United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

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No. 14-2060

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United States of America

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Ryan Devin Ravensborg

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the District of Minnesota - St. Paul

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 Submitted: November 10, 2014

 Filed: January 14, 2015

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Before MURPHY, MELLOY, and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

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MURPHY, Circuit Judge.

Ryan Ravensborg pled guilty to assault resulting in serious bodily injury in

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 113(a)(6). The district court sentenced Ravensborg to 41 1

The Honorable Michael J. Davis, Chief Judge, United States District Court

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for the District of Minnesota.
months imprisonment. Ravensborg appeals, challenging the substantive

reasonableness of his sentence. We affirm. 

Ravensborg is an enrolled member of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians

and a lifelong resident of the reservation. According to the presentence investigation

report, Ravensborg had his first incident with the criminal law when he was arrested

for misdemeanor robbery about a year after his father died from cancer in June 2012. 

He has also had a history of depression and mental illness.

On the evening of May 25, 2013, Ravensborg attended a party at his sister's

home on the Red Lake reservation. Early the next morning officers responded to an

incident report from the home. Witnesses reported that Ravensborg had hit another

man in the head with a piece of wood. The victim suffered a depressed skull fracture

with intracerebral hemorrhage, fracture fragments, and intracranial arterial bleeding. 

He was first taken to the Red Lake Hospital and later airlifted to the Sanford Medical

Center in Fargo, North Dakota for emergency surgery. His residual injuriesincluded

a loss of coordination and fine motor skills which required continuing physical

therapy. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation assisted the Red Lake

police with an investigation into the May 25 incident. 

Ravensborg was arrested in July 2013 and subsequently admitted that he had

hit the victim with a piece of wood. Ravensborg was indicted and pled guilty to

assault resulting in serious bodily injury, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 113(a)(6). The

district court granted him release prior to his sentencing. The terms of Ravensborg's

release specified that he must comply with supervision from pretrial services, refrain

fromusing illegal controlled substances, and report all contact with law enforcement. 

Ravensborg violated the terms of his release by testing positive for marijuana on two

separate occasions. He was also arrested by the Red Lake police for alleged assault

and the stalking of his girlfriend. As a result the district court revoked Ravensborg's

release.

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The district court heldRavensborg'ssentencing hearing on April 29, 2014. His

plea agreement and the presentence investigation report had both calculated a

guideline range of 33 to 41 months imprisonment. The court accepted that guideline

range based on Ravensborg's offense level of 20 and criminal history category I. 

Ravensborg submitted a written sentencing memorandum and argued at the hearing

for a downward variance based on his difficult personal circumstances. The district

court sentenced him to a guideline term of 41 months imprisonment, having found a

downward variance unwarranted because of the seriousness of the offense and

Ravensborg's poor behavior on supervised release. Ravensborg appeals the

substantive reasonableness of the district court's sentence. 

We review the substantive reasonableness of a sentence under a deferential

abuse of discretion standard. United States v. Feemster, 572 F.3d 455, 461 (8th Cir.

2009) (en banc). A "sentence which falls within the guideline range is presumed to

be reasonable, and district courts are allowed a wide latitude to weigh the § 3553(a)

factors in each case and assign some factors greater weight than othersin determining

an appropriate sentence." United States v. Callaway, 762 F.3d 754, 760 (8th Cir.

2014) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, the district court carefully examined

each of the 3553(a) factors and heard both written and oral argument from the

defendant before imposing a guideline sentence. 

Ravensborg argues that the sentencing court should have given more weight

to mitigating factors, but a court may "give some factors less weight than a defendant

prefers or more to other factors but that alone does not justify reversal.” United

States v. Anderson, 618 F.3d 873, 883 (8th Cir. 2010). The district court concluded

that Ravensborg's difficult personal circumstances did not outweigh the seriousness

of the offense and his pretrial release violations. 

We conclude on the basis of this record that this is not a case to "reverse a

district court sentence—whether within, above, or below the applicable Guidelines

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range—as substantively unreasonable." Feemster, 572 F.3d at 464. We affirm the

judgment of the district court. 

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