Opinion ID: 1468407
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Absence of Weapons

Text: The district court varied downward in part because Feemster did not carry a weapon when he committed his past crimes. As we noted in Feemster II, Feemster would have committed several other crimes and received additional sentencing enhancements had he possessed a weapon during the robbery or while distributing crack cocaine. Feemster II, 483 F.3d at 589. The fact that Feemster did not carry a weapon was already taken into account in calculating Feemster's Sentencing Guidelines range. See United States v. Morales-Uribe, 470 F.3d 1282, 1286 (8th Cir.2006) (explaining substantial variances based upon factors already taken into account in a defendant's guidelines sentencing range seriously undermine sentencing uniformity) (citation and quotation marks omitted). Gall does not overrule our circuit precedent or our conclusion in Feemster II that [t]he absence of grounds that justify further punishment is not a ground for a downward variance. Feemster II, 483 F.3d at 589 (citing Plaza, 471 F.3d at 879 and Morales-Uribe, 470 F.3d at 1286). The absence of a weapon in this particular case is irrelevant and not a sufficient justification for this unusually lenient sentence.