Court Opinion

ID: 9909101
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-12 17:01:00.473861+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:50:03.715302
License: Public Domain

Appellate Case: 23-6034     Document: 010110967046   Date Filed: 12/12/2023   Page: 1
                                                           FILED
                                               United States Court of Appeals
                     UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit

                            FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT               December 12, 2023
                          _________________________________
                                                               Christopher M. Wolpert
                                                                   Clerk of Court
  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

           Plaintiff - Appellee,

  v.                                                     No. 23-6034
                                              (D.C. No. 5:20-CR-00149-PRW-1)
  GREGORY YARNELL WILLIAMS,                             (W.D. Okla.)

           Defendant - Appellant.
                        _________________________________

                             ORDER AND JUDGMENT
                          _________________________________

 Before PHILLIPS, BALDOCK, and ROSSMAN, Circuit Judges.
                   _________________________________

       Gregory Yarnell Williams pleaded guilty to one count of possessing

 methamphetamine with intent to distribute in violation of 21 U.S.C.

 § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A), and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm

 in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The district court initially imposed

       
         This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the
 doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be
 cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. 32.1
 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.

       
         After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has
 determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in
 the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R.
 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.
Appellate Case: 23-6034    Document: 010110967046   Date Filed: 12/12/2023   Page: 2

 concurrent 284-month sentences on each count. Mr. Williams appealed, and

 this court vacated the judgment and remanded for resentencing. See United

 States v. Williams (Williams I), 48 F.4th 1125, 1128 (10th Cir. 2022). On

 remand, the district court imposed a 272-month sentence for the drug count

 and a 120-month sentence for the firearm count, again running concurrently.

 On appeal, Mr. Williams argues his sentence is substantively unreasonable.

 Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.

                                         I

       The background facts are detailed in Williams I, 48 F.4th at 1128–32.

 A summary suffices for this appeal.

                                        A

       In May 2020, investigators observed Mr. Williams pick up a package

 flagged as suspicious by the United States Postal Inspection Service. Id. at

 1128. A month later, investigators intercepted a different package

 addressed to the same residence and discovered it contained suspected

 methamphetamine          in   vacuum-sealed   bundles.   Id.   at   1129.    The

 investigators repackaged the shipment for delivery, and law enforcement

 officers subsequently observed Mr. Williams bring the package inside the

 residence and leave in his SUV shortly thereafter. Id. Officers stopped the

 SUV, arrested Mr. Williams, and obtained a search warrant for the

 residence, where they found the resealed package, two scales, a heat sealer,

                                         2
Appellate Case: 23-6034    Document: 010110967046     Date Filed: 12/12/2023    Page: 3

 a surveillance system, and a loaded revolver. Id. Subsequent testing showed

 the    intercepted       package   contained       1,222    grams      of     actual

 methamphetamine. Id.

       Mr. Williams was convicted after pleading guilty to one count of

 possessing methamphetamine with intent to distribute in violation of 21

 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A), and one count of being a felon in possession of

 a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Mr. Williams’s advisory

 Sentencing Guidelines range was 360 months to life imprisonment. The

 district court granted a downward variance from the Guidelines range and

 imposed concurrent 284-month sentences on each count.

       This court vacated Mr. Williams’s sentence and remanded to the

 district court to (1) make further drug-quantity findings regarding the § 841

 violation and (2) resentence Mr. Williams on the § 922 violation without the

 Armed Career Criminal Act enhancement.

                                         B

       On remand, the United States Probation Office filed a supplement to

 the presentence investigation report (PSR). Probation calculated Mr.

 Williams’s total offense level as 38:

                                         3
Appellate Case: 23-6034   Document: 010110967046   Date Filed: 12/12/2023   Page: 4

            Base Offense Level – § 841(a) violation1                       36
            Specific Offense Characteristics – § 2D1.1(b)(1)               +2
            Specific Offense Characteristics – § 2D1.1(b)(12)              +2
            Acceptance of Responsibility – § 3E1.1(a)2                     -2
            Total Offense Level                                            38
 R.II at 48–50. At criminal history category VI, Mr. Williams’s Guidelines

 range was 360 months to life.

       Mr. Williams filed a sentencing memorandum requesting a downward

 variance from the Guidelines range under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). As relevant

 here, Mr. Williams urged the court to consider his good conduct since the

 original sentencing, “including work in a UNICOR facility, educational

 programming, and the lack of institutional misconduct sanctions.” R.I. at

 211. He also pointed to data from the Judiciary Sentencing Information

       1 The PSR supplement grouped the § 841(a) and § 922 counts under

 U.S.S.G. § 3D1.2(c).

       2 At the original sentencing, the government did not move for the
 additional one-level decrease pursuant to § 3E1.1(b). As the government
 explains in its Response Brief, the government declined to move for the
 additional one-level point decrease “[b]ased on a letter submitted to the
 district court in which Mr. Williams downplayed his involvement in the
 distribution of the drugs and claimed the firearm did not belong to him, that
 the house was not used for drug distribution, and that ‘this was a one time
 thing for methamphetamine.’” Resp. Br. at 6.
                                        4
Appellate Case: 23-6034   Document: 010110967046    Date Filed: 12/12/2023   Page: 5

 (JSIN) database showing the mean length of imprisonment for similar

 methamphetamine offenders3 is 240 months.

