United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted September 15, 2022 

Decided September 16, 2022 

Before

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge

THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge

CANDACE JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge

No. 22-1120 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

LAMONT WILLIAMS, 

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of 

Illinois, Eastern Division. 

No. 1:19-cr-00603(1)

John J. Tharp, Jr., 

Judge.

O R D E R

Lamont Williams pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm as a felon, in violation of 

18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and was sentenced to 72 months in prison and two years of 

supervised release. Williams appeals, but his appointed counsel asserts that the appeal 

is frivolous and moves to withdraw. See Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 744 (1967). 

Counsel’s brief explains the nature of the case and the issues that an appeal of this kind 

would be expected to involve. Because his analysis appears thorough, and Williams has 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. APP. P. 32.1
No. 22-1120 Page 2 

not raised other potential issues, see CIR. R. 51(b), we limit our review to the subjects

that counsel discusses. See United States v. Bey, 748 F.3d 774, 776 (7th Cir. 2014). 

In April 2019, Chicago police officers stopped the car Williams was driving for 

running a red light. As they approached, they saw him shove a handgun onto the floor 

of the backseat. Williams had one passenger, his sister. The officers searched the car and

found a loaded pistol with a defaced serial number, which they were later able to read 

after applying a chemical agent to it. Williams was arrested and detained at the Cook 

County Jail. During multiple recorded phone calls from the jail, Williams directed his 

sister to tell investigators that the pistol was not his. 

Later, while out on bond, Williams violated the terms of his pretrial release by 

driving a car containing a different gun loaded with armor-piercing bullets, then fleeing 

the scene when he was pulled over for a traffic violation. He was arrested four days 

later on a bench warrant, and his bond was revoked. 

In connection with the first arrest, Williams pleaded guilty to violating 18 U.S.C. 

§ 922(g)(1). The presentence investigation report determined that his base offense level 

was 20 because he had a prior Illinois conviction for armed robbery, 720 ILCS 5/18-1(a), 

which was a crime of violence for guidelines purposes. See U.S.S.G. §§ 2K2.1(a)(4)(A), 

4B1.2(a). The PSR also recommended a four-level adjustment for altering the serial 

number and a two-level adjustment for obstructing justice. See U.S.S.G. 

§§ 2K2.1(b)(4)(B), 3C1.1. In total, because Williams received no reduction for acceptance 

of responsibility, the offense level was 26. Williams’s relevant criminal history put him

in criminal history category III, which led to a range of 78–97 months’ imprisonment. 

The court adopted the PSR’s recommendations over several of Williams’s 

objections. First, the court rejected the argument that his armed-robbery conviction was 

not a crime of violence under the guidelines. Williams also objected to the adjustment 

for a defaced serial number because the police ultimately discerned the number, but the 

court concluded that any material alteration of a serial number suffices. The court also 

declined to grant Williams a reduction for acceptance of responsibility because, in its 

view, Williams attempted to avoid responsibility by obstructing justice, and his recent 

criminal activity showed that he continued to flout the law. 

Before imposing the sentence, the court considered Williams’s arguments in 

mitigation but found they were outweighed by his failure to accept responsibility, his 

criminal history, and his risk of recidivism. Still, the court imposed a below-guidelines 
No. 22-1120 Page 3 

sentence because Williams did not flee the police during the first stop, he did not use 

the gun, and the serial-number enhancement overstated the seriousness of the offense 

when no evidence showed that Williams altered the number himself. 

Counsel first informs us that he consulted with Williams and confirmed that he 

wishes to challenge only his sentence, not his conviction. Counsel thus properly refrains 

from discussing the validity of the guilty plea. See United States v. Konczak, 683 F.3d 348, 

349 (7th Cir. 2012); United States v. Knox, 287 F.3d 667, 671 (7th Cir. 2002). 

Counsel next considers whether Williams could raise a non-frivolous argument 

that his sentence is procedurally unsound and rightly concludes that he could not.

Williams’s base offense level was 20 because his Illinois robbery conviction was, as the 

court concluded, a “crime of violence” under the guidelines. U.S.S.G. §§ 2K2.1(a)(4)(A), 

4B1.2(a). The same offense is a “violent felony” under the Armed Career Criminal Act. 

See Klikno v. United States, 928 F.3d 539, 549 (7th Cir. 2019). And the definitions of 

“violent felony” and “crime of violence” cover the same conduct. United States v. 

Duncan, 833 F.3d 751, 754 (7th Cir. 2016). 

Counsel also rightly finds no non-frivolous basis for challenging the adjustments 

that resulted in a higher guidelines range. The four-level adjustment for altering a 

firearm’s serial number applies whenever the number has been made less accessible, 

United States v. Hayes, 872 F.3d 843, 847 (7th Cir. 2017), making it immaterial that officers 

here were later able to recover the number. See U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(b)(4)(B). The two-level 

increase for obstructing justice was also warranted because Williams attempted to 

impede an investigation by telling his sister to lie. See U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1. Relatedly, 

counsel is correct that the court’s refusal to grant him a reduction for acceptance of 

responsibility under U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1(a) is consistent with our precedent. A defendant 

who obstructs justice is presumed not to have accepted responsibility, United States v. 

Mayberry, 272 F.3d 945, 949 (7th Cir. 2001), and here the court further explained that 

Williams violating the terms of his pretrial release (by driving around with another 

firearm and fleeing police) also reflected a lack of accountability. 

Counsel next explains that Williams’s previous robbery conviction earned him 

three criminal-history points and a conviction for driving under the influence yielded 

another. See U.S.S.G. § 4A1.1(a), (c). Additionally, Williams’s 72-month prison sentence 

was below the statutory maximum, see 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(2), as was his two-year term of 

supervised release, see 18 U.S.C. § 3583(b)(2), and the court did not base the sentence on 
No. 22-1120 Page 4 

any clearly erroneous facts. See Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). Therefore, 

counsel concludes, and we agree, that it would be frivolous to assert a procedural error. 

Counsel last considers whether Williams could plausibly challenge his sentence 

as substantively unreasonable and correctly concludes that he could not. Because 

Williams received a below-guidelines sentence, we would presume that it is not 

unreasonably long, see United States v. Dewitt, 943 F.3d 1092, 1098 (7th Cir. 2019), and 

counsel demonstrates that there is nothing in the record to rebut that presumption. The 

court considered the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors in explaining why the sentence was 

appropriate. See Gall, 552 U.S. at 49–50. Although the court did not conduct a lengthy 

§ 3553(a) analysis separately for the term of supervised release, “[t]here is no need to 

justify separately terms of imprisonment and supervised release when the same 

explanation reasonably supports both.” United States v. Manyfield, 961 F.3d 993, 997 

(7th Cir. 2020). The court also adequately explained the sentence: it weighed Williams’s 

arguments in mitigation against his pretrial conduct, his criminal history, and his risk of 

recidivism. Lastly, counsel correctly explains that because Williams agreed to the 

conditions of his supervised release when he was given an opportunity to object to 

them, any appellate challenge to the conditions is waived. See United States v. Flores, 929 

F.3d 443, 448-50 (7th Cir. 2019). 

We therefore GRANT counsel’s motion to withdraw and DISMISS the appeal.