Court Opinion

ID: 9838228
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-05 19:02:06.396653+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:37:59.343379
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-13677    Document: 20-1      Date Filed: 09/05/2023   Page: 1 of 11

                                                    [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 22-13677
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
        versus
        BRANDEN DEMONTAY GREEN,

                                                   Defendant- Appellant.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Middle District of Georgia
                  D.C. Docket No. 4:13-cr-00028-CDL-MSH-1
                            ____________________
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        2                      Opinion of the Court                22-13677

        Before JORDAN, LAGOA, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
        PER CURIAM:
               Branden Green appeals his 24-month prison sentence im-
        posed upon revocation of his term of supervised release. He ar-
        gues that his sentence, above the applicable advisory sentencing
        guideline range of 8 to 14 months, is substantively unreasonable.
        After review of the parties’ briefs and the record, we aﬃrm.
                                          I
               In December of 2013, Mr. Green pled guilty to one count of
        aiding and abetting in the distribution of crack cocaine in violation
        of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C). In fashioning his sentence,
        the district court varied downward from an applicable guideline
        range of 151 to 188 months to a sentence of 87-months’ imprison-
        ment followed by 4 years of supervised release.
                After his release from custody on August 28, 2020, Mr.
        Green began to serve his supervised release term in the Northern
        District of Georgia. But in June of 2022, his probation oﬃcer ﬁled
        a petition with the district court seeking a revocation of supervised
        release because Mr. Green had violated the terms of his release.
               The petition alleged that Mr. Green had traveled to Bay
        County, Florida without the requisite permission and that while he
        was there, police oﬃcers arrested him on charges of sexual battery
        against a 16-year-old female; the use of a deadly weapon; and pos-
        session of MDMA. Accordingly, the petition asserted two
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        22-13677                  Opinion of the Court                                3

        violations: the ﬁrst, a Grade A violation for engaging in unlawful
        conduct, see U.S.S.G. § 7B1.1(a)(1), and the second, a Grade C vio-
        lation for leaving the Northern District of Georgia without permis-
        sion, see § 7B1.1(a)(3).
               For the two violations, the probation oﬃcer’s revocation re-
        port assigned an overall Grade A classiﬁcation. This was in accord-
        ance with § 7B1.1(b). 1
               Based on the Grade A classiﬁcation and a criminal history
        category of VI, the report noted that the applicable advisory guide-
        line range was 33 to 41 months, but that because Mr. Green was on
        supervised release for a Class C felony, his advisory sentence was
        calculated at the statutory maximum of 24 months, pursuant to 18
        U.S.C § 3583(e)(3).
                At the revocation hearing, the government informed the dis-
        trict court that Mr. Green agreed to admit to the Grade C violation
        in exchange for dismissal of the Grade A violation, and that the
        parties were jointly recommending a sentence at the top of the
        guideline range of 8 to 14 months for the Grade C violation. The
        district court stated, however, that it “may not be inclined to sen-
        tence [Mr. Green] to 14 months” on the Grade C violation and ex-
        plained to Mr. Green that although the advisory guideline range for

        1 Under § 7B1.1(b), “[w] here there is more than one violation of the conditions

        of supervision, or the violation includes conduct that constitutes more than
        one offense, the grade of the violation is determined by the violation having
        the most serious grade.”
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        4                      Opinion of the Court                 22-13677

        his Grade C violation was 8 to 14 months, it “would be authorized,
        depending on [its] ﬁndings . . . [to] sentence [him] up to 24
        months.” See D.E. 59 at 5, 8. When asked whether he understood
        that he could receive a sentence of up to 24-months’ imprisonment,
        Mr. Green responded in the aﬃrmative. He thereafter admitted to
        violating the conditions of his supervised release by traveling to
        Florida without the permission of his probation oﬃcer.
               The district court granted the government’s motion to dis-
        miss the Grade A violation and found, based on his admission, that
        Mr. Green violated the conditions of supervised release as outlined
        in the petition with respect to the Grade C violation. It then stated
        that it had considered the applicable guideline range of 8 to 14
        months and Mr. Green’s criminal history category of VI, and that
        it found that an upward variance to the statutory maximum of 24
        months’ imprisonment was “appropriate and necessary” under the
        § 3553(a) sentencing factors. See id. at 12.
               In explaining its decision, the district court recalled that
        when Mr. Green was ﬁrst sentenced, he “was a career oﬀender”
        who “got a substantial break in his original sentence” and that “he
        did not take advantage of that break.” See id. at 12–13. Instead, “he
        demonstrated . . . a complete disregard for the condition of his su-
        pervised release by leaving the state without obtaining the permis-
        sion of his probation oﬃcer.” See id at 13. The district court further
        explained that Mr. Green’s “disrespect for the law” and his criminal
        history required an upward variance to the statutory maximum of
        24 months, with no supervised release to follow. See id. Based on
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        22-13677               Opinion of the Court                         5