       At the resentencing hearing, the district court initially calculated Mr.

 Williams’s Guidelines range based on an offense level of 36 and a criminal

 history category of VI, yielding a Guidelines range of 324 to 405 months of

 imprisonment on the drug count and 120 months of incarceration on the

 firearm count. After hearing arguments from Mr. Williams and the

 government, the district court granted in part and denied in part the

 downward variance.

       The district court began by explaining why it originally imposed a

 284-month sentence—the subject of the direct appeal in Williams I. That

 sentence “wasn’t driven by the guideline range,” the district court

 explained, “because it was . . . way below the guideline range.” R.III at 37.

 Rather,

              [the court] was largely concerned at the time about
              . . . the criminal history category of VI and that sort
              of continuous, but escalating conduct related to drug
              trafficking, the fact that Mr. Williams was kind of
              past the age that you would normally see aging out
              [of this type of criminal activity], and yet nothing
              was changing and the prior interventions just hadn’t

       3 Mr. Williams maintained this data was specific to “individuals
 sentenced under the primary Guideline of § 2D1.1 for methamphetamine
 with a criminal history category of VI and who did not benefit from a
 substantial assistance motion under § 5K1.1.” R.I at 214. These metrics are
 not relevant to this appeal.
                                        5
Appellate Case: 23-6034   Document: 010110967046   Date Filed: 12/12/2023   Page: 6

              seemed to do anything. So the sentence was really
              driven by that and [the court’s] concern about the
              need to protect the public.

 R.III at 29. Still, the district court imposed a below-Guidelines sentence of

 284 months “because just looking at [Mr. Williams’s] age, . . . . he’s going to

 be quite an old man by the time he gets out.” R.III at 29. “[S]urely at that

 point in his life,” the court reasoned, “he will be aged out of this conduct.”

 R.III at 29. But the court “wanted to impose a sentence that wasn’t a life

 sentence . . . . [t]hat wasn’t one where [Mr. Williams would think] that there

 was no prospect on the other end” such that he would “give up” on bettering

 himself while incarcerated. R.III at 37–38. The 284-month sentence, then,

 was selected to be “long enough to protect the public from future crimes by

 [Mr. Williams],” but “was not so lengthy as to make [Mr. Williams] give up

 and think that [he is] never going to get out.” R.III at 38.

        According to the district court, “[v]irtually nothing has changed”

 since the original sentencing proceeding, and “[r]eally the only thing that’s

 cutting in [Mr. Williams’s favor on resentencing] is . . . that [his] conduct

 since being incarcerated has been good and [he has] taken advantage of

 programming in an attempt to better [himself].” R.III at 38. The court

 reasoned that “[not] a ton of credit” should be given to Mr. Williams for good

 conduct    while    incarcerated,   because   “you   should    behave      while

                                        6
Appellate Case: 23-6034   Document: 010110967046   Date Filed: 12/12/2023   Page: 7

 incarcerated,” but the court “appreciate[d]” that Mr. Williams was taking

 advantage of BOP programming. R.III at 38.

       The district court sentenced Mr. Williams to prison for 272 months on

 the drug count and 120 months on the firearm count, to run concurrently,

 yielding a sentence one year shorter than the original sentence. The court

 acknowledged that in coming to its resentencing decision, it “consider[ed]

 the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among similarly-

 situated defendants.” R.III at 27.

       Mr. Williams timely appealed.

                                       II

       “[A]ppellate review for reasonableness includes both a procedural

 component, encompassing the method by which a sentence was calculated,

 as well as a substantive component, which relates to the length of the

 resulting sentence.” United States v. Smart, 518 F.3d 800, 803 (10th Cir.

 2008). This appeal presents a single question following the remand in

 Williams I: whether the 272-month sentence imposed by the district court

 on resentencing is substantively unreasonable.

        “[A] substantive challenge concerns the reasonableness of the

 sentence’s length and focuses on the district court's consideration of the

 § 3553(a) factors and the sufficiency of the justifications used to support the

 sentence.” United States v. Sanchez-Leon, 764 F.3d 1248, 1267 (10th Cir.

                                        7
Appellate Case: 23-6034   Document: 010110967046   Date Filed: 12/12/2023   Page: 8

 2014) (quoting United States v. Lente, 647 F.3d 1021, 1030 (10th Cir. 2011)).

 “When reviewing a sentence for substantive reasonableness, we focus on

 ‘whether the length of the sentence is reasonable given all the

 circumstances of the case in light of the factors set forth in 18 U.S.C.

 § 3553(a).’”4 United States v. Cookson, 922 F.3d 1079, 1091 (10th Cir. 2019)

 (quoting United States v. Friedman, 554 F.3d 1301, 1307 (10th Cir. 2009)).

 “A sentencing decision is substantively unreasonable if it ‘exceed[s] the

 bounds of permissible choice, given the facts and the applicable law.’”

