Opinion ID: 182854
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Richard Brown

Text: We review sentences for reasonableness, which is “akin to review for abuse of discretion.” United States v. Fernandez, 443 F.3d 19, 27 (2d Cir. 2006). Reasonableness has both procedural and substantive components. See United States v. Avello-Alvarez, 430 F.3d 543, 545 (2d Cir. 2005). A district court commits procedural error if it fails to calculate the Guidelines range (unless omission of the calculation is justified), errs in its Guidelines calculation, treats the Guidelines as mandatory, does not consider the factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), rests its sentence on a clearly erroneous factual determination, or fails to adequately explain its chosen sentence (including any deviation from the Guidelines range). See United States v. Cavera, 550 F.3d 180, 190 (2d Cir. 2008) (en banc). In reviewing sentences for substantive reasonableness, we apply a “deferential abuse-of-discretion standard,” and will set aside the district court’s sentence “only in exceptional cases where [its] decision cannot be located within the range of permissible decisions.” Id. at 189 (internal quotation marks omitted). The district court sentenced Richard Brown principally to 60 months, well below the bottom of the 92 to 115 months recommended by the Guidelines. Richard Brown argues that: (1) the district court failed to address his argument that he had a minor role in the offense; (2) it failed to adequately analyze the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors; and (3) it failed to consider the disparities between his sentence and that of his co-defendants. We find none of these contentions persuasive. First, the transcript of the sentencing hearing reflects that the district court considered, and rejected, Richard Brown’s assertion that his role in the offense was minor. After listening to -13- a presentation by counsel about offense role, the district court observed that the record indicated that, in at least one instance, Richard Brown had personally filed a false credit application, and asked the defense to respond. The defense’s only response was a blunt denial of responsibility by Richard Brown himself, which the district court understandably did not find persuasive. We thus reject the suggestion that the district court failed to address the defense’s arguments regarding role. We also disagree with Richard Brown’s contention that the district court failed to give adequate attention to the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors or provided insufficient reasoning for its sentence. A district court need not “expressly parse or address every argument relating to those factors that the defendant advanced,” and we entertain “a strong presumption that the sentencing judge has considered all arguments properly presented to her, unless the record clearly suggests otherwise.” Fernandez, 443 F.3d at 29-30. No “robotic incantation” is needed to prove that consideration of all of the § 3553(a) factors occurred. Id. at 30 (quoting United States v. Crosby, 397 F.3d 103, 113 (2d Cir. 2005)). The district court noted that the Guidelines range for Richard Brown was “largely driven . . . by Mr. Brown’s criminal history.” Tr. of R. Brown Sent. at 28. The court nevertheless imposed a below-Guidelines sentence of 60 months and stated that the sentence was based on “the trial that I sat through, my knowledge of the case, and Mr. Brown’s participation in this conspiracy.” Id. It is distinctly the role of the district court to determine what weight is to be afforded to each § 3553(a) factor, and we consider only “whether a factor relied on by a sentencing court can bear the weight assigned to it.” Cavera, 550 F.3d at 191. The district court’s statements at sentencing demonstrate that it considered Richard Brown’s lengthy criminal -14- history and recidivism as especially significant factors in fashioning an appropriate sentence. Especially given the substantially below-Guidelines sentence imposed, we cannot see any basis for stating that the district court attached undue weight to this particular factor. For much the same reasons, we do not agree that the district court failed to consider “the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6). Richard Brown’s co-defendants were in lower Criminal History Categories — Category III in the case of Datil,3 and Category II in the case of David Brown. Richard Brown also complains that he received the same sentence as another co-defendant, Angel Hernandez, despite Hernandez’s conviction additional counts and significantly greater role in the offenses. But Hernandez’s criminal history was Category I, in contrast to Richard Brown’s Category V. The district court, again, made clear that Richard Brown’s persistent recidivism was the predominant factor at his sentencing. There is accordingly no basis for us to conclude that any sentence disparity was unwarranted. See Fernandez, 443 F.3d at 28 (“[A] disparity between non-similarly situated co-defendants is not a valid basis for a claim of error under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6).”) (emphasis in original). We thus affirm Richard Brown’s sentence. 3 The district court sentenced Datil to a single day in prison (plus three years of supervised release, with the first six months to be served in a halfway house), but did so in part because, in findings that were almost exactly the opposite of its findings regarding the lack of deterrent effect that Richard Brown's prior convictions had on Brown, it concluded that Datil “has been sufficiently shocked and disturbed by this prosecution, to be deterred from any further conduct of that kind.” Tr. of Datil Sent. at 52. -15-