UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 13-4743

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

TERRENCESA MARIE-DAWN SHANKLIN,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern 

District of West Virginia, at Charleston. Thomas E. Johnston, 

District Judge. (2:12-cr-00193-1)

Submitted: April 22, 2014 Decided: April 30, 2014

Before WYNN and FLOYD, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, Senior Circuit 

Judge.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Mary Lou Newberger, Federal Public Defender, Jonathan D. Byrne, 

Appellate Counsel, Lex A. Coleman, Assistant Federal Public 

Defender, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellant. R. Booth 

Goodwin II, United States Attorney, Monica D. Coleman, Assistant 

United States Attorney, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

Terrencesa Marie-Dawn Shanklin pled guilty, without 

the benefit of a written plea agreement, to possessing with 

intent to distribute a quantity of oxycodone, in violation of 21 

U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) (2012). Shanklin asked the district court to 

vary downward from her sentencing range of 37–46 months to 

impose a probationary sentence. The district court rejected 

this request, but agreed that a variant sentence was 

appropriate. It accordingly imposed an active term of twentyfour months’ imprisonment. Shanklin challenges the 

reasonableness of this sentence on appeal. We affirm.

We review a sentence for reasonableness under an 

abuse-of-discretion standard. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 

38, 46, 51 (2007). When a district court imposes a sentence 

that falls outside of the applicable Guidelines range, this 

court considers “whether the sentencing court acted reasonably 

both with respect to its decision to impose such a sentence and 

with respect to the extent of the divergence from the sentencing 

range.” United States v. Hernandez–Villanueva, 473 F.3d 118, 

123 (4th Cir. 2007). In conducting this review, we “must give 

due deference to the district court’s decision that the [18 

U.S.C.] § 3553(a) [(2012)] factors, on a whole, justify the 

extent of the variance.” Gall, 552 U.S. at 51.
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Shanklin’s appellate arguments direct our attention to 

the evaluative process engaged in by the district court in 

arriving at her variant sentence.* First, Shanklin argues that

changes to the Sentencing Guidelines in terms of the offense 

levels applicable to drug offenses demonstrate that the court’s 

assessment of the seriousness of her offense was misguided. 

Shanklin suggests that the court should have utilized the 

Guidelines as they will be modified. 

Shanklin is correct in that the Sentencing Commission 

has very recently approved an across-the-board two-level 

reduction to offense levels applicable to most federal drug 

trafficking offenses. But these modifications are not yet 

operative, and certainly were not in effect at the time of 

Shanklin’s September 2013 sentencing. We thus reject Shanklin’s 

contention that the district court abused its discretion in not 

prospectively applying these reductions in her case. See Morris 

v. Wachovia Sec. Inc., 448 F.3d 268, 277 (4th Cir. 2006)

(explaining that this court will find an abuse of discretion if, 

after reviewing the record and reasoning of the district court, 

it is left with “a definite and firm conviction that the court 

below committed a clear error of judgment in the conclusion it 

 * Shanklin does not challenge on appeal the district court’s 

calculation of her advisory Guidelines range. 
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reached upon a weighing of the relevant factors” (internal 

quotation marks omitted)).

Shanklin next argues that the district court failed to 

give appropriate weight to those sentencing factors relied on to 

support the downward variance. Once again, we cannot agree. 

Prior to imposing sentence, the district court recited 

the facts of this case, noting the scope of Shanklin’s drug 

trafficking. The court discussed the seriousness of the offense 

in terms of the epidemic of prescription drug abuse in Southern 

West Virginia and in terms of the highly addictive nature of 

these types of opiates. The court also explained its usual view 

that such cases warranted longer sentences. 

Here, though, the court found that several of the 

§ 3553(a) sentencing factors justified a deviation from its 

regular practice. The court identified three specific bases for 

the downward variance: (1) that Shanklin, at twenty-three years 

old, had no criminal history and was the sole parent of a young 

child; (2) that Shanklin had been devastated by the recent death 

of her mother, causing her to spiral downward into substance 

abuse; and (3) that, while on pre-trial release, Shanklin had 

taken significant steps towards changing her life, such as 

obtaining her high school diploma, maintaining her employment at 

a nursing home, and remaining drug free. The court expressed 

its appreciation of Shanklin’s rehabilitative efforts and noted 
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that they were factored into the sentencing calculus. It was 

against this backdrop that the district court elected to give 

Shanklin a “break” and sentence her to twenty-four months’ 

imprisonment, thirteen months lower than the bottom of her 

advisory Guidelines range of 37-46 months. 

Shanklin contends that “the extent of the variance 

does not accurately reflect those factors[]” that the court 

identified as supporting the variance (Appellant’s Br. at 10), 

and asks that we hold that the twenty-four-month sentence is 

greater than necessary. But “district courts have extremely 

broad discretion when determining the weight to be given each of 

the § 3553(a) factors.” United States v. Jeffery, 631 F.3d 669, 

679 (4th Cir. 2011). And, as the Supreme Court has made plain, 

we may not reverse a sentence simply because we “might 

reasonably have concluded that a different sentence was 

appropriate.” Gall, 552 U.S. at 51. 

At bottom, Shanklin asks us to reweigh the sentencing 

factors so to reach a result different than that of the district 

court. This we will not do. See id.; United States v. 

Washington, 743 F.3d 938, 943-44 (4th Cir. 2014) (“We must defer 

to the district court and affirm a reasonable sentence, even if 

we would have imposed something different.”). The extent of the 

variance reflects the court’s concerted effort to balance the 

seriousness of this drug trafficking offense with Shanklin’s 
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personal history and circumstances, particularly her lack of 

criminal history, family circumstances, and self-rehabilitation. 

The district court amply justified its decision to vary downward 

from the Guidelines range by thirteen months, rendering the 

variance reasonable. See Hernandez-Villanueva, 473 F.3d at 123.

For these reasons, 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 this court and argument would not aid the decisional 

process.

AFFIRMED