Court Opinion

ID: 9954679
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-26 19:01:02.577255+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:12:11.570290
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-13374    Document: 42-1     Date Filed: 03/26/2024   Page: 1 of 8

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-13374
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                      Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
       versus
       DEDRICK DAWON MCDOWELL,

                                                  Defendant- Appellant.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                    for the Northern District of Alabama
                  D.C. Docket No. 7:21-cr-00339-LSC-NAD-1
                          ____________________
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       2                      Opinion of the Court                22-13374

       Before JORDAN, LAGOA, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Dedrick McDowell has a long and growing rapsheet. He has
       previously been convicted of crimes such as obstruction of justice,
       attempt to elude law enforcement, resisting arrest, disarming law
       enforcement, and assault. He has also been charged with serious
       crimes, including obstruction of justice, attempting to elude law
       enforcement, resisting arrest, tampering with physical evidence,
       reckless driving, reckless endangerment, domestic violence assault,
       drug trafficking, unlawful drug or drug paraphernalia possession,
       and receipt of stolen property. Those charges are pending in state
       court. Because McDowell is a convicted felon, he is not allowed to
       possess a firearm. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Twice over the course
       of seven months, however, police officers conducting traffic stops
       caught McDowell with loaded pistols.
              McDowell was indicted on two counts of Section 922(g)(1)
       violations. McDowell pleaded guilty to both counts, and the case
       proceeded to sentencing. At the sentencing phase of a criminal
       case, federal district courts are asked to fashion a sentence that is
       “sufficient, but not greater than necessary to,” among other things,
       “promote respect for the law,” “afford adequate deterrence to
       criminal conduct,” and “protect the public from further crimes of
       the defendant.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), (a)(2)(A)–(C). District courts
       must consider many factors when fashioning a sentence, with “the
       history and characteristics of the defendant” being one such factor.
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       22-13374               Opinion of the Court                         3

       Id. § 3553(a)(1). To aid district courts’ navigation of the multi-fac-
       eted sentencing process, Congress tasked the United States Sen-
       tencing Commission with publishing the United States Sentencing
       Guidelines. 28 U.S.C. § 994(a)(1); 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(4)(A)(i). The
       Guidelines contain a formula that takes a defendant’s criminal his-
       tory into account as one of several inputs to identify a range of rec-
       ommended sentences. See U.S.S.G. § 1B1.1(a). The criminal history
       input comprises only past convictions, see id. § 4A1.1, meaning that
       McDowell’s pending state charges did not factor into that calcula-
       tion. McDowell’s criminal history was a level 8, and his Guidelines
       recommendation was 57-71 months’ imprisonment per count.
               The district court concluded that neither 57-71 months (if
       the sentences ran concurrently) nor 114-142 months (if the sen-
       tences ran consecutively) was “sufficient” in light of McDowell’s
       significant and largely underrepresented criminal history and his
       likelihood to reoffend once released. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). The dis-
       trict court found that McDowell has no respect for the law or law
       enforcement and that McDowell exhibits his disdain in particularly
       dangerous ways. One of McDowell’s prior convictions involved
       him violently attacking two police officers and causing injuries to
       both. Some of McDowell’s pending state charges arose from mul-
       tiple attempts to avoid or escape police custody.
             The district court heard testimony that McDowell drove
       away in the middle of a traffic stop, while a police officer was lean-
       ing against the car. During the car chase that ensued, McDowell
       threw “roughly three and a half pounds” of cocaine out of the car.
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       4                       Opinion of the Court                   22-13374

       McDowell eventually crashed the vehicle and ran away on foot,
       avoiding capture at that time. Police later found McDowell in a sto-
       len vehicle, but he evaded a police helicopter. Police had to surveil
       his home, which led to another dangerous pursuit. McDowell
       again crashed a vehicle but was this time taken into custody.
              McDowell’s violent and reckless behavior has not been di-
       rected solely at law enforcement. The district court also heard tes-
       timony that McDowell has pending domestic violence charges aris-
       ing from McDowell physically attacking his girlfriend —by hitting,
       headbutting, and biting her—because she asked that McDowell re-
       turn her vehicle to her. McDowell concluded the attack by repeat-
       edly kicking his girlfriend’s car and, according to the girlfriend’s tes-
       timony, causing $700 in damage to the vehicle.
                Finally, the district court found that McDowell has been and
       still is engaged in the drug trade. Not only does McDowell have
       pending charges for drug trafficking, but in both traffic stops giving
       rise to this prosecution, McDowell was discovered with loaded pis-
       tols, large quantities of controlled substances, and thousands of dol-
       lars in cash.
               Based on these and similar facts, the district court concluded
       that imposing a guidelines sentence would be insufficient to satisfy
       the district court’s obligations under Section 3553(a). In light of
       McDowell’s disregard for the law and his violent tendencies, the
       district court concluded that the only sentence it could impose that
       would even arguably satisfy Section 3553(a) was the statutory max-
       imum—120 months for each count, running consecutively, for a
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       22-13374               Opinion of the Court                         5

