UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 13-4844

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff – Appellee,

v.

ANTURAN DAQUAN MORRIS,

Defendant – Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of Virginia, at Richmond. James R. Spencer, District 

Judge. (3:13-cr-00067-JRS-1)

Submitted: April 29, 2014 Decided: June 11, 2014

Before KING, DUNCAN, and WYNN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Michael S. Nachmanoff, Federal Public Defender, Alexandria, 

Virginia, Frances H. Pratt, Assistant Federal Public Defender, 

Carolyn V. Grady, Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF 

THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellant. 

Dana J. Boente, Acting United States Attorney, Alexandria, 

Virginia, Olivia L. Norman, Assistant United States Attorney, 

OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Richmond, Virginia, for 

Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

Anturan Daquan Morris appeals his conviction for being a 

felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. §

922(g)(1) and his resulting 51-month sentence. For the reasons 

that follow, we affirm.

I.

A.

At trial, the government presented evidence that, on 

December 12, 2012, Officers Joachin Okonkwo and James A. Spada 

of the Richmond Police Department approached a man whom they 

recognized by sight but not by name. They asked him to stop, 

but the man fled and the officers pursued him. Officer Okonkwo 

testified that while he lost sight of the man he was chasing a 

few times, those lapses were “just momentary.” J.A. 46. During 

the chase, Officer Spada saw the man remove a firearm from his 

clothing and discard it in the street. At the end of the chase, 

the man was apprehended and identified as Morris. Morris told 

the officers that he carried the gun, but only for protection.

No witness was asked to perform a courtroom identification 

of Morris. When asked on direct examination, “[d]o you 

recognize Mr. Morris here today?” Officer Spada testified that 

he did, J.A. 69, although the record does not show that he 

pointed or gestured to Morris. When asked if there was “any 
3

question in [his] mind” that the individual who threw the gun 

was “Mr. Morris,” Officer Spada answered that there was “[n]o 

question at all.” J.A. 77. Following the government’s case in 

chief, Morris moved for a judgment of acquittal pursuant to Fed. 

R. Crim. P. 29. That motion was denied. A jury found Morris 

guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

B.

The presentence report (“PSR”) placed Morris at an offense 

level of 20 and a criminal history category of IV. His advisory 

Guidelines sentence ranged from 51 to 63 months. Morris did not 

object to the PSR or the Guidelines calculation. At the 

sentencing hearing, the district court accepted the PSR, adopted 

its findings, and then heard the parties’ arguments.

Morris argued for a below-Guidelines sentence of 42 months 

because he did not fire the gun he was convicted of possessing 

and because his personal history and relative youth placed him 

at a particularly high risk of criminality. Morris also argued

that his criminal history was exaggerated by non-serious 

offenses and that a 42-month sentence would provide just 

punishment, as the longest he had ever received. The government 

argued for a sentence within the Guidelines range.

The district court sentenced Morris to 51 months’ 

imprisonment, saying that it had “considered all the arguments 

of the parties” and that it was denying Morris’s motion for a 
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below-Guidelines sentence “primarily because you can’t run from 

your history. That Guidelines Range was earned and is 

appropriate.” J.A. 201. This appeal followed.

II.

We review de novo the district court’s denial of a Rule 29 

motion for judgment of acquittal. United States v. Green, 599 

F.3d 360, 367 (4th Cir. 2010). A guilty verdict survives “if, 

viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the 

prosecution, the verdict is supported by substantial evidence.” 

United States v. Smith, 451 F.3d 209, 216 (4th Cir. 2006) 

(internal citation and quotation marks omitted). We may only 

set aside a conviction if “no rational trier of fact could have 

found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable 

doubt.” United States v. Royal, 731 F.3d 333, 337 (4th Cir. 

2013).

We review criminal sentences for substantive and procedural 

reasonableness using an abuse of discretion standard. United 

States v. Lynn, 592 F.3d 572, 575-76 (4th Cir. 2010). If we 

find an abuse of discretion, the sentence can stand only if the 

error was harmless. Id.
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III.

