NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION

File Name: 14a0396n.06

No. 13-1763

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

SHAWN PEAKE-WRIGHT

Defendant-Appellant.

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ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED 

STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE 

WESTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN

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

MARTHA CRAIG DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judge. Shawn Peake-Wright pleaded guilty 

to being a felon in possession of a firearm, and the district court sentenced him to prison for a 

within-Guidelines term of 102 months. He now appeals the substantive reasonableness of his 

sentence, arguing that the district court erred in sentencing him toward the higher end of the 

applicable Sentencing Guidelines range. Specifically, he claims that the district court placed too 

much weight on his criminal history; that the record does not support the district court’s 

conclusion that Peake-Wright is a danger to society; and that the district court failed to consider 

the fact that his criminal history barely placed him in Category VI. We affirm the sentence.
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Shawn Peake-Wright was paroled from a Michigan state prison in July 2012 after serving 

four years of a two-to-ten-year sentence for possession of methamphetamine. He was arrested 

three months later on a parole violation and detained in the county jail in Kalamazoo, where he 

made a number of phone calls to family members and friends. At the time, detectives were 

investigating the then-recent murder of Peake-Wright’s brother, Jheryl Wright, and believed 

Peake-Wright had information about the murder. Thus, detectives began listening to recordings 

of some of Peake-Wright’s jailhouse phone calls.

During the calls, Peake-Wright repeatedly referred to an unspecified item in his home 

that, if found, might result in a lengthy prison sentence for him. He was concerned that his 

parole officer would search the home, which he shared with Sikei Meachama Clark, his longtime girlfriend and the mother of five of his six children, and find the item. During one phone 

call, Peake-Wright arranged for his brother, Adriean Peake-Wright, to drive to the house and 

pick up the item.

On the basis of this information, Kalamazoo police officers believed there was a gun in 

Peake-Wright’s home. They contacted Clark and arranged to meet her at the house. After the 

officers arrived, Clark consented to a search of the house and ultimately led the officers to the 

.22 caliber revolver that was in the closet of her bedroom, rolled up in a pair of men’s jean 

shorts. Peake-Wright maintains that Jheryl left the gun at his house shortly before Jheryl was 

murdered, and that he (Peake-Wright) never intended to possess the weapon.

On the basis of these facts, Peake-Wright pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of 

a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The district court conducted a sentencing 

hearing on May 20, 2013. In determining an appropriate sentence, the district judge expressly 
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considered the following factors: the defendant’s upbringing, specifically his difficult childhood; 

his efforts to make productive use of his time while awaiting sentencing by enrolling in religious 

education courses; and his supportive family, many of whom attended the sentencing hearing. 

The district court acknowledged Peake-Wright’s decision to cooperate with the prosecution, for 

which Peake-Wright received a one-level downward departure, and the fact that the felon-inpossession charge did not allege that Peake-Wright misused the gun, except by possessing it.

The district court recognized the need for Peake-Wright to learn job skills and receive 

correctional treatment while incarcerated, recommending that the defendant have opportunities 

to enroll in vocational and other educational courses, undergo a mental health evaluation, and 

receive counseling.

The district court also considered the fact that the instant offense occurred just two or 

three months after Peake-Wright was released from prison and was part of a “pattern” of parole 

violations evidencing disrespect for the law. The district court observed that Peake-Wright had 

not adapted “well while at liberty, and ha[d] proven himself to get into more hot water after” he 

was released from prison, leading the district court to conclude that he was a “danger” and a 

“risk to the public.” The district court also took into account Congress’s determination that 

possession of a firearm by a felon should be “treated very seriously”; the court’s own 

observation that “more often than we would like to tolerate, felons use firearms in ways that are 

destructive”; and defense counsel’s arguments for a downward variance. The district court then 

imposed a sentence of 102 months’ imprisonment, a term that is within the applicable Guidelines 

range of 84-105 months.
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Peake-Wright now appeals his sentence, arguing that it was substantively unreasonable 

because the district court placed too much emphasis on the need to protect the public; that the 

record does not support the district court’s finding that Peake-Wright is a danger to society; and 

that the district court failed to consider the fact that Peake-Wright’s criminal history only 

narrowly fit within Category VI.

We review the reasonableness of a defendant’s sentence for abuse-of-discretion, Gall v. 

United States, 552 U.S. 38, 40 (2007), and apply a rebuttable “presumption of reasonableness for 

within-guidelines sentences.” United States v. Vonner, 516 F.3d 382, 389 (6th Cir. 2008) (en 

banc). Although reasonableness has both substantive and procedural components, Gall, 

552 U.S. at 51, here, Peake-Wright challenges only the substantive reasonableness of his 

sentence. “[A] sentence may be substantively unreasonable when the district court selects the 

sentence arbitrarily, bases the sentence on impermissible factors, fails to consider pertinent 

§ 3553(a) factors[,] or gives an unreasonable amount of weight to any pertinent factor.” United 

States v. Borho, 485 F.3d 904, 908 (6th Cir. 2007). A sentence also may be substantively 

unreasonable if its length is “‘greater than necessary to comply with the purposes’ of sentencing 

set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).” Vonner, 516 F.3d at 391 (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)). 

