Court Opinion

ID: 994705
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2013-07-04 00:26:50.3562+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:06:14.036555
License: Public Domain

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.                                                                    No. 97-4833

REGAN THOMAS STARKIE,
Defendant-Appellant.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.                                                                    No. 97-4834

GERALD TYRONE SYKES,
Defendant-Appellant.

Appeals from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of North Carolina, at Winston-Salem.
Richard C. Erwin, Senior District Judge.
(CR-97-128)

Submitted: March 24, 1998

Decided: April 14, 1998

Before MURNAGHAN, HAMILTON, and MOTZ, Circuit Judges.

_________________________________________________________________

Affirmed and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.

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COUNSEL

Thomas N. Cochran, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Greensboro,
North Carolina; Bryan E. Gates, Jr., Winston-Salem, North Carolina,
for Appellants. Walter C. Holton, Jr., United States Attorney, Douglas
Cannon, Assistant United States Attorney, Greensboro, North Caro-
lina, for Appellee.

_________________________________________________________________

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See
Local Rule 36(c).

_________________________________________________________________

OPINION

PER CURIAM:

The Appellants, Gerald Sykes and Regan Starkie, appeal the sen-
tences they received after pleading guilty to bank larceny1 for their
involvement in breaking into an automatic teller machine (ATM) and
taking over $84,000. The Appellants protest a two-level increase in
their total offense level under U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual
§ 2B1.1(b)(4) (1995) on a finding by the district court that their
offense involved "more than minimal planning." The Appellants con-
tend that this enhancement was improper because their offense
involved nothing more than prying open an ATM machine with a tire
iron and taking what was inside. They claim that this enhancement is
appropriate only for sophisticated crimes that involve more ingenuity
and planning. We disagree.

We review the district court's finding of more than minimal plan-
ning with a great deal of deference. Because the determination of
whether or not a crime involves more than minimal planning is essen-
tially one of fact, we will reverse only if we find a district court's
decision clearly erroneous.2 Under this standard of review, we have
no difficulty upholding the district court.

While the Appellants are certainly correct that this enhancement is
appropriate for crimes which display sophistication and ingenuity,
_________________________________________________________________
1 See 18 U.S.C. § 2113(b) (1994).
2 See United States v. Daughtrey , 874 F.2d 213, 217 (4th Cir. 1989).

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their attempt to limit the enhancement to such crimes must be
rejected. Although the Appellants' larceny was not ingenious or elab-
orate in its execution, they admitted to changing clothes, gatherings
tools, and sending a substantial portion of the money away for safe-
keeping after the crime. The district court weighed this evidence and
concluded that the circumstances surrounding the larceny justified a
two-level increase. On this record, we cannot say that the lower court
clearly erred.

Finally, the Appellants appeal a discrepancy between the district
court's oral sentences given in their presence and its written orders of
judgment concerning restitution. When there is a conflict between a
written order of sentence and an oral sentence, the latter is control-
ling, and the proper remedy is for the district court to correct its writ-
ten judgment so that it conforms to its oral pronouncement.3 Because
the written orders are incorrect, we must remand the case to the dis-
trict court so that it can correct its written orders to reflect the oral
sentences.

We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal conten-
tions are adequately presented in the materials before the court and
argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED AND REMANDED
_________________________________________________________________
3 See United States v. Morse, 344 F.2d 27, 30 (4th Cir. 1965); Rakes
v. United States, 309 F.2d 686, 687-88 (4th Cir. 1962).

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