UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 16-4156

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff – Appellee,

v.

TERRELL BATTLE,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. Louise W. Flanagan, 

District Judge. (5:15-cr-00165-FL-1)

Submitted: October 20, 2016 Decided: November 10, 2016

Before MOTZ and KING, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior 

Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Thomas P. McNamara, Federal Public Defender, Eric J. Brignac, 

Assistant Federal Public Defender, Raleigh, North Carolina, for 

Appellant. John Stuart Bruce, United States Attorney, 

Jennifer P. May-Parker, Kristine L. Fritz, Assistant United 

States Attorneys, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

Terrell Battle pled guilty to two counts of mailing 

threatening communications to a federal official, in violation 

of 18 U.S.C. § 876(c) (2012), and was sentenced to two 

concurrent terms of 15 months in prison. Battle now appeals, 

claiming that the sentence is substantively unreasonable. We 

affirm.

We review a sentence “under a deferential 

abuse-of-discretion standard.” See Gall v. United States, 552 

U.S. 38, 41 (2007). When reviewing for substantive 

reasonableness, we “examine[] the totality of the circumstances 

to see whether the sentencing court abused its discretion in 

concluding that the sentence . . . satisfied the standards set 

forth in [18 U.S.C. §] 3553(a).” United States v. 

Mendoza-Mendoza, 597 F.3d 212, 216 (4th Cir. 2010). If the 

sentence is within the correctly calculated Sentencing 

Guidelines range, as it is here, we presume that the sentence is 

substantively reasonable. United States v. Louthian, 756 F.3d 

295, 306 (4th Cir. 2014). This presumption is rebutted only if 

the defendant shows “that the sentence is unreasonable when 

measured against the § 3553(a) factors.” United States v. 

Dowell, 771 F.3d 162, 176 (4th Cir. 2014) (internal quotation 

marks omitted).
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At Battle’s sentencing, the district court stated that it 

had considered the presentence report, the Guidelines, the 

§ 3553(a) factors, and Battle’s arguments for a downward 

variance, which are identical to those arguments raised on 

appeal. The court exercised its “extremely broad discretion” to 

weigh the mitigating factors identified by Battle against the 

seriousness of the offenses and Battle’s criminal history. 

United States v. Jeffery, 631 F.3d 669, 679 (4th Cir. 2011). 

Ultimately, the court concluded that the mitigating factors 

warranted a sentence at the low end of the Guidelines range 

rather than a downward variance.

We conclude that the sentence is substantively reasonable 

and that Battle failed to rebut the presumption of 

reasonableness we accord the within-Guidelines sentence. 

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. 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