Opinion ID: 4553390
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Reasonableness of Suggs’s Sentence

Text: Suggs ends by claiming that his 151-month sentence (one at the bottom of his guidelines range) is procedurally unreasonable both because the district court failed to consider the disparity 15 No. 19-5942, United States v. Suggs between his sentence and Pride’s and because the court failed to account for his mental illness. We review his claim for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Parrish, 915 F.3d 1043, 1047 (6th Cir. 2019). To impose a procedurally reasonable sentence, a district court must, among other things, consider the sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). See id. Suggs’s two challenges fail because the district court adequately did so. First, Suggs correctly notes that a sentencing court must consider “the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities” among similarly situated defendants. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6). But he incorrectly suggests that this factor required the court to consider the disparities between his significant sentence and Pride’s modest one. It did not. Section 3553(a)(6) “‘concerns national disparities,’ and does not require district courts to consider ‘disparities between codefendants.’” United States v. Arellanes-Pena, 729 F. App’x 430, 434 (6th Cir. 2018) (quoting United States v. Conatser, 514 F.3d 508, 521 (6th Cir. 2008)). Pride was not even a federal codefendant. He was a defendant in a state case. But “§ 3553(a)(6)’s admonition that sentencing courts avoid unwarranted disparities is directed only at federal court to federal court disparities[.]” United States v. Malone, 503 F.3d 481, 486 (6th Cir. 2007). And the district court did recognize the need to avoid unwarranted disparities, which explains why it imposed a within-guidelines sentence. In contrast, “[t]he very thing [Suggs] presumably wants—a below-guidelines sentence—is more likely to create disparities than eliminate them.” United States v. Swafford, 639 F.3d 265, 270 (6th Cir. 2011) (emphasis added). Second, Suggs correctly recognizes that § 3553(a)(1) requires a court to consider the “history and characteristics of the defendant,” including a defendant’s mental illness. See United States v. Robinson, 778 F.3d 515, 523 (6th Cir. 2015); see also United States v. Jones, 795 F. App’x 444, 445 (6th Cir. 2020). But the district court did so: “As far as the history and characteristics of the 16 No. 19-5942, United States v. Suggs defendant, without question, Mr. Suggs was raised in a very difficult environment . . . . And his mental health challenges from early on has certainly been a part of that story.” That is precisely why the district court imposed a sentence at the bottom of the guidelines range. We affirm. 17