UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 15-7125

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff – Appellee,

v.

MARK ANTHONY LINCOLN, a/k/a Johnson Harper, a/k/a Kirk 

Johnson, a/k/a Ben Lewis, a/k/a Kirk Lincoln, a/k/a Quinton 

Harper, a/k/a Christoper Jacob, a/k/a Kirk Williams, a/k/a 

Christopher Jenkins,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

South Carolina, at Florence. Terry L. Wooten, Chief District 

Judge. (4:03-cr-00751-TLW-1)

Submitted: November 6, 2015 Decided: December 1, 2015

Before KING and SHEDD, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, Senior Circuit 

Judge.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Mark Anthony Lincoln, Appellant Pro Se. Arthur Bradley Parham, 

Assistant United States Attorney, Florence, South Carolina, for 

Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

Mark Anthony Lincoln seeks to appeal the district court’s 

order denying relief on his 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) (2012) motion 

for a sentence reduction. For the reasons that follow, we 

affirm. 

A district court may reduce the sentence of a defendant 

whose Sentencing Guidelines sentencing range has been lowered by 

the Sentencing Commission. United States v. Smalls, 720 F.3d 

193, 195 (4th Cir. 2013). Whether to grant such a reduction is 

within the district court’s discretion, so long as it considers 

the factors outlined in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2012) to the extent 

applicable. See 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2); Smalls, 720 F.3d at 

195. We review a district court’s decision whether to grant a 

§ 3582(c)(2) motion for abuse of discretion. United States v. 

Munn, 595 F.3d 183, 186 (4th Cir. 2010). In so doing, we may 

not substitute our judgment for that of the district court, but 

instead consider whether the court’s exercise of discretion was 

arbitrary or capricious. United States v. Mason, 52 F.3d 1286, 

1289 (4th Cir. 1995); see also United States v. Jeffery, 631 

F.3d 669, 679 (4th Cir. 2011) (holding that district court’s 

discretion is extremely broad). 

Our review of the record demonstrates that the court did 

not abuse its discretion in denying Lincoln’s motion. The court 

clearly understood its authority to reduce Lincoln’s sentence 
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pursuant to the Sentencing Guidelines’ amendment but declined to 

do so based on its review of Lincoln’s circumstances. While the 

court was entitled to consider Lincoln’s post-conviction 

conduct, we cannot conclude that the court abused its discretion 

in determining that Lincoln’s extensive criminal history, the 

seriousness of the offense of conviction, and Lincoln’s 

documented disciplinary conviction justified his current 

sentence, even in light of the revised Guidelines range and 

Lincoln’s commitment to rehabilitation. Moreover, Lincoln 

raised certain issues for the first time on appeal, and the 

district court did not abuse its discretion by failing to 

consider them sua sponte. 

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. 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