UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 11-5144

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff – Appellee,

v.

RYAN LAMAR HOLLAND,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle 

District of North Carolina, at Greensboro. James A. Beaty, Jr., 

Chief District Judge. (1:10-cr-00445-JAB-1)

Submitted: July 19, 2012 Decided: July 23, 2012

Before DUNCAN, AGEE, and WYNN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Milton Bays Shoaf, ADDISON & SHOAF, Salisbury, North Carolina, 

for Appellant. Graham Tod Green, Assistant United States 

Attorney, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

Ryan Lamar Holland pled guilty to conspiracy to 

distribute cocaine base. The district court sentenced him to 

292 months’ imprisonment. Holland’s attorney filed a brief in 

accordance with Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), 

certifying that there are no meritorious issues for appeal, but 

questioning whether application of the Fair Sentencing Act would 

result in a lesser sentence and whether the court adequately 

considered mitigating circumstances. Finding no reversible 

error, we affirm.

We review a sentence imposed by a district court for 

reasonableness, applying a deferential abuse-of-discretion 

standard. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 46, 51 (2007). 

Such review requires consideration of both the procedural and 

substantive reasonableness of a sentence. Id. at 41; see United 

States v. Carter, 564 F.3d 325, 328 (4th Cir. 2009). 

The district court appropriately determined the amount 

of drugs attributed to Holland based on his admissions to 

receiving certain quantities of cocaine base between 2007 and 

2008, and, between 2008 and 2010, acquiring quantities of 

cocaine hydrochloride and cooking the cocaine hydrochloride into 

cocaine base. Based on the district court’s determination that 

11.8 kilograms of cocaine base were attributable to Holland, the 
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Fair Sentencing Act would not result in a lesser Guidelines 

range. 

The district court followed the necessary procedural 

steps in sentencing Holland, appropriately treated the 

sentencing Guidelines as advisory, properly calculated and 

considered the applicable Guidelines range, and weighed the 

relevant 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2006) factors, including 

considering Holland’s age, his criminal history, the fact that 

he has young children, and the need to protect the public, 

provide deterrence and provide punishment. We examine the 

substantive reasonableness of a sentence under the totality of 

the circumstances. United States v. Pauley, 511 F.3d 468, 473 

(4th Cir. 2007). This court accords a sentence within a 

properly calculated Guidelines range an appellate presumption of 

reasonableness. United States v. Mendoza-Mendoza, 597 F.3d 212, 

216 (4th Cir. 2010). Such a presumption is rebutted only by 

showing “that the sentence is unreasonable when measured against 

the [§ 3553(a)] factors.” United States v. Montes-Pineda, 445 

F.3d 375, 379 (4th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). We conclude that the district court’s consideration 

of the § 3553(a) factors and imposition of the 292-month 

sentence was reasonable and not an abuse of discretion. See

Gall, 552 U.S. at 41; United States v. Allen, 491 F.3d 178, 193 
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(4th Cir. 2007) (applying appellate presumption of 

reasonableness to within-Guidelines sentence).

In accordance with Anders, we have reviewed the entire 

record in this case and have found no meritorious issues for 

appeal. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. 

This court requires that counsel inform Holland, in writing, of 

the right to petition the Supreme Court of the United States for 

further review. If Holland requests that a petition be filed, 

but counsel believes that such a petition would be frivolous, 

then counsel may move in this court for leave to withdraw from 

representation. Counsel’s motion must state that a copy thereof 

was served on Holland. We dispense with oral argument because 

the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the 

materials before the court and argument would not aid the 

decisional process.

AFFIRMED