       total of 240 months’ imprisonment. See 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(2). The
       district court ran this sentence concurrent with any sentence
       McDowell received upon conviction for the pending state charges.
             McDowell argues that this sentence was substantively un-
       reasonable because it varies so greatly from the guidelines range.
       We disagree.
               McDowell first argues that degree of the variance itself con-
       stitutes reversible error. To allow such a sentence, he says, threat-
       ens to upend the uniformity of sentences received by defendants
       who have committed similar crimes. To ward off the specter of un-
       due disparity, McDowell asks us to adopt a presumption that vari-
       ances of this magnitude are substantively unreasonable. Our
       caselaw counsels against any such presumption. We have ap-
       proved similarly significant upward variances based on a defend-
       ant’s significant criminal history and likelihood of recidivism. See
       United States v. Rosales-Bruno, 789 F.3d 1249, 1253, 1256–57 (11th
       Cir. 2015) (60-month upward variance; 222% increase above
       Guidelines); United States v. Early, 686 F.3d 1219, 1221–23 (11th Cir.
       2012) (113-month upward variance; 116% increase above Guide-
       lines); United States v. Shaw, 560 F.3d 1230, 1235–36, 1239–41 (11th
       Cir. 2009) (83-month upward variance; 224% increase above
       Guidelines). Here, the district court’s total variance was 169
       months (238%) if compared to concurrent Guidelines sentences or
       98 months (69%) if compared to consecutive Guidelines sentences.
       Even under the more drastic comparison, the variance here is not
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       6                       Opinion of the Court                  22-13374

       materially different than the sentences we approved in Rosales-
       Bruno, Early, and Shaw.
              McDowell also contends that, with or without any presump-
       tion of unreasonableness, his sentence is unlawful because the dis-
       trict court gave improper weight to the litany of pending state
       charges. To be clear, McDowell concedes that the district court
       was allowed to consider the pending charges. Appellant’s Br. at 16.
       And McDowell did “not disput[e]” the nature or circumstances of
       those charges, and he even purported to “accept[] responsibility for
       those” charges. Id. at 6–7 (internal quotation marks and citation
       omitted). Moreover, we note that the district court heard extensive
       testimony about McDowell’s conduct, which resulted in these
       charges. That is, the district court did not merely rely on the fact
       that McDowell had been arrested and charged with these offenses;
       it found by a preponderance of evidence that McDowell commit-
       ted the offenses with which he has been charged.
              Nonetheless, McDowell argues that the district court gave
       too much weight to the conduct that made up these pending
       charges. That’s a losing position. A district court’s discretion to find
       facts at sentencing and to weigh the Section 3553(a) factors is
       broad. We will remand for resentencing only if the district court
       “commit[ted] a clear error in judgment[.]” United States v. Irey, 612
       F.3d 1160, 1189 (11th Cir. 2010) (en banc). The district court did not
       commit any clear error here. There’s no disputing that McDowell
       has a history of violent and reckless behavior, and the district court
       heard evidence of that behavior. Because only a fraction of
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       22-13374              Opinion of the Court                        7

       McDowell’s history is evidenced by prior convictions, the district
       court found that the Guidelines calculation did not account for the
       full magnitude of McDowell’s background and characteristics.
              The district court’s decision to give substantial weight
       McDowell’s criminal conduct—for which he has been charged but
       not yet convicted—was not “a clear error in judgment.” Id. Such
       evidence is highly probative of the defendant’s respect for the law
       and likelihood of recidivism. See Rosales-Bruno, 789 F.3d at 1253,
       1256–57; Early, 686 F.3d at 1221–23; Shaw, 560 F.3d at 1235–36,
       1239–41.
              Establishing the substantive unreasonableness of a federal
       criminal sentence is a heavy burden. See Rosales-Bruno, 789 F.3d at
       1256 (“[I]t is only the rare sentence that will be substantively un-
       reasonable.” (quoting United States v. McQueen, 727 F.3d 1144, 1156
       (11th Cir. 2013))). McDowell has not carried that burden in this
       case. The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
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       1                 JORDAN, J., Concurring                  22-13374

       JORDAN, Circuit Judge, Concurring in the Judgment.

              Even though we are conducting abuse of discretion review,
       for me this is a close case with respect to substantive
       unreasonableness. It is close because the district court’s sentence
       of 240 months constituted an upward variance of about 240% from
       the top of the advisory guidelines range of 57-71 months. And it is
       close because the district court based this significant variance in
       large part on criminal conduct for which Mr. McDowell had been
       charged but not convicted.
               I concur in the judgment for two reasons. First, our
       precedent indicates that Mr. McDowell is not entitled to reversal.
       See, e.g., United States v. Shaw, 560 F.3d 1230, 1238-41 (11th Cir.
       2009) (upholding sentence of 120 months, which was an upward
       variance from the advisory guideline range of 30-37 months, for
       one count of being a felon-in-possession (due to the defendant’s
       criminal history). Second, this is not a case in which the district
       court relied on arrest narratives set out in the PSR in the face of
       denials by the defendant. Instead, the district court heard
       testimony on the conduct that led to Mr. McDowell’s arrests and
       credited that testimony.