presented in the materials before this court and 

argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED

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