UN PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 17
- 4666

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA , Plaintiff

- Appellee ,

v. MICHAEL QUEEN , Defendant

- Appellant

.

No. 17
- 4704

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA , Plaintiff

- Appellee ,

v. SOUFIAN AMRI , Defendant

- Appellant

.

Appeal s from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia , at Alexandria

. Leonie M. Brinkema , District Judge. ( 1:17

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- LMB

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Submitted : September 28, 2018 Decided: October 4, 20182 Before MOTZ, AGEE and DIAZ , Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by un published per curiam opinion

. Cary Citronberg, ZWERLING/CITRONBERG, PLLC, Alexandria, Virginia; Dontae L. Bugg, BUGG LAW FIRM PLLC, Fairfax, Virginia, for Appellants. Joseph Attias, National Security Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C.; Tracy Doherty

- McCorm ick, Acting United States Attorney, Gordon D. Kromberg, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Alexandria, Virginia , for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.3 PER CURIAM: In these con solidated cases, Soufian Amri and Michael Queen appeal their convictions and resulting 24

- month sentences imposed following a bench trial on conspiracy, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 (2012), obstruction of justice, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(3) (2012) , and false statements, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a) (2012) . On appeal, Amri and Queen challenge the district court’s reliance o n evidence outside the stipulated record and the sufficiency of the evidence underlying their convictions, along with the district court’s decision s to deny Amri’s motion to suppress and to apply a S entenc ing Guidelines enhancement for the federal crime of terrorism pursuant to U.S. Sentencing G uidelines Manual § 3A1.4 (a) (2016)

. “This Court reviews evidentiary rulings for an abuse of discretion and will only overturn an evidentiary ruling that is arbitrary and irrational.” United States v. Cone , 714 F.3d 197, 219 (4th Cir. 2013) (internal quota tion marks omitted). Furthermore,

“ [ e ] videntiary rulings are subject to harmless error review.” United States v. McLean , 715 F.3d 129, 143 (4th Cir. 2013). To find an error harmless, “ we need only say with fair assurance, after pondering all that happen ed without stripping the erroneous action from the whole, that the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). We first conclude that the district court did not err when it cited Amri’s education level and business background in its memorandum opinion

. W e reject the contention that this constitutes a structural error and find any such error harmless in light of the stipulated4 evidence

. Relatedly, we conclude that the stipulated evidence sufficiently suppor ted each of the convictions. Next, we consider Amri’s challenge to the denial of his motion to suppress. When reviewing a district court’s decision on a motion to suppress, we examine “the court’s factual findings for clear error” and “its legal conclusio ns de novo.” United States v. Kehoe , 893 F.3d 232, 237 (4th Cir. 2018) (internal quotation marks omitted) . Based on our independent review of the record, we perceive no error in the district court’s ruling. Regarding the sentences imposed , we review any sentence , “whether inside, just outside, or significantly outside the Guidelines range,” through a “deferential abuse

- of

discretion standard.” Gall v. United States , 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007). We must first “ensure that the district court committed no signi ficant procedural error.” Id. at 51. “I f , and only if, we find the sentence procedurally reasonable can we consider the substantive reasonableness of the sentence imposed under an abuse

- of

- discretion standard.” United
States v. Carter , 564 F.3d 325, 328 (4th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). “Federal sentencing law requires the district judge in every case to impose ‘a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with’ the purposes of federal sentencing, in light of the Gu idelines and other [sentencing] factors.” Freeman v. United
States , 564 U.S. 522, 529 (2011) (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2012) ). Nonetheless, “it is unnecessary to vacate a sentence based on an asserted guidelines calculation error if we can determine f rom the record that the asserted error is harmless. ” United States v. McDonald , 850 F.3d 640, 643 (4th Cir.), cert. denied , 138 S. Ct. 208 (2017). “To apply this ‘assumed error harmlessness inquiry’ we require (1) knowledge5 that the district court would have reached the same result even if it had decided the guidelines issue the other way and (2) a determination that the sentence would be reasonable even if the guidelines issue had been decided in the defendant’s favor.” Id. (internal quotation marks omi tted). Regarding the first prong, the record makes clear that the district court w ould have imposed the same sentence on Queen and Amri absent the disputed sentence enhancement

. Indeed, the district court observed that the terrorism enhancement “threw the guide l ines into outer space , ” and the court essentially disregarded the enhancement during the sentencing phase. (J.A. 397). * Rather, t he district court imposed on Queen a “variant
sentence” well below the Guidelines range because the “guidelines [were] way too high given [ Queen’s ] background and given the actual things” he did. (J.A. 409). Similarly, the district court imposed on Amri a sentence f a r below the Guidelines range because the terrorism enhancement made the ra nge “ridiculous in terms of what is involved in this particular case.” (J.A. 4 24

- 25 , 431

- 32 ). Regarding the second prong, we find the 24

- month sentences imposed on Queen and Amri substantively reasonable. The district court adequately explained its sente nces

as required under § 3553(a) . The district court detailed the reasons compelling the sentences, namely the need for deterrence and the serious nature of the offenses. Because the district court made it clear that it would have given Queen and Amri th e same sentence

* “J.A.” refers to Joint Appendix.6 if the terrorism enhancement did not apply and the sentences imposed were substantively reasonable, any alleged Guidelines calculation error i s harmless. Accordingly, we affirm the judgments of the district court. 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 the decisional process.

AFFIRMED