United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Argued April 30, 2013

Decided July 18, 2013

Before

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

No. 12-2757

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

RYAN SCOTT,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Northern District

of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 10 CR 527-1

James B. Zagel,

Judge.

O R D E R

Convicted on drug and gun charges, Ryan Scott appeals only from the 157-month

prison sentence that the district court imposed. Although that sentence is below his properly

calculatedrangeundertheU.S.SentencingGuidelines,Scotturgesnonetheless that thedistrict

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
No. 12-2757 Page 2

court overlooked his central arguments in mitigation – that his status as a career offender

overstates his criminal history and that the base offense level for ecstasy, the drug he was

selling, is too high. We conclude, however, that the district court adequately addressed these

arguments, and thus we affirm its judgment.

I

Scott was on his way to sell ecstasy (more formally, 3,4-

methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA) to an informant when police intercepted his

car and discovered 300 ecstasy pills and a loaded handgun. Charged with violating 21 U.S.C.

§ 841(a)(1) (possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute) and 18 U.S.C.

§ 924(c)(1)(A)(possessionof a firearmin furtherance ofthedrugtraffickingcrime), hepleaded

guilty, and his case was turned overto the Probation officerfor preparation of a pre-sentence

report.

TheDrugQuantityTable inU.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(c)doesnot include listings forecstasy, and

so it is necessary to compute the base offense level by using the Drug Equivalency Tables.

Those tables equate 1 gram of ecstasy to 500 grams of marijuana. See U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1 cmt.

n.8(D). The probation officer concludedthat the ecstasy seizedfromScott weighed73.4 grams

and was thus equivalent to 36.7 kilograms of marijuana. That quantity of marijuana calls for

a base offense level of 18. See U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(a)(5), (c)(11).

Scotthadamassedenoughprior convictions tomakehimacareeroffenderforpurposes

of section 4B1.1 of the Guidelines: he had an earlier conviction for manufacture or delivery of

a controlled substance, for which he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, and a prior

conviction for armed robbery, for which he received a 15-year sentence. This meant that his

criminal history category was a VI; had it not been for his career-offender status, his seven

criminal-history points would have placed him in category IV. See U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1(b); id. ch.

5, pt. A. Moreover, had he not been a career offender, his total offense level after a three-level

reduction for acceptance of responsibility would have been 15 for his drug crime. Even he

concedes, however, that he technically qualifies as a career offender. That status, combined

with his conviction under section 924(c), led to a guidelines imprisonment range of 262 to 327

months.

Scott urged the district court to impose a sentence below the guidelines range. His

criminal-history category of VI, he argued, overstates the seriousness of his criminal record.

He also asserted that equating 1 gram of ecstasy to 500 grams of marijuana would lead to “a

sentence that is greaterthan necessary to serve the objectives of sentencing.” In support of the

latter proposition, he cited one district-court decision, United States v. McCarthy, 09 Cr. 1136

(WHP), 2011 WL 1991146 (S.D.N.Y. May 19, 2011), but he did not mention that by the date of
No. 12-2757 Page 3

sentencing several other district courts had rejected McCarthy, see United States v. Thompson,

No. 10 CR 30168, 2012 WL 1884661, at *5 (S.D. Ill. May 23, 2012); United States v. Kamper, 860

F. Supp. 2d 596, 601-02 (E.D. Tenn. 2012); United States v. Ferguson, No. 2:09-CR-888TC-1 (D.

Utah Dec. 10, 2010), aff’d, 447 F. App’x 898, 902-03 (10th Cir. 2012). Scott also proffered the

report of a psychologist indicating that his childhood had been troubled and that he had

experienced sexual and physical abuse. The psychological difficulties documented in that

report and his drug abuse warranted a sentence below the guideline range; Scott suggested a

total imprisonment term of 96 to 120 months. The government acknowledged that Scott had

cooperated for a brief time after his arrest and helped to make a case against another man. It

recommended a total sentence of 157 months (a significant 105 months below the bottom of

his guideline range).

The district court concluded that Scott’s guideline range, influenced as it was by the

career-offender rules, would produce a sentence that was “out of proportion” and “in the

context ofthis caseout of whack.”The court furthernotedScott’s troubledchildhoodand“life

of crime,” and considered his projected age upon release. It expressed the hope that he would

leave prison more mature and less likely to reoffend and ultimately sentenced Scott to the 157

months recommended by the government.

