Opinion ID: 4351500
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Duration of the Sentence

Text: This Court reviews a defendant’s challenge to his sentence under a “reasonableness” standard of review that contains both procedural and substantive components. United States v. Friedberg, 558 F.3d 131, 133 (2d Cir. 2009). Reasonableness review is “akin to review for abuse of discretion.” United States v. Fernandez, 443 F.3d 19, 27 (2d Cir. 2006), abrogated on other 2 grounds by Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338 (2007); see also Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 52 (2007). Mears contests both the procedural and substantive reasonableness of his sentence.
A sentence is procedurally unreasonable where the district court “fails to calculate the Guidelines range,” “makes a mistake in its Guidelines calculation,” “treats the Guidelines as mandatory,” “does not consider the [18 U.S.C.] § 3553(a) factors,” “rests its sentence on a clearly erroneous finding of fact,” or “fails adequately to explain its chosen sentence.” United States v. Cavera, 550 F.3d 180, 190 (2d Cir. 2008) (en banc). But Mears does not allege that his sentence suffers from any of those deficiencies. Instead, he claims that the district court erred by considering a statement given to federal agents by Mears’s stepdaughter. On June 29, 2017, federal agents interviewed Mears’s then-twenty-three-year-old stepdaughter, who informed them that she had once seen nude photos of young girls on Mears’s computer twelve to thirteen years prior. The stepdaughter also claimed that when she was in elementary school, Mears had forced her to undress in front of him as punishment for doing something wrong. She further claimed that Mears had taken inappropriate photos of her while bathing, as well as inappropriate videos of young girls in bathing suits at a local pool party. Mears denied these claims. Nevertheless, in sentencing Mears, the district court considered “the prior allegations of the defendant’s behavior towards his stepdaughter when she was a minor . . . in assessing the defendant’s risk of danger to minors in the community.” App. 68. The district court committed no error in considering that information. The 2016 Sentencing Guidelines (the “Guidelines”) mandate that sentencing courts consider, inter alia, “the history and characteristics of the defendant.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1). In sentencing a defendant, there is “[n]o limitation . . . on the information concerning the background, character, and conduct of a person convicted of an offense which a court of the United States may receive 3 and consider for the purpose of imposing an appropriate sentence.” Id. § 3661. Indeed, it is “‘[h]ighly relevant—if not essential—to [the] selection of an appropriate sentence’ that [the sentencing court] possess ‘the fullest information possible concerning the defendant’s life and characteristics.’” United States v. Broxmeyer, 699 F.3d 265, 293 (2d Cir. 2012) (quoting Williams v. New York, 337 U.S. 241, 247 (1949)). Mears does not contest that the federal agents accurately recounted his stepdaughter’s statement. Moreover, that statement had obvious relevance to Mears’s “background, character, and conduct.” 18 U.S.C. § 3661. Given Mears’s confession that he had distributed child pornography, viewed child pornography over more than a decade, and maintained a sizable personal collection of child pornography, the district court reasonably considered allegations that Mears had previously taken inappropriate videos and photographs of minors in assessing Mears’s danger to the community. Finally, the district court considered those allegations alongside substantial character evidence in Mears’s favor, such as “a number of letters . . . speaking to [Mears’s] hard-working abilities and his good character.” App. 56. Under these circumstances, the district court’s determination of Mears’s sentence was not procedurally unreasonable.
In assessing substantive reasonableness, this Court must “take into account the totality of the circumstances, giving due deference to the sentencing judge’s exercise of discretion, and bearing in mind the institutional advantages of district courts.” Cavera, 550 F.3d at 190. “We will set aside sentences as substantively unreasonable only in exceptional cases where the trial court’s decision cannot be located within the range of permissible decisions, that is, when sentences are so shockingly high, shockingly low, or otherwise unsupportable as a matter of law that allowing them to stand would damage the administration of justice.” United States v. Aldeen, 792 F.3d 247, 255 (2d Cir. 2015) (alteration in original) (internal quotations omitted). 4 The district court adopted the sentencing calculation in the defendant’s presentencing report (“PSR”), which recommended a sentencing range of 210 to 262 months under the Guidelines. Nevertheless, the district court sentenced Mears to only 120 months in prison, followed by a life term of supervised release. We have observed in the past that “in the overwhelming majority of cases, a Guidelines sentence will fall comfortably within the broad range of sentences that would be reasonable in the particular circumstances.” Friedberg, 558 F.3d at 137 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Accordingly, “it is difficult to find that a below-Guidelines sentence is substantively unreasonable.” United States v. Rivernider, 828 F.3d 91, 111 (2d Cir. 2016) (citation and brackets omitted). Those principles undoubtedly apply here, where Mears faced a recommended sentence of between 17.5 and 21.8 years, but the district court sentenced him to only ten. Mears argues that the district court placed undue weight on his stepdaughter’s statement, but that contention lacks merit. The district court cited Mears’s “possession of numerous images depicting sadomasochistic inappropriate behavior . . . including bound minors and infants,” ample justification for a “substantial sentence” even absent his stepdaughter’s claims. App. 68. Moreover, the district court clearly placed substantial weight on mitigating factors such as Mears’s remorse, lack of criminal history, history of stable employment, and medical conditions, as evidenced by its downward departure from the recommended Guidelines range. The district court was required to consider “the need for the sentence . . . to protect the public from further crimes of the defendant.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(C). Accordingly, it did not place undue weight on Mears’s stepdaughter’s allegations that Mears had previously taken inappropriate videos and photographs of young children in calculating Mears’s substantially-below-Guidelines sentence. Under these circumstances, the district court’s sentence was not substantively unreasonable. 5 For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s judgment sentencing Mears to eleven concurrent terms of imprisonment for 120 months each and eleven concurrent life terms of supervised release.