UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT 

No. 08-4433

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee, 

 v. 

TARANCE LEVAR HAIRSTON, 

 Defendant - Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle 

District of North Carolina, at Durham. N. Carlton Tilley, Jr., 

Senior District Judge. (1:07-cr-00189-NCT-1) 

Submitted: June 18, 2009 Decided: June 22, 2009 

Before NIEMEYER, GREGORY, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges. 

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. 

Louis C. Allen, III, Federal Public Defender, John A. Dusenbury, 

Jr., Assistant Federal Public Defender, Greensboro, North 

Carolina, for Appellant. Anna Mills Wagoner, United States 

Attorney, David P. Folmar, Jr., Angela Hewlett Miller, Michael 

A. DeFranco, Assistant United States Attorneys, Greensboro, 

North Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. 
PER CURIAM: 

 Tarance Levar Hairston appeals from his 100-month 

sentence, imposed pursuant to his guilty plea to possession of a 

firearm by a convicted felon. On appeal, Hairston contends that 

the district court erred at sentencing in determining that 

Hairston’s possession of a semiautomatic firearm thirteen days 

prior to the date of the offense of conviction was relevant 

conduct. We affirm. 

 We review a district court’s “relevant conduct” 

finding under U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 1B1.3 (2007) 

for clear error. United States v. Hodge, 354 F.3d 305, 315 (4th 

Cir. 2004). At sentencing, a district court properly may 

consider offenses for which the defendant has not been 

convicted, provided they constitute “relevant conduct.” United 

States v. Bowman, 926 F.2d 380, 381-82 (4th Cir. 1991). 

Relevant conduct includes offenses that are part of the same 

course of conduct or common scheme or plan as the offense of 

conviction. United States v. McAllister, 272 F.3d 228, 233-34 

(4th Cir. 2001). 

 Here, the undisputed evidence in the presentence 

report (“PSR”) was that, on January 3, 2007, the police stopped 

a car in which Hairston was a passenger, and he fled. Officers 

found two bags of marijuana in the car, as well as a pistol 

under Hairston’s seat. On January 16, officers apprehended 

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Hairston, who fled, and found a pistol in the area occupied by 

Hairston that fit Hairston’s holster. On the basis of these 

facts, the district court concluded that Hairston rearmed 

himself after the seizure of his firearm used to protect his 

marijuana. 

 While Hairston’s counsel asserted that the second 

firearm was obtained after a home invasion in order to protect 

Hairston’s family, Hairston presented no evidence at sentencing. 

Absent an affirmative showing that the conclusions in the PSR 

are incorrect, the district court is free to adopt the findings 

therein. See United States v. Terry, 916 F.2d 157, 162 (4th 

Cir. 1990). Moreover, based on the evidence in the PSR, the 

district court’s conclusions that the two offenses were related 

was simply not clear error. See United States v. Brummett, 355 

F.3d 343, 345 (5th Cir. 2003) (possession of firearms by 

convicted felon on three separate occasions within a nine-month 

period was relevant conduct); United States v. Powell, 50 F.3d 

94, 104 (1st Cir. 1995) (holding that nearly contemporaneous 

possession of firearms is relevant conduct in 

felon-in-possession prosecution). 

 Accordingly, we affirm Hairston’s sentence. We 

dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal 

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contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the 

court and argument would not aid the decisional process. 

AFFIRMED