II

On appeal Scott contends that the district court committed several procedural errors

andalsoimposedaprisonsentence that is substantivelyunreasonable. His centralpoint is that

thedistrict court failedtoaddress his twoprincipal arguments inmitigation:that applyingthe

career-offender guideline would overstate the seriousness of his criminal history, and that

endorsing the ratio of 1 gram of ecstasy to 500 grams of marijuana in the Drug Equivalency

Tables would yield a sentence “greater than necessary to serve the objectives of sentencing.”

The first of these two arguments is puzzling because, as the government notes, the district

court explicitly considered and accepted Scott’s contention that a sentence within the careeroffender range would be too high in his case, and as a result imposed a sentence that was

below 60% of the low end of the guidelines. Scottis thus reducedto arguingthat the court was

unreasonable when it chose not to give him an even greater discount. We need not decide if

suchanargument can never succeed, but we are confident that it has nomerit here.Thedistrict

court has broad discretion to choose an appropriate sentence, and it did not abuse that

discretion here. See United States v. Trujillo-Castillon, 692 F.3d 575, 578 (7th Cir. 2012); United

States v. Coopman, 602 F.3d 814, 818 (7th Cir. 2010).

Scott is correct that the district court did not address his contention about the ecstasyto-marijuana ratio, but the court was under no obligation to do so. In particular, it was not
No. 12-2757 Page 4

requiredtoanswerthe abstract policyargument that the ratiodefinedintheDrugEquivalency

Tables is “unworthy of application in any case,” and that is all Scott was saying. See United

States v. Aguilar-Huerta, 576 F.3d365, 367–68 (7th Cir. 2009);see alsoUnited States v. Garthus, 652

F.3d 715, 721 (7th Cir. 2011). More fundamentally, the ratio turned out to be irrelevant in

Scott’s case because he is a career offender who not only was trafficking in ecstasy but

admittedly possessed a gun while doing so. As we noted earlier, his conviction under section

924(c) meant that he faced an imprisonment range of at least 262 to 327 months no matterthe

type or quantity of the drugs he was trafficking. See U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1(c)(3). Thus, a closer

ecstasy-to-marijuana ratio would not have affected his imprisonment range. See United States

v. Moreno-Padilla, 602 F.3d 802, 812 (7th Cir. 2010); United States v. Anderson, 517 F.3d 953, 966

(7th Cir. 2008).

Scott has also raised several other procedural points that we can dispense with briefly.

He contends that the district court did not adequately explain its sentencing decision and

failed to mention the psychologist’s report. But the court did enough when it acknowledged

Scott’sdysfunctional upbringing(a focus ofthe report) andfurther consideredhis history and

characteristics, including his age and the “life of crime” he had led. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1).

The court also commented on the length of time in prison that it thought would be needed for

Scott to acquire the necessary maturity to be deterred from future criminal conduct. See id.

§ 3553(a)(2)(B). Given this individualized assessment, there was no need forthe judge to utter

the words “psychological report” or mention every possible mitigating factor that could be

gleaned from that report. See United States v. Grigsby, 692 F.3d 778, 791–92 (7th Cir. 2012);

United States v. Young, 590 F.3d 467, 474 (7th Cir. 2009). Indeed, Scott’s insistence that his

principal arguments were those about his criminal history and the Drug Equivalency Tables

implies that other factors alluded to in the psychologist’s report were ancillary and thus did

not require explicit response. See United States v. Martinez, 650 F.3d 667, 672 (7th Cir. 2011);

United States v. Olmeda-Garcia, 613 F.3d 721, 723 (7th Cir. 2010).

Finally, Scott urges us to vacate his prison sentence as unreasonable. He identifies no

reason to support this ambitious request, which fails to take into account the fact that we, as

an appellate court, are entitled to give the district court’s below-guideline sentence a

presumption of reasonableness. See United States v. Jackson, 598 F.3d 340, 345 (7th Cir. 2010)

(“We have never deemed a below-range sentence to be unreasonably high.”); United States v.

Wallace, 531 F.3d 504, 507 (7th Cir. 2008); United States v. George, 403 F.3d 470, 473 (7th Cir.

2005).

We AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.