UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 12-4823

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

DEANGELO DONNELL JACOBS,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. James C. Fox, Senior 

District Judge. (5:12-cr-00040-F-1)

Submitted: June 27, 2013 Decided: July 11, 2013

Before WILKINSON, WYNN, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Thomas P. McNamara, Federal Public Defender, G. Alan DuBois, 

Assistant Federal Public Defender, Raleigh, North Carolina, for 

Appellant. Thomas G. Walker, United States Attorney, Jennifer 

P. May-Parker, Joshua L. Rogers, Assistant United States

Attorneys, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

Deangelo Donnell Jacobs pled guilty, without the 

benefit of a written plea agreement, to mailing a threatening 

communication, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 876(c) (2006). He 

was designated a career offender and sentenced to forty-six 

months’ imprisonment, to be served consecutive to his 

undischarged state court sentence. The court also imposed a 

three-year term of supervised release. On appeal, Jacobs argues 

that his sentence is procedurally and substantively

unreasonable. We affirm.

We review Jacobs’ 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 in 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3553(a) (2006), 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 there is no procedural error, we review the 

substantive reasonableness of the sentence, “examin[ing] the 

totality of the circumstances to see whether the sentencing 

court abused its discretion in concluding that the sentence it 
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chose satisfied the standards set forth in § 3553(a).” United 

States v. Mendoza–Mendoza, 597 F.3d 212, 216 (4th Cir. 2010). 

If the sentence is within the defendant’s properly calculated 

Guidelines range, we apply a presumption of substantive 

reasonableness. United States v. Bynum, 604 F.3d 161, 168 (4th 

Cir. 2010); see Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 347 (2007) 

(permitting appellate presumption of reasonableness for withinGuidelines sentence).

We discern no procedural or substantive infirmity in 

Jacobs’ sentence. The district court properly computed Jacobs’ 

Guidelines range, including the career offender designation, 

provided Jacobs and his counsel ample opportunity to speak in 

mitigation, and explained the sentence imposed by reference to 

the § 3553(a) factors it deemed most relevant in this case. 

Jacobs contends on appeal that the district court

procedurally erred by failing to address whether his career 

offender designation overstated the seriousness of his conduct. 

Jacobs complains that the court “relied almost exclusively on 

[his] admittedly bad criminal record” without giving due 

consideration “to the isolated and non-aggravated nature of his 

offense conduct.” (Appellant’s Br. at 14). 

We disagree. In the course of analyzing the relevant 

§ 3553(a) factors and explaining the reasons for the selected 

sentence, the district court adequately responded to counsel’s 
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arguments in favor of a reduced sentence to be served in 

conjunction with Jacobs’ state court sentence. The sentencing 

court simply found that counsel’s arguments were not persuasive 

when juxtaposed with Jacobs’ history of violent conduct and 

demonstrated unwillingness to conform his behavior to the law, 

as well as the need to deter other inmates from engaging in 

similar acts. While we may have weighed the sentencing factors 

differently if tasked with resolving the issue in the first 

instance, we defer to the district court’s well-reasoned 

decision. See United States v. Jeffery, 631 F.3d 669, 679 (4th 

Cir. 2011) (“[D]istrict courts have extremely broad discretion 

when determining the weight to be given each of the § 3553(a) 

factors.”). 

Jacobs relies on the same basic premise to argue that 

his within-Guidelines sentence is substantively unreasonable. 

Our review of the record convinces us that a within-Guidelines 

sentence was justified in light of the totality of circumstances 

present in this case. We thus hold that the court did not abuse 

its discretion in selecting this sentence. See United States v. 

Montes-Pineda, 445 F.3d 375, 379 (4th Cir. 2006) (explaining 

that, to rebut the presumption of substantive reasonableness, 

defendant must show “that the sentence is unreasonable when 

measured against the § 3553(a) factors” (internal quotation 

marks omitted)). 
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We accordingly affirm the judgment of the district 

court. 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