United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

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No. 18-1677

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United States of America

lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellee

v.

Soy Franklin

lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellant

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Appeal from United States District Court

for the Northern District of Iowa - Cedar Rapids

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Submitted: March 11, 2019

Filed: June 11, 2019

[Unpublished]

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Before SHEPHERD, ARNOLD, and ERICKSON, Circuit Judges.

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PER CURIAM.

Soy Franklin pled guilty to one count of distribution of cocaine base within a

protected location (within 1,000 feet of a grade school) after a prior felony

conviction, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C), 851, and 860(a). 
The district court1

sentenced Franklin to 188 monthsimprisonment. Franklin appeals,

asserting that his sentence is substantively unreasonable. Having jurisdiction under

28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.

At sentencing, Franklin moved for a downward variance below the 188 to 235

months Guidelines sentencing range, arguing mitigating factors which included the

following: that his status as an armed career criminal was based on a 20-year-old

aggravated battery conviction for conduct that occurred when he was 17 years old

that had involved self-defense and on a small-quantity drug conviction; that he had

committed no violent crime since his aggravated battery conviction; and that he had

suffered a difficult upbringing. The district court denied Franklin’s request and

sentenced him to 188 months imprisonment, a sentence at the bottom of the

Guidelines range. 

Franklin asserts that his sentence is substantively unreasonable, arguing that

the district courtfailed to take into consideration the particular factorssetforth above. 

“We review the substantive reasonableness of a sentence under a deferential

abuse-of-discretion standard. . . . A sentence within the Guidelines range is accorded

a presumption of substantive reasonableness on appeal.” United States v. St. Claire,

831 F.3d 1039, 1043 (8th Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks omitted). A district

court has “wide latitude” to weigh the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors and to “assign

some factors greater weight than others,” United States v. Boelter, 806 F.3d 1134,

1136 (8th Cir. 2015) (per curiam) (internal quotation marks omitted), and the

determination that the district court was “aware of the relevant . . . factors . . . can be

inferred from the record.” United States v. Young, 640 F.3d 846, 848 (8th Cir. 2011)

(per curiam). 

1The Honorable Linda R. Reade, United States District Judge for the Northern

District of Iowa.

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Although the district court did not explicitlymention Franklin’s age at the time

of his aggravated battery conviction, or that it was over 20 years ago and Franklin had

no other convictions for violent crimes, Franklin’s counsel directly addressed these

factors during the sentencing hearing as part of Franklin’s argument seeking a

downward variance. We thus presume that the district court appropriately considered

these factors. See, e.g., United States v. Keating, 579 F.3d 891, 893 (8th Cir. 2009)

(“[W]here the district court heard argument from counsel about specific § 3553(a)

factors, we may presume that the court considered those factors.”).

The district court also noted the factors it found to be aggravating, including

Franklin’s criminal history, which the district court believed made him a recidivist

who had not taken advantage of the many opportunities to turn his life around. 

Acknowledging these factors, and stating that it had considered all § 3553(a) factors,

the district court determined a sentence at the bottom of the Guidelines range was

appropriate. Franklin’s argument on appeal amounts to no more than a disagreement

with how the district court weighed the mitigating and aggravating factors. As the

district court has wide latitude in considering this balance, we find no error in the

district court’s decision to afford the aggravating factors more weight than Franklin’s

mitigating factors. See United States v. Ryser, 883 F.3d 1018, 1022 (8th Cir. 2018).

The district court did not abuse its discretion in imposing Franklin’s sentence. 

Accordingly, we affirm. 

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