UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 10-4771

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff - Appellee, 

v. 

MFARIJI GASKIN, 

Defendant - Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle 

District of North Carolina, at Greensboro. N. Carlton Tilley, 

Jr., Senior District Judge. (1:09-cr-00307-NCT-1) 

Submitted: March 30, 2012 Decided: April 11, 2012

Before KING, AGEE, and WYNN, Circuit Judges. 

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. 

J. Darren Byers, LAW OFFICES OF J. DARREN BYERS, P.A., 

Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for Appellant. Robert Albert 

Jamison Lang, Assistant United States Attorney, Greensboro, 

North Carolina, for Appellee. 

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

Mfariji Gaskin pled guilty, pursuant to a written plea 

agreement, to possession with the intent to distribute 6.5 grams 

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

(b)(1)(B) (West 2006 & Supp. 2011). The district court 

calculated Gaskin’s Guidelines range under the U.S. Sentencing 

Guidelines Manual (2009) at 188 to 235 months’ imprisonment and 

sentenced Gaskin to 209 months’ imprisonment. On appeal, 

counsel has filed a brief pursuant to Anders v. California, 386 

U.S. 738 (1967), stating that there are no meritorious issues 

for appeal, but questioning whether Gaskin’s sentence is 

substantively reasonable. The Government elected not to file a 

brief and does not seek to enforce the plea agreement’s appeal 

waiver.* We treat Gaskin’s pro se notice of appeal — which 

raises arguments challenging his conviction — as a pro se 

supplemental brief. We affirm. 

This court reviews Gaskin’s 209-month sentence for 

reasonableness under a “deferential abuse-of-discretion 

standard.” Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41, 51 (2007). 

This review entails appellate consideration of both the 

 * Because the Government fails to assert the waiver as a bar 

to the appeal, we may consider the issues raised by counsel and 

Gaskin and conduct an independent review of the record pursuant 

to Anders. United States v. Poindexter, 492 F.3d 263, 271 

(4th Cir. 2007). 
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procedural and substantive reasonableness of the sentence. 

Id. at 51. In determining procedural reasonableness, this court 

considers whether the district court properly calculated the 

defendant’s advisory Guidelines range, considered the 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3553(a) (2006) factors, selected a sentence based on clearly 

erroneous facts, or failed to explain sufficiently the selected 

sentence. Id. at 49-51. If the sentence is free of significant 

procedural error, this court reviews it for substantive 

reasonableness, “tak[ing] into account the totality of the 

circumstances.” Id. at 51. This court applies a presumption on 

appeal that a sentence within the properly calculated Guidelines 

range is reasonable. United States v. Mendoza-Mendoza, 597 F.3d 

212, 217 (4th Cir. 2010). Such a presumption is rebutted only 

when the defendant shows “that the sentence is unreasonable when 

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

Montes-Pineda, 445 F.3d 375, 379 (4th Cir. 2006) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). 

In this case, the district court properly calculated 

the Guidelines range and heard argument from counsel and 

allocution from Gaskin. The court considered the § 3553(a) 

factors and explained that a within-Guidelines sentence was 

warranted in view of the nature and circumstances of Gaskin’s 

offense, his history and characteristics, and the need for the 

sentence to protect the public. Counsel suggests that the
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209-month sentence is greater than necessary to achieve the 

purposes of sentencing in light of the drug quantity 

attributable to Gaskin. We reject this argument because it 

essentially asks the court to substitute its judgment for that 

of the district court. We defer to the district court’s 

decision that the 209-month sentence achieved the purposes of 

sentencing in Gaskin’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 given each of 

the § 3553(a) factors.”), cert. denied, 132 S. Ct. 187 (2011). 

Gaskin fails to rebut the presumption that his within-Guidelines 

sentence is substantively reasonable. Accordingly, we conclude 

that the district court did not abuse its discretion in 

sentencing Gaskin. 

Additionally, in accordance with Anders, we have 

reviewed the issues in Gaskin’s pro se supplemental brief and 

the entire record in this case and have found no meritorious 

issues for appeal. We therefore affirm the district court’s 

judgment. This court requires that counsel inform Gaskin, in 

writing, of the right to petition the Supreme Court of the 

United States for further review. If Gaskin requests that a 

petition be filed, but counsel believes that such a petition 

would be frivolous, then counsel may move in this court for 
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leave to withdraw from representation. Counsel’s motion must 

state that a copy thereof was served on Gaskin. 

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