Morris argues that the government did not present 

sufficient evidence to support the jury’s guilty verdict for two 

reasons.

First, Morris argues that because no witness identified him 

in court, the government did not present sufficient evidence of 

his identity as the man who possessed the firearm. This 

argument is meritless because a courtroom identification is not 

required to show sufficient evidence of a defendant’s identity 

if other evidence of identity is sufficient. United States v. 

Taylor, 900 F.2d 779, 782 (4th Cir. 1990) (testimony of one 

witness who identified the defendant by name as the person who 

committed the crime was sufficient evidence of the defendant’s 

identity, even without a courtroom identification).

Second, Morris argues that the government’s evidence of his 

identity as the individual who possessed the firearm was 

insufficient. We cannot agree. The testimony of one witness 

that a defendant was the person who committed the crime is 

sufficient evidence of a defendant’s identity to support a 

conviction. United States v. Holley, 502 F.2d 273, 274 (4th 

Cir. 1974). At trial, the jury heard extensive testimony from 

multiple witnesses who saw, chased, and apprehended Morris, and 

who recognized him as the same individual throughout the 

encounter. Officer Spada testified that he saw Morris discard 
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the firearm, and that Morris admitted to possessing the firearm. 

These facts constituted substantial evidence that Morris 

possessed the firearm.

IV.

Morris next argues that his sentence is procedurally 

unreasonable because the district court did not provide a 

sufficiently individualized explanation for choosing a 51-month 

sentence, rejecting Morris’s arguments for a below-Guidelines 

sentence. We may presume that Morris’s within-Guidelines 

sentence was substantively reasonable. United States v. 

Mendoza-Mendoza, 597 F.3d 212, 216–17 (4th Cir. 2010). However, 

we need not reach the question of whether the district court 

erred. Even if we assume that the district court’s explanation 

of Morris’s sentence was insufficient, we agree with the 

government that any error was harmless.

For a procedural sentencing error to be found harmless, the 

government must show that the error “did not have a substantial 

and injurious influence on the result.” United States v. 

Boulware, 604 F.3d 832, 838 (4th Cir. 2010) (internal quotation 

marks and citation omitted). The government bears the burden of 

showing that the error was harmless, but it can meet this burden 

by showing that it would be “unrealistic” to think that the 

error affected the sentence length. Id. at 840.
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To determine whether a district court’s failure to explain 

a sentencing decision was harmless error, we consider two 

primary factors. The first is the strength or weakness of a 

party’s arguments that the district court did not address. Id.

at 839–40. The second is an indication in the record that the 

district court considered and understood those arguments. Id.

Morris’s arguments for a below-Guidelines sentence were 

weak. Like the defendant’s arguments in Boulware, many of 

Morris’s arguments were based on circumstances that are “not 

atypical for a defendant.” Id. at 840. He admits that his 

arguments about his personal history could be made by many 

people. Similarly, Morris’s argument that his criminal history 

was exaggerated was weak because his criminal history was 

substantial. His argument that he did not use the firearm he 

was convicted of possessing, and only carried it for protection, 

has little to do with why he should be sentenced below the 

Guidelines range for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Where, as here, the government can show that the district 

court fully considered a party’s arguments for a particular 

sentence, but failed to explicitly address them, that failure is 

a harmless error. Boulware, 604 F.3d at 840. In the present 

case, the district court’s statement that it had “considered all

of the arguments of the parties,” J.A. 201 (emphasis added), 
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demonstrates that it fully considered Morris’s arguments for a 

below-Guidelines sentence.

Considering these facts, we can say with “fair assurance” 

that that the district court would not impose a different 

sentence if it were forced to explain its reasoning, and the 

district court’s failure to do so could not have had a 

“substantial and injurious influence” on Morris’s sentence. 

Boulware, 604 F.3d at 840, 838 (internal quotation marks and 

citation omitted). For these reasons, we hold that even if we 

assume Morris’s sentence was procedurally unreasonable, any 

error was harmless.

V.

Accordingly, we affirm Morris’s conviction and sentence. 

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 in the decisional process.

AFFIRMED