UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 11-4537

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff – Appellee, 

v. 

NATHANIEL COLLETON, 

Defendant - Appellant. 

No. 11-4538

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff – Appellee, 

v. 

NATHANIEL COLLETON, a/k/a Kiki, 

Defendant - Appellant. 

Appeals from the United States District Court for the District 

of South Carolina, at Charleston. David C. Norton, Chief 

District Judge. (2:09-cr-01084-DCN-1; 2:08-cr-00581-DCN-1) 

Submitted: February 21, 2012 Decided: March 8, 2012

Before DAVIS, KEENAN, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges. 
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Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. 

J. Robert Haley, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Charleston, 

South Carolina, for Appellant. William N. Nettles, United 

States Attorney, Peter T. Phillips, Assistant United States 

Attorney, Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellee. 

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

Nathaniel Colleton pled guilty to one count of 

conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute and to 

distribute 100 grams or more of heroin, in violation of 

21 U.S.C. § 846 (2006), one count of possession with the intent 

to distribute and distribution of heroin to another person, 

resulting in the death or serious bodily injury of that person, 

in violation of 21 U.S.C.A. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C) (West 2006 & 

Supp. 2011), and one count of possession with the intent to 

distribute and distribution of heroin while on release pending 

sentencing, in violation of 21 U.S.C.A. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C) 

and 18 U.S.C. § 3147(1) (2006). Calculating the advisory 

Guidelines sentence pursuant to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines 

Manual (2010), the district court determined the sentencing 

range was 324 to 405 months’ imprisonment. The court sentenced 

Colleton to a total of 324 months’ imprisonment. Colleton now 

appeals, arguing that the sentence is procedurally and 

substantively unreasonable. We affirm. 

We review a sentence for reasonableness under an abuse 

of discretion standard. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41, 

51 (2007). A sentence is procedurally reasonable when the 

district court properly calculates the defendant’s advisory 

Guidelines range, considers the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2006) 

sentencing factors, analyzes any arguments presented by the 
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parties, and sufficiently explains the selected sentence. Id.

at 49–51. “When rendering a sentence, the district court must 

make an individualized assessment based on the facts presented,” 

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

(internal quotation marks and emphasis omitted), and must 

“adequately explain the chosen sentence to allow for meaningful 

appellate review and to promote the perception of fair 

sentencing.” Gall, 552 U.S. at 50. “When imposing a sentence 

within the Guidelines, however, the [district court’s] 

explanation need not be elaborate or lengthy because 

[G]uidelines sentences themselves are in many ways tailored to 

the individual and reflect approximately two decades of close 

attention to federal sentencing policy.” United States v. 

Hernandez, 603 F.3d 267, 271 (4th Cir. 2010) (internal quotation 

marks omitted). 

If the sentence is free of significant procedural 

error, we review the substantive reasonableness of the sentence, 

“tak[ing] into account the totality of the circumstances.” 

Gall, 552 U.S. at 51. If the sentence is within the appropriate 

Guidelines range, this court applies a presumption on appeal 

that the sentence is reasonable. United States v. 

Mendoza-Mendoza, 597 F.3d 212, 217 (4th Cir. 2010). Such a 

presumption is rebutted only by showing “that the sentence is 

unreasonable when measured against the § 3553(a) factors.”
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United States v. Montes-Pineda, 445 F.3d 375, 379 (4th Cir. 

2006) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Colleton argues that his sentence is procedurally 

unreasonable because the district court failed to address and 

explain why it rejected his argument for the imposition of a 

below-Guidelines sentence. Upon our review, we conclude that 

this contention is without merit. At sentencing, Colleton 

alluded to the circumstances surrounding the drug overdose death 

of the person to whom he delivered heroin, without explaining 

why those circumstances merited a below-Guidelines sentence. 

Further, we conclude that the district court provided an 

adequate individualized assessment, taking into account

counsel’s arguments for a below-Guidelines sentence and relevant 

§ 3553(a) factors. 

Finally, we reject as without merit Colleton’s

argument that his sentence is substantively unreasonable. The 

argument, in essence, asks this court to substitute its judgment 

for that of the district court. Even if this court may have 

weighed the § 3553(a) factors differently if we had resolved the 

case in the first instance, we will defer to the district 

court’s decision that the 324-month sentence achieved the 

purposes of sentencing in Colleton’s case. See United States v. 

Jeffery, 631 F.3d 669, 679 (4th Cir.) (“[D]istrict courts have 

extremely broad discretion when determining the weight to be 
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given each of the § 3553(a) factors.”), cert. denied, 132 S. Ct. 

187 (2011). 

We accordingly affirm the judgments. 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