UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 18-4805

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

 Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

SH-KILL TURNER,

 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-00117-D-1)

Submitted: August 29, 2019 Decided: September 10, 2019

Before AGEE and FLOYD, Circuit Judges, and SHEDD, Senior Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

G. Alan DuBois, Federal Public Defender, Stephen C. Gordon, 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, Kristine L. Fritz, 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Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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:

Sh-Kill Turner appeals the 36-month sentence imposed by the district court 

following his guilty plea to being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 

18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (2012). Turner argues that the upward variance sentence is

substantively unreasonable because it overrepresented his criminal history and 

improperly relied on his involvement in a shooting. We affirm. 

“We review a sentence for reasonableness ‘under a deferential abuse-of-discretion 

standard.’” United States v. McCoy, 804 F.3d 349, 351 (4th Cir. 2015) (quoting Gall v. 

United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007)). Because the parties agree that Turner’s criminal 

sentence is procedurally reasonable, see Gall, 552 U.S. at 49-51, we consider whether the 

sentence imposed is substantively reasonable under “the totality of the circumstances, 

including the extent of any variance from the [Sentencing] Guidelines range,” id., 

552 U.S. at 51. When a district court imposes a sentence outside of the Guidelines range, 

we “must consider the extent of the deviation and ensure that the justification is 

sufficiently compelling to support the degree of the variance.” United States v. Zuk, 

874 F.3d 398, 409 (4th Cir. 2017) (internal quotation marks omitted). But the district 

court need not find “extraordinary circumstances” to justify a deviation from the

Guidelines range. Gall, 552 U.S. at 47. 

In this case, the district court cited the nature of the offense and concluded that 

Turner was involved in the shooting in some capacity. The court relied on Turner’s 

distinctive appearance, the testimony that Turner was looking for the victim at the scene 

of the crime, and the undisputed fact that Turner fled from officers on their way to the 
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scene and that he ended up with the gun used in the shooting. Turner has not established 

that these findings are clearly erroneous. See United States v. Span, 789 F.3d 320, 325 

(4th Cir. 2015) (providing standard). Next, the court considered the characteristics of 

Turner, the need to incapacitate Turner, and the need to promote respect for the law. And 

the district court specifically explained its view that the advisory Guidelines were 

inadequate on the facts at hand. The district court did not abuse its discretion in 

concluding that these circumstances justified an upward variance from the advisory 

Guidelines range. 

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. 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