        Mr. Green’s history and characteristics, the sentence was “appro-
        priate,” “complie[d]” with the factors to be considered under 18
        U.S.C §§ 3553(a) and 3583(e), and “adequately addresse[d] the total-
        ity of the circumstances.” See id.
                Mr. Green objected to the substantive reasonableness of the
        sentence, arguing that his violation was only a Grade C violation,
        that it was his ﬁrst violation in the two years since his release, and
        that he and the government had agreed to a joint recommendation
        at the top of the guideline range of 14 months. In response, the
        district court reiterated its rationale in even more detail, stating:
               This defendant is a career oﬀender. This defendant
               was given a substantial break on his original sentence.
               This defendant should have understood that given his
               career oﬀender status and the break that he got, that
               when he was released on supervised release, he
               should do everything in his power to demonstrate re-
               spect for the law. That includes following the condi-
               tions of his supervised release. He should have un-
               derstood with his criminal history that there are con-
               sequences to not following the law, that there are con-
               sequences to not following the rules. And he should,
               more than any other person, perhaps, have fully un-
               derstood that he needed to make sure that he com-
               plied with that law and those conditions in every re-
               spect. And although it was absolutely clear that the
               defendant was prohibited from leaving the district
               without obtaining permission from his probation of-
               ﬁcer, he, nevertheless, given all of that background,
               given his criminal history, just determined that he was
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        6                      Opinion of the Court                  22-13677

               going to ﬂout the law and was not going to respect
               the law and was going to do whatever he wanted to
               do, so he took oﬀ and went to Florida.
                      And for that reason, under all of these circum-
               stances, the Court ﬁnds that the slight upward vari-
               ance that the Court has made in this particular case
               of 10 months is absolutely necessary to promote re-
               spect for the law and to take into consideration the
               history—criminal history of this defendant before he
               came into this Court and also the circumstances of
               his sentence in this Court. And for all of those rea-
               sons, a 24-month sentence is certainly reasonable in
               this Court's view and justiﬁes a variance upward even
               though the guidelines and statute may classify this as
               a Class C violation, which the Court ﬁnds is still a se-
               rious violation, particularly given the history and cir-
               cumstances in this particular case.
        See id. at 15–16.
               On appeal, Mr. Green argues that the district court imposed
        a substantively unreasonable sentence by (1) giving primary focus
        to only two of the § 3553(a) factors—his criminal history and his
        respect for the law—and by (2) considering his dismissed Grade A
        violation.
                                          II
               We review the substantive reasonableness of a sentence im-
        posed upon revocation of supervise release for abuse of discretion,
        and in doing so, consider the totality of the circumstances. See
        United States v. King, 57 F. 4th 1334, 1337 (11th Cir. 2023). The party
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        22-13677               Opinion of the Court                          7

        challenging the sentence bears the burden of establishing that the
        sentence is unreasonable according to the facts of the case and the
        § 3553(a) factors. See id. at 1337–78.
                                          A
                A district court abuses its discretion and imposes a substan-
        tively unreasonable sentence when it “(1) fails to aﬀord considera-
        tion to relevant [§ 3553(a)] factors that were due signiﬁcant weight,
        (2) gives signiﬁcant weight to an improper or irrelevant factor, or
        (3) commits a clear error of judgment in considering the proper
        factors.” United States v. Irey, 612 F.3d 1160, 1189 (11th Cir. 2010)
        (en banc) (internal quotation marks omitted). Under this frame-
        work, we will vacate a sentence as substantively unreasonable
        “only if we are left with the deﬁnite and ﬁrm conviction that the
        district court committed a clear error of judgment in weighing the
        § 3553(a) factors by arriving at a sentence that is outside the range
        of reasonable sentences dictated by the facts of the case.” United
        States v. Goldman, 953 F.3d 1213, 1222 (11th Cir. 2020).
               Where the district court imposes a sentence outside of the
        guideline range, we do not presume that the sentence is unreason-
        able and “give due deference to the district court’s decision that the
        § 3553(a) factors, as a whole, justify the extent of the variance.” See
        id. When imposing an upward variance, the district court must
        provide compelling enough justiﬁcations to support the degree of
        the variance. See United States v. Shaw, 560 F.3d 1230, 1238 (11th Cir.
        2009).
                                          B
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        8                          Opinion of the Court                        22-13677

               Mr. Green argues the district court “failed to properly
        weigh” the § 3553(a) factors by placing “primary focus on only two
        of the factors,” namely, his criminal history and the need to pro-
        mote respect for the law. 2 See Appellant’s Br. at 9, 13. He contends
        that as a result, the district court’s 10-month upward variance to
        the 24-month statutory maximum was substantively unreasonable.
        We disagree for two reasons.

