NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION

File Name: 14a0166n.06

No. 12-5265

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

MONICA M. DENTON,

Defendant-Appellant.

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ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED 

STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR 

THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF 

TENNESSEE

BEFORE: DAUGHTREY, SUTTON, and DONALD, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM. Monica M. Denton, a federal prisoner, appeals through counsel the 

sentence imposed following her guilty plea to a charge of conspiring to distribute oxycodone.

After negotiating a plea agreement, Denton entered a guilty plea to the above charge in 

2012. A presentence report (PSR) calculated her guidelines sentencing range at 84 to 105 

months’ imprisonment. Denton objected to the PSR and filed a sentencing memorandum 

arguing that the district court should not assess an additional three points on her criminal history 

for an undischarged federal sentence from 2011. In that case, Denton had entered a guilty plea to 

aiding and abetting a Hobbs Act robbery and received a sentence of 77 months’ imprisonment. 

Denton argued that, if both cases had been prosecuted together, she would not have the extra 

points on her criminal history. At the sentencing hearing, the Government noted that the 

investigation of the drug conspiracy was not complete as to all of the defendants in time to 

prosecute Denton’s two crimes simultaneously. The district court rejected Denton’s argument 
No. 12-5265

United States v. Denton

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that it should not count the three points. Denton then argued that her sentence should run 

concurrently with her prior sentence. However, the district court found that justice required 

separate penalties for the two unrelated offenses. The court sentenced Denton to 99 months’ 

imprisonment and ordered that the sentence would run concurrently with the prior sentence 

beginning on the date of sentencing. Because Denton had already served sixteen months on the 

first sentence, this resulted in a total sentence of 115 months for the two crimes, the top of the 

guidelines range that would have applied if the two cases had been prosecuted together. 

On appeal, Denton argues that her sentence should have run completely concurrently 

with the prior sentence. The Government filed a motion to dismiss the appeal on the ground that 

Denton’s plea agreement waived her right to appeal unless her sentence was above the guidelines 

range.

The Government relies on United States v. Sharp, 442 F.3d 946, 949-52 (6th Cir. 2006), 

as authority for dismissing an appeal where the plea agreement waived the defendant’s right to 

appeal. However, it notes that in a similar appeal, United States v. Bowman, 634 F.3d 357, 360-

61 (6th Cir. 2011), we denied a motion to dismiss an appeal challenging consecutive sentences 

where the plea agreement waived appeal of a sentence under the guidelines maximum. The 

Government’s attempt to distinguish that case is not persuasive. In both cases, the Government 

could have included a waiver of the right to appeal a consecutive sentence in the plea agreement. 

We will therefore address the merits of Denton’s argument.

We review a criminal sentence for reasonableness under an abuse of discretion standard. 

See Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007). It was within the district court’s discretion to 

run Denton’s sentence concurrently, consecutively, or partially concurrently pursuant to USSG 

§ 5G1.3(c). No abuse of discretion will be found where the district court makes clear its 
No. 12-5265

United States v. Denton

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rationale for running a sentence consecutively or partially consecutively and imposes an 

appropriate incremental penalty for the new offense. See United States v. Berry, 565 F.3d 332, 

342 (6th Cir. 2009). The district court did exactly that in this case, finding that justice required 

separate penalties for the two unrelated offenses, discussing the sentencing factors, and also 

addressing Denton’s argument that her two offenses could have been prosecuted together, by 

calculating the guidelines sentence range for a joint prosecution and imposing a sentence within 

that range. We accordingly affirm the district court’s judgment.