Among the § 3553(a) factors that a district court should consider “are the seriousness of the 

offense” and the need to “deter[] [] future crimes, protect[] [] the public from future crimes of the 

defendant, and provid[e] the defendant with needed training or correctional treatment.” United 

States v. Collington, 461 F.3d 805, 807 (6th Cir. 2006) (citing 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)). The 

sentencing judge “should also consider the nature and circumstances of the offense, the 

characteristics of the defendant, the kinds of sentences available, the sentencing Guidelines 

range, policy statements from the Sentencing Commission, the need to avoid sentencing 
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disparities, and the need to provide restitution to the victims.” Id. at 807 n.1 (citing 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3553(a)(1), (3)-(7)). In this case, the district court chose a substantively reasonable sentence 

and adequately explained his reasons for the sentence.

The defendant argues (1) that the district court placed too much weight on a single factor 

– the need to protect the public, and (2) that his criminal history cannot support a finding that he 

is dangerous. We disagree.

A sentence may indeed be substantively unreasonable if a district court places too much 

weight on any one factor. Borho, 485 F.3d at 908. In this case, however, in settling on a 

sentence of 102 months’ imprisonment the district court considered many of the § 3553(a) 

factors, including — but not exclusively — the need to protect the public. Tellingly, in his brief 

on appeal, the defendant focuses on explaining why his criminal history is not as bad as his 

criminal history category would suggest but provides no support for his argument that his 

criminal history had an outsized influence on the judge’s decision. Moreover, to the extent the 

district court relied on Peake-Wright’s criminal history at all, it did so primarily to demonstrate 

Peake-Wright’s apparent lack of respect for the law and his inability to conform his conduct to 

the law while under post-release supervision and to support its conclusion that the sentence 

imposed should be long enough to deter Peake-Wright from reoffending. The district judge 

noted that Peake-Wright had engaged in a pattern of recidivism following his release from 

prison, listed some of his parole violations over the years, and stated, “[U]nfortunately, I don’t 

see much learning process here by Mr. Peake-Wright over the course of his adult life.” Thus, the 

record shows that the district court did not place too much weight on the need to protect the 

public but, rather, addressed numerous relevant factors and chose a sentence it considered likely 
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to deter Peake-Wright from reoffending, deter other individuals from committing the same 

offense, account for Congress’s assessment that felon-in-possession is a serious crime, and

protect the public from the defendant.

Peake-Wright also argues unconvincingly that his sentence was substantively 

unreasonable because the district court had no basis for concluding that he was a danger to 

society in light of the fact that his criminal history consists primarily of minor drug and traffic 

offenses. A sentence may be substantively unreasonable if the district court bases it on an 

impermissible factor. Borho, 485 F.3d at 908. Here, however, the record provides ample 

support for the district court’s conclusion that the defendant is a danger to society. Defendant’s 

adult criminal history includes convictions for attempted assault in 2003; malicious destruction 

of property in 2006; and assault and battery in 2008. Additionally, Peake-Wright resisted arrest 

by fleeing from police on at least three occasions: in 2005, 2006, and 2008. 

Although the most recent of his violent offenses – his assault and battery arrest in July 

2008 (for which he was convicted in October 2008) – occurred almost five years before his 

sentencing in this case (May 2013), he was incarcerated for nearly four of those years (between 

November 2008 and July 2012), making the absence of charges during that period of time 

unremarkable. Additionally, his July 2008 assault-and-battery arrest occurred during his 

prosecution for possession of methamphetamine and disorderly conduct in a different court. The 

fact that Peake-Wright continued to accrue charges while he had open cases evinces his 

disrespect for the law. To be sure, there are individuals with more violent criminal histories than 

Peake-Wright’s, and the conduct associated with the instant offense did involve mere possession 

– and not the actual use – of a firearm. Still, the district court’s conclusion that the defendant 
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was likely to reoffend was not unreasonable and, therefore, the district judge acted appropriately 

in considering it.

The defendant next argues that his sentence was substantively unreasonable because the 

district court failed to consider the fact that his criminal history only narrowly fit into criminal 

history category VI. A sentence may be substantively unreasonable if the district court ignores a 

pertinent § 3553(a) factor. Borho, 485 F.3d at 908. However, as long as the district court 

provided an adequate explanation for the particular sentence it imposed, it need not “give the 

reasons for rejecting any and all arguments by the parties for alternative sentences.” Vonner, 

516 F.3d at 387; Collington, 461 F.3d at 809 (“[A] reasonable sentence based on consideration of 

the [§ 3553(a)] factors does not require a rote listing.”); United States v. Gale, 468 F.3d 929, 940 

(6th Cir. 2006) (holding that a sentencing judge is not required “to discuss every argument made 

by a litigant”). Thus, even if, as the defendant claims, the district court failed to mention his 

argument about his criminal history category, we may still uphold the sentence because “the 

sentencing judge [] explain[ed] to the parties and the reviewing court its reasons for imposing the 

sentence.” United States v. Jones, 445 F.3d 865, 871 (6th Cir. 2006).

In this case, moreover, the district court did address the defendant’s argument on this 

point, at least implicitly. The defendant requested a downward variance, arguing in a written 

motion and then orally at the sentencing hearing that his criminal history category overstated his 

criminal history. The district court acknowledged this argument at the sentencing hearing and 

rejected it, stating that “none of the items that [defense counsel] brought to [the court’s] attention 

in her motion for a variance would militate towards a variance downward.” The court’s failure 
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to explicitly name one of defendant’s arguments cannot render the sentence unreasonable, 

especially where the record clearly shows that the district court considered it.

For the reasons set out above, we AFFIRM the district court’s judgment.