        2 We note that a district court must consider certain of the § 3553(a) factors

        when imposing a prison sentence upon revocation of a defendant’s supervised
        release. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3). The need for the sentence to promote
        respect for the law, see § 3553(a)(2)(A), is not one of those factors. See
        §3583(e)(3) (providing that when revoking a term of supervised release and
        imposing a sentence upon revocation, a district court must consider the factors
        set forth in §§ 3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(B)-(D), (a)(4)-(7)). We have stated that “[t]he
        text of § 3583(e) does not, however, explicitly forbid a district court from con-
        sidering § 3553(a)(2)(A).” United States v. Vandergrift, 754 F.3d 1303, 1308 (11th
        Cir. 2014) (emphasis in original).
        Whether the district court considered an improper sentencing factor when de-
        termining a defendant’s sentence raises a question of procedural reasonable-
        ness. See United States v. Alberts, 859 F.3d 979, 985 (11th Cir. 2017). To the
        extent Mr. Green challenges the procedural reasonableness of his sentence on
        the ground that the district court improperly considered the need to promote
        respect for the law, we review the issue for plain error because he did not ob-
        ject to the procedural reasonableness of his sentence in the district court. See
        United States v. Aguillard, 217 F.3d 1319, 1320 (11th Cir. 2000). Because no prec-
        edent from the Supreme Court or this Court, or the language of § 3583(e) di-
        rectly resolves the issue, we conclude that the district court did not plainly err
        by considering this factor when sentencing Mr. Green. See Vandergrift, 754
        F.3d at 1308–09.
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        22-13677               Opinion of the Court                          9

                First, a district court’s primary reliance on one or two of the
        §3553(a) factors does not render a sentence per se unreasonable.
        See United States v. Kuhlman, 711 F.3d 1321, 1327 (11th Cir. 2013)
        (“[S]igniﬁcant reliance on a single factor does not necessarily render
        a sentence unreasonable.”). District courts have wide discretion in
        weighing the factors and therefore, “[are] permitted to attach great
        weight to one factor over others.” United States v. Riley, 995 F.3d
        1272, 1279 (11th Cir. 2021) (quotation marks and internal citation
        omitted). We have also held that placing substantial weight on a
        defendant’s criminal history—especially where, as here, the defend-
        ant is placed at a criminal history of category VI—is “entirely con-
        sistent with § 3553(a)” because many of the other factors relate to
        a defendant’s criminal history. See United States v. Rosales-Bruno, 789
        F.3d 1249, 1263 (11th Cir. 2015). Therefore, given Mr. Green’s crim-
        inal history and the wide discretion given to district courts in
        weighing the relevant factors when imposing a sentence, we can-
        not say that the district court abused its discretion in giving greater
        weight to Mr. Green’s criminal history and the need to promote
        respect for the law.
               Second, the district court similarly “has considerable discre-
        tion in deciding whether the § 3553(a) factors justify a variance and
        the extent of one that is appropriate.” Shaw, 560 F.3d at 1238 (in-
        ternal quotation marks omitted). And Mr. Green has not shown
        that the district court’s 10-month upward variance was otherwise
        unreasonable.
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        10                     Opinion of the Court                  22-13677

                Though the district court imposed the statutory maximum
        of 24 months in prison, the variance was only 10 months above the
        top end of the applicable guideline range of 8 to 14 months and
        was supported by a suﬃcient and compelling justiﬁcation. The dis-
        trict court explicitly stated that in varying upward it had considered
        the applicable guideline range for Mr. Green; the Grade C classiﬁ-
        cation of his violation; the factors under § 3553(a), including Mr.
        Green’s history and characteristics; and the totality of the circum-
        stances. In doing so, it particularly noted the fact that (1) Mr. Green
        is a career oﬀender who was given a substantial break on his origi-
        nal sentence, and (2) that despite the break and his criminal history,
        he failed to show respect for the law by blatantly violating the con-
        ditions of his supervised release. “It is enough when the [district]
        court considers the defendant’s arguments at sentencing and states
        that it has taken the § 3553(a) factors into account.” United States v.
        Isaac, 987 F.3d 980, 995 (11th Cir. 2021) (internal quotation marks
        omitted). Here, the district court did more than simply state that
        it had considered the relevant factors and provided compelling jus-
        tiﬁcations for its determination. We are thus satisﬁed that the dis-
        trict court adequately considered the § 3553(a) factors and the to-
        tality of the circumstances in imposing the 10-months upward var-
        iance.
              Mr. Green’s additional argument, that the district court im-
        properly considered the dismissed Grade A violation, lacks merit.
        Mr. Green speculates that, since his sentence would have been
        capped at the 24-month statutory maximum had he admitted to
        the Grade A violation, the district court necessarily took into
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        22-13677              Opinion of the Court                       11

        account the dismissed violation when varying upward and sentenc-
        ing him to 24 months in prison. But the district court explained its
        reasoning for varying upwards on two separate occasions and both
        times its reasoning was clear and speciﬁc. Notably, the district
        court at no point mentioned the alleged Grade A violation or the
        facts surrounding it. We therefore reject Mr. Green’s claim as lack-
        ing support in the record.
                                        III
              We aﬃrm Mr. Green’s sentence.
        AFFIRMED.