Court Opinion

ID: 9945763
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-28 16:01:52.379456+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:25:39.770104
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                            For the Eighth Circuit
                        ___________________________

                                No. 23-1843
                        ___________________________

                            United States of America

                                      Plaintiff - Appellee

                                        v.

                              Deandre Parrie Davis

                                    Defendant - Appellant
                                  ____________

                     Appeal from United States District Court
                    for the Northern District of Iowa - Eastern
                                  ____________

                         Submitted: December 11, 2023
                           Filed: February 28, 2024
                                [Unpublished]
                                ____________

Before ERICKSON, MELLOY, and STRAS, Circuit Judges.
                          ____________

PER CURIAM.

       Following Deandre Parrie Davis’s guilty pleas to several drug offenses, the
district court 1 sentenced him to 188 months’ imprisonment and 12 years of

      1
        The Honorable C. J. Williams, United States District Court for the Northern
District of Iowa.
supervised release. Davis appeals, claiming his sentence was substantively
unreasonable. We affirm.

       Davis pled guilty to three offenses: conspiracy to distribute heroin and
fentanyl, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(C), 846, and 851;
distribution of heroin and fentanyl within 1,000 feet of a protected location, in
violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(C), 851, and 860(a); and distribution
of heroin and fentanyl, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(C), and 851.
At sentencing, the district court determined that Davis was a career offender,
resulting in an offense level of 34. After applying a three-level reduction for
acceptance of responsibility and placing Davis in criminal history category VI, the
district court found Davis’s advisory Sentencing Guidelines range was 188 to 235
months’ imprisonment. Davis requested a downward variance of 40-50 months, and
the government recommended a sentence of 200 months. The district court
sentenced Davis to 188 months’ imprisonment, the low end of his advisory
Sentencing Guidelines range.

       We review Davis’s challenge to the substantive reasonableness of his sentence
for abuse of discretion. United States v. Sadler, 864 F.3d 902, 904 (8th Cir. 2017).
A district court abuses its broad sentencing discretion if it does not consider a
relevant sentencing factor which should have been given significant weight, gives
significant weight to an improper or irrelevant factor, or commits a clear error of
judgment when weighing the appropriate factors. United States v. Clark, 998 F.3d
363, 369 (8th Cir. 2021).

       Davis asserts the district court did not properly weigh his mental health, but
the record reflects that the district court rooted its sentence in Davis’s egregious
criminal history, finding it demonstrated a likelihood of recidivism. Davis has
sustained 16 adult convictions, 5 of which involved violent assaults, and 11 of which
he committed while on probation or supervised release, including the underlying
offense. In addition, the district court described Davis’s conduct while incarcerated
as “some of the worst” it had ever seen and noted that while in custody Davis had

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engaged in violent assaults on correctional officers. He fared no better on supervised
release. While the district court weighed Davis’s mental health differently than he
wanted, the district court’s explanation for the sentence is more than sufficient to
demonstrate it did not abuse its broad sentencing discretion when imposing the
within-Guidelines sentence. See United States v. Perry, 2 F.4th 1146, 1150 (8th Cir.
2021) (noting a defendant’s disagreement with the weight given to certain
sentencing factors does not amount to an abuse of the district court’s wide sentencing
discretion). We affirm.
                       ______________________________

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