UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 18-4405

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

 Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

TIMOTHY ALLEN MCNEAL,

 Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. 

Catherine C. Blake, District Judge. (1:16-cr-00606-CCB-2)

Submitted: March 18, 2019 Decided: April 3, 2019

Before NIEMEYER and KEENAN, Circuit Judges, and SHEDD, Senior Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Mirriam Z. Seddiq, MIRRIAM Z. SEDDIQ, LLC, Upper Marlboro, Maryland, for 

Appellant. Robert K. Hur, United States Attorney, Burden H. Walker, Assistant United 

States Attorney, Lauren E. Perry, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE 

UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

Timothy Allen McNeal appeals his convictions and 228-month sentence for 

conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a) (2012); 

armed bank robbery and forced accompaniment, in violation in 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a), (d), 

(e), (g) (2012); brandishing a firearm in the commission of a crime of violence (armed 

bank robbery), in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (2012); and being a felon in possession 

of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (2012). McNeal asserts that the district 

court improperly denied his second motion for a trial continuance, improperly admitted 

expert testimony regarding historical cell site location evidence, and unreasonably failed 

to consider his mitigation arguments in sentencing. We affirm.

“We review the denial of a motion for a continuance for abuse of discretion.” 

United States v. Copeland, 707 F.3d 522, 531 (4th Cir. 2013). “[B]road discretion must 

be granted trial courts on matters of continuances; only an unreasoning and arbitrary 

insistence upon expeditiousness in the face of a justifiable request for delay violates the 

right to assistance of counsel.” United States v. Williams, 445 F.3d 724, 738-39 (4th 

Cir. 2006) (citing Morris v. Slappy, 461 U.S. 1, 11-12 (1983)). Even where this broad 

discretion has been abused, “the defendant must show that the error specifically 

prejudiced his case in order to prevail” on appeal. Copeland, 707 F.3d at 531 (brackets 

and internal quotation marks omitted). 

The district court’s denial of McNeal’s second motion for a continuance was 

hardly “unreasoning and arbitrary,” Williams, 445 F.3d at 739. McNeal requested the 

additional continuance to contact an expert who could address DNA evidence that the 
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government had proffered. The court noted that the DNA evidence was timely disclosed, 

that the DNA evidence was not conclusive, and that postponement would inconvenience

multiple witnesses. Furthermore, McNeal has not established that he was specifically 

prejudiced by the denial of the motion. Regardless of his inability to secure expert 

testimony, McNeal was able to extensively challenge the DNA evidence in question at 

trial, and that evidence was only one component of the overwhelming proof of guilt 

presented. Accordingly, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in 

denying the motion for a continuance. 

“We review the district court’s decision to admit expert testimony for abuse of 

discretion.” United States v. Landersman, 886 F.3d 393, 411 (4th Cir. 2018). The 

district court’s determination based on Federal Rule of Evidence 702 is guided by the 

factors articulated in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 

590-92 (1993). The Daubert analysis “merely requires that the expert testimony be both 

relevant and reliable,” and “clearly vests the district courts with discretion to determine 

[its] admissibility.” Benedi v. McNeil-P.P.C., Inc., 66 F.3d 1378, 1384 (4th Cir. 1995); 

see Landersman, 886 F.3d at 412. 

On appeal, McNeal argues that the cell site location evidence was improperly 

admitted on the basis of federal legal precedent rather than acceptance by the scientific 

community. But scientific acceptance is only one component of the Daubert analysis, 

and historical cell site analysis has been broadly tested and accepted by the scientific 

community and the federal courts alike. See United States v. Hill, 818 F.3d 289, 297-98

(7th Cir. 2016). In this case, the Government carefully limited the weight and certainty 
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of the evidence, and the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that the 

cell site location evidence satisfied Daubert’s touchstones of relevance and reliability. 

Finally, we “review a sentence for reasonableness ‘under a deferential 

abuse-of-discretion standard.’” United States v. McCoy, 804 F.3d 349, 351 (4th 

Cir. 2015) (quoting Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007)). The district court 

correctly calculated the advisory Sentencing Guidelines range and gave both parties 

ample opportunity to argue for their desired sentence. See Gall, 552 U.S. at 49-51. 

Although the district court did not explicitly address some of the mitigating 

characteristics that McNeal raised in requesting a sentence at the low end of the advisory 

Guidelines range, see United States v. Bollinger, 798 F.3d 201, 220 (4th Cir. 2015), we 

conclude that any procedural error was harmless, see United States v. Boulware, 

604 F.3d 832, 838 (4th Cir. 2010) (defining harmless error); United States v. Lynn, 

592 F.3d 572, 576 (4th Cir. 2010) (stating that court “need not robotically tick through 

§ 3553(a)’s every subsection, particularly when imposing a within-Guidelines sentence”

(internal citations and quotation marks omitted)). Finally, the sentence is entitled to a 

presumption of reasonableness, and we conclude that McNeal has not rebutted that 

presumption. United States v. Vinson, 852 F.3d 333, 357-58 (4th Cir. 2017). 

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. We deny McNeal’s motion 

for 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