NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION

File Name: 22a0418n.06

No. 21-1814

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

TERRELL DWAYNE MASON,

Defendant-Appellant.

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ON APPEAL FROM THE 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT 

COURT FOR THE EASTERN 

DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN

OPINION

Before: GUY, WHITE, and LARSEN, Circuit Judges.

LARSEN, Circuit Judge. After Terrell Mason violated his supervised-release conditions 

for a third time, the district court determined that some additional deterrence was in order and 

sentenced Mason to an above-Guidelines sentence. Mason challenges the reasonableness of that 

sentence. We AFFIRM.

I.

Terrell Mason pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud. The district 

court sentenced him to 76 months’ imprisonment to be followed by 3 years of supervised release. 

Mason began supervised release in 2015 but violated his conditions in June 2018 by fraudulently 

using another person’s credit card. For this, the district court sentenced Mason to “1 day, time 

served,” plus another 3 years of supervised release. A few months into his next supervised-release 

term, Mason again violated various supervised-release conditions. The court revoked Mason’s 
No. 21-1814, United States v. Mason

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supervised release and sentenced him to 10 months’ imprisonment to be followed by 26 months 

of supervised release.

Mason began his third supervised-release term in April 2020. He quickly violated its terms

too, including by filing over 40 fraudulent claims for unemployment insurance with the State of 

Michigan. This conduct also led to charges of aggravated identity theft, mail fraud, wire fraud, 

and money laundering. Mason admitted to violating his supervised-release conditions, and the 

district court varied upward from the Guidelines range of 6-to-12 months and imposed a sentence 

of 24 months’ imprisonment with no further term of supervised release. The district court 

determined that the sentence should run consecutively to the sentence imposed for the underlying 

conduct. Mason appeals. 

II.

A criminal sentence must be both procedurally and substantively reasonable. United States 

v. Morgan, 687 F.3d 688, 693 (6th Cir. 2012); see also United States v. Bolds, 511 F.3d 568, 578 

(6th Cir. 2007) (sentence on revocation of supervised release). Procedural reasonableness requires 

the court to “properly calculate the guidelines range, treat that range as advisory, consider the 

sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), refrain from considering impermissible factors, select 

the sentence based on facts that are not clearly erroneous, and adequately explain why it chose the 

sentence.” United States v. Rayyan, 885 F.3d 436, 440 (6th Cir. 2018) (citing Gall v. United States, 

552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007)). Substantive reasonableness focuses on whether a “sentence is too long 

(if a defendant appeals) or too short (if the government appeals).” Id. at 442. “The point is not 

that the district court failed to consider a factor or considered an inappropriate factor; that’s the 

job of procedural unreasonableness.” Id. Instead, substantive unreasonableness is “a complaint 

that the court placed too much weight on some of the § 3553(a) factors and too little on others in 
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sentencing the individual.” Id. We review claims of both procedural and substantive 

unreasonableness for an abuse of discretion, although we review the district court’s factual 

findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. Id. at 440, 442.

Procedural Reasonableness. Mason challenges the procedural reasonableness of his 

sentence in two ways. Because Mason did not object after the sentence was pronounced and the 

district court asked for any objections, we review for plain error only. United States v. Bostic, 371 

F.3d 865, 872–73 (6th Cir. 2004).

First, Mason says the district court erred by not giving notice of its intent to sentence above 

the Guidelines pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32(h). But Rule 32(h)’s notice 

requirement applies only to departures, not variances. Irizarry v. United States, 553 U.S. 708, 714 

(2008). Here, the district court varied from the Guidelines based on its weighing of the § 3553(a) 

factors. See United States v. Grams, 566 F.3d 683, 686–87 (6th Cir. 2009) (“A ‘variance’ refers 

to the selection of a sentence outside the advisory Guidelines range based upon the district court’s 

weighing of one or more of the sentencing factors of § 3553(a).”); see also 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3). 

In addition, there is also caselaw suggesting that the rule doesn’t apply to sentences for revocation 

of supervised release. See United States v. Smith, 639 F. App’x 348, 351–53 (6th Cir. 2016); 

United States v. Baker, 521 F. App’x 371, 374 (6th Cir. 2013); see also United States v. Daoust, 

888 F.3d 571, 575 (1st Cir. 2018) (“Rule 32 and its various subparts (including Rule 32(h)) simply 

do not apply to sentences imposed for supervised release violations.”). Mason’s Rule 32(h) 

argument therefore fails.

Second, Mason says the district court procedurally erred by not providing sufficient reasons 

for imposing a consecutive sentence. But it did provide sufficient reasons. A district court need 

not “state a ‘specific reason’ for a consecutive sentence.” United States v. Johnson, 640 F.3d 195, 
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209 (6th Cir. 2011). It’s enough that the court “makes generally clear the rationale under which 

it has imposed the consecutive sentence.” Id. (quoting United States v. Owens, 159 F.3d 221, 230 

(6th Cir. 1998)). In Johnson, the district court satisfied this duty by recognizing its discretion to 

make the sentence run concurrently or consecutively, offering reasons to support a consecutive 

sentence that were “intertwined” with the reasons for the sentence’s length, and indicating that “it 

believed a consecutive sentence to be appropriate in light of several § 3553(a) factors.” Id. at 208. 

The same can be said for the court here. Given Mason’s repeated violation of his supervised 

release conditions, the court determined that it was necessary to impose a sentence sufficient to

deter him from future criminal activity. The variance and consecutive sentence were necessary 

“given the extraordinary recidivism that Mr. Mason ha[d] displayed over and over and over again.” 

So Mason’s argument that the court didn’t support the consecutive sentence fails. Mason’s 

sentence was procedurally reasonable.

Substantive Reasonableness. Mason also asserts that his sentence was substantively 

unreasonable because the court unreasonably concluded that Mason’s failure to follow his 

supervised-release conditions warranted an above-Guidelines sentence and because the court

placed unreasonable weight on some factors (e.g., punishment, deterrence)1and not enough on 

Mason’s mitigation evidence (evidence he doesn’t describe). But Mason’s three sentences on this 

topic merely state conclusions. We treat such cursory arguments made on appeal as forfeited. See 

United States v. Martinez, 832 F. App’x 432, 435–36 (6th Cir. 2020). In any event, “[t]he district 

court properly considered all of the factors, balanced them, and imposed a reasonable sentence.” 

1 Mason’s brief actually says that the district court attached “insufficient weight” to the punishment 

and deterrence factors. Appellant Br. at 12 (emphasis added). Because these factors cut against 

Mason, not in his favor, we assume that he means that the district court attached too much weight 

to these factors. 
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Rayyan, 885 F.3d at 443. That is all we ask. Mason has not shown that his sentence was 

substantively unreasonable.

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We AFFIRM.