UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-4483

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

 Plaintiff – Appellee,

v.

RAHANEED OMAR GORDON, a/k/a Rider,

 Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern 

District of West Virginia, at Martinsburg. Gina M. Groh, 

District Judge. (3:13-cr-00059-GMG-JES-1)

Submitted: November 21, 2014 Decided: November 25, 2014

Before WILKINSON and AGEE, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, Senior 

Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Nicolas J. Compton, Assistant Federal Public Defender, 

Kristen M. Leddy, Research and Writing Specialist, Martinsburg, 

West Virginia, for Appellant. Jarod James Douglas, Assistant

United States Attorney, Martinsburg, West Virginia, for 

Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

Rahaneed Omar Gordon appeals from his conviction for 

distribution of heroin and his 188-month sentence entered 

pursuant to his guilty plea. On appeal, counsel has filed a 

brief pursuant to Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), 

averring that there are no meritorious issues for appeal but 

questioning whether Gordon’s sentence was greater than necessary 

to meet the goals of sentencing. Gordon has filed a pro se 

supplemental brief arguing that the district court erred in 

applying the career offender enhancement. The Government has

declined to file a brief. After a close review of the record, 

we affirm.

Gordon contends that the district court improperly 

designated him a career offender because (1) his two predicate 

convictions were vacated; (2) his 1999 conviction is too old; 

(3) after both of the prior convictions were entered, he was

released quickly from prison; and (4) the Government did not 

adequately prove the existence of these convictions. The 

Guidelines provide that a defendant is a career offender if he 

was at least eighteen years old at the time of the instant 

offense, the instant offense is a drug felony or crime of 

violence, and the defendant has at least two prior felony 

convictions for drug offenses or crimes of violence. U.S. 

Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 4B1.1(a) (2013). A prior felony 
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conviction for a drug offense or crime of violence only 

qualifies as a predicate offense if the sentence of imprisonment 

exceeded one year and one month and was either imposed within 

fifteen years of the defendant’s commencement of the instant 

offense or resulted in the defendant being incarcerated during 

any part of such fifteen-year period. USSG §§ 4A1.2(e)(1); 

4B1.2, cmt. 3. “Sentences resulting from convictions that 

(A) have been reversed or vacated because of errors of law or 

because of subsequently-discovered evidence exonerating the 

defendant, or (B) have been ruled constitutionally invalid in a 

prior case are not to be counted.” USSG § 4A1.2, cmt. 6.

Here, the court concluded that Gordon was a career 

offender based on two predicate offenses: a 1999 conviction for 

attempted armed robbery (twelve year sentence) and a 2011 

conviction for armed robbery (fifteen year sentence), both of 

which were imposed pursuant to Gordon’s guilty pleas. Gordon’s 

guilty pleas were entered after his original convictions were 

overturned, and his pleas resulted in his release soon after his 

convictions were entered, as his time served was sufficient or 

nearly sufficient to satisfy his sentences. Nonetheless, under 

the plain language of the Guidelines, Gordon was sentenced to 

sentences longer than a year and a month, such sentences were 

imposed within fifteen years of Gordon’s current offense 

conduct, and neither conviction has been vacated or reversed. 
4

Thus, the district court correctly counted both these 

convictions. See United States v. Battle, 499 F.3d 315, 325-26 

(4th Cir. 2007) (finding “look-back” period of USSG 

§ 4A1.2(e)(1) applies to the date the defendant was sentenced on 

his prior conviction, not the date of his arrest); United 

States v. Womack, 610 F.3d 427, 430-31 (7th Cir. 2010) (looking 

to the term of imprisonment imposed, rather than the term 

actually served); United States v. Adams, 403 F.3d 1257, 1260 

(11th Cir. 2005) (declining to recognize an exception to look 

back rule where alleged backlog in the state-court system 

delayed imposition of sentence on predicate conviction).

Turning to Gordon’s assertions that the Government 

failed to properly prove the existence of his predicate 

convictions, Gordon did not object below to the accuracy of the 

convictions themselves or to the description of the substantive 

or procedural background in the presentence report (“PSR”). 

Pursuant to Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(i)(3)(A), the sentencing court 

“may accept any undisputed portion of the presentence report as 

a finding of fact.” Even if a defendant objects to a finding in 

the PSR, in the absence of an affirmative showing that the 

information is not accurate, the court is “free to adopt the 

findings of the presentence report without more specific inquiry 

or explanation.” United States v. Love, 134 F.3d 595, 606 (4th 

Cir. 1998) (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). 
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Given Gordon’s failure to object to the probation officer’s 

description of his prior convictions and his related failure to 

affirmatively show that the information in the PSR was 

inaccurate, we find no error, let alone plain error, in the 

district court’s reliance on the PSR to find the existence of 

Gordon’s two predicate convictions. 

Gordon next contends that his sentence is 

substantively unreasonable because it is greater than necessary 

to accomplish the goals of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2012), and 

because the district court did not give appropriate weight to 

his mitigating circumstances. We review a sentence for 

reasonableness, applying “a deferential abuse-of-discretion 

standard.” Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007). We 

examine the substantive reasonableness of the sentence under 

“the totality of the circumstances.” Id. at 51. 

A sentence “within or below a properly calculated 

Guidelines range is presumptively reasonable [on appeal].” 

United States v. Louthian, 756 F.3d 295, 306 (4th Cir.), cert. 

denied, 135 S. Ct. 421 (2014). The defendant bears the burden 

to rebut this presumption “by showing that the sentence is 

unreasonable when measured against the . . . § 3553(a) factors.” 

Id. In evaluating the sentence for an abuse of discretion, this 

court “give[s] due deference to the [d]istrict [c]ourt’s 
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reasoned and reasonable decision that the § 3553(a) factors, on 

the whole, justified the sentence.” Gall, 552 U.S. at 59-60.

 Considering the totality of the circumstances, Gordon 

cannot rebut the presumption of substantive reasonableness 

accorded to his within-Guidelines sentence. To the extent 

Gordon attacks the district court’s failure to give more weight 

to his mitigating circumstances, the court considered Gordon’s 

lengthy written and oral arguments, noted the humanitarian 

concerns, but rejected his arguments after weighing them against 

Gordon’s continued violent conduct, the seriousness of his past 

convictions, and the seriousness of his current conviction. The 

court found that the totality of the circumstances warranted the 

most lenient sentence within the Guidelines range but did not 

warrant a variance. Given the district court’s consideration of 

the relevant § 3553(a) factors, we find that the court’s 

decision was not an abuse of discretion.

In accordance with Anders, we have reviewed the entire 

record in this case for meritorious issues and have found none. 

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. This 

court requires that counsel inform his client, in writing, of 

his right to petition the Supreme Court of the United States for 

further review. If the client requests that a petition be 

filed, but counsel believes that such a petition would be 

frivolous, then counsel may move in this court for leave to 
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withdraw from representation. Counsel’s motion must state that 

a copy thereof was served on the client. 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