 United States v. Chavez, 723 F.3d 1226, 1233 (10th Cir. 2013)

 (quoting United States v. McComb, 519 F.3d 1049, 1053 (10th Cir. 2007)).

       “We review the substantive reasonableness of a sentence under a

 deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.”5 United States v. Richards, 958

 F.3d 961, 968 (10th Cir. 2020); see also Smart, 518 F.3d at 805 (“[I]t has

       4 Under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), district courts are required to consider

 seven factors in sentencing: “(1) the nature and circumstances of the offense
 and the history and characteristics of the defendant; (2) the need for a
 sentence to reflect the basic aims of sentencing, namely (a) just punishment
 (retribution), (b) deterrence, (c) incapacitation, and (d) rehabilitation; (3)
 the kinds of sentences available; (4) the Sentencing Commission Guidelines;
 (5) Sentencing Commission policy statements; (6) the need to avoid
 unwarranted sentencing disparities; and (7) the need for restitution.”
 United States v. Cookson, 922 F.3d 1079, 1092 (10th Cir. 2019) (citation and
 quotation marks omitted).

       5 This abuse of discretion standard applies regardless of whether the

 sentence on review was imposed on sentencing or resentencing. See United
 States v. Maldonado-Passage, 56 F.4th 830, 841–42 (10th Cir. 2022).
                                        8
Appellate Case: 23-6034   Document: 010110967046   Date Filed: 12/12/2023   Page: 9

 been well settled that we review a district court’s sentencing decisions solely

 for abuse of discretion.”). “We may not examine the weight a district court

 assigns to various § 3553(a) factors, and its ultimate assessment of the

 balance between them, as a legal conclusion to be reviewed de novo.” Smart,

 518 F.3d at 808. “Instead, we must . . . . defer not only to a district court’s

 factual findings but also to its determinations of the weight to be afforded

 to such findings.” Id. “[I]n many cases there will be a range of possible

 outcomes the facts and law at issue can fairly support . . . [and] we will defer

 to the district court’s judgment so long as it falls within the realm of . . .

 rationally available choices.” United States v. Durham, 902 F.3d 1180, 1236

 (10th Cir. 2018) (quoting United States v. McComb, 519 F.3d 1049, 1053

 (10th Cir. 2007)).

       As Mr. Williams acknowledges, we apply a “rebuttable presumption

 of reasonableness to a below-guideline sentence challenged by the

 defendant as unreasonably harsh.” Richards, 958 F.3d at 968–69 (quoting

 United States v. Balbin-Mesa, 643 F.3d 783, 788 (10th Cir. 2011)). A

 “[d]efendant may rebut this presumption by demonstrating the sentence is

 unreasonable when viewed against the factors described in § 3553(a).” Id.

 at 969.

        On appeal, Mr. Williams contends the district court gave insufficient

 weight at his resentencing to three statutory sentencing factors. According

                                        9
Appellate Case: 23-6034   Document: 010110967046   Date Filed: 12/12/2023   Page: 10

  to Mr. Williams, had the district court properly weighed the § 3553(a)

  factors, it would have found the following factors favored a lower sentence:

  (1) his history and characteristics, § 3553(a)(1); (2) his risk of recidivism,

  § 3553(a)(2); and (3) the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities,

  § 3553(a)(6). As we explain—and particularly given the deferential

  standard of review—we cannot conclude the district court’s decision to vary

  52 months below the Guidelines range was an abuse of discretion.

                                        A

        Mr. Williams first argues the district court “seemingly gave no

  material weight to the terrible childhood that Mr. Williams endured,” citing

  Mr.   Williams’s    childhood   poverty    and   the   “tough,   gang-infested

  neighborhoods” where Mr. Williams grew up. Opening Br. at 10.

        As an initial matter, we acknowledge the record supports the claim

  Mr. Williams endured a challenging childhood, and we have no reason to

  conclude the district court was unaware of this aspect of Mr. Williams’s

  history. The district court informed the parties that it had read “everything”

  in advance of resentencing, which necessarily included the presentence

  investigation reports and sentencing memoranda describing Mr. Williams’s

  childhood adversities. But the district court further explained that a

  particular aspect of Mr. Williams’s “history and characteristics”—namely,

  his “significant criminal history”—“was the real driving factor in the

                                        10
Appellate Case: 23-6034   Document: 010110967046    Date Filed: 12/12/2023   Page: 11

  [court’s] original sentence,” and on resentencing, “nothing has changed in

  that regard.” R.III at 27, 30. Under these circumstances, we discern no

  error. As we have explained, “[w]e may not examine the weight a district

  court assigns to various § 3553(a) factors . . . de novo” but instead must

  defer to a district court’s determination of the weight to be afforded to those

  factors. Smart, 518 F.3d at 808. While the district court had the discretion

  to grant Mr. Williams a downward variance based on his childhood, it did

  not abuse its discretion by declining to do so.

                                         B

        Mr. Williams next argues the district court overestimated Mr.

  Williams’s risk of recidivism and “fail[ed] to appreciate the likelihood that

  a defendant like Mr. Williams would desist [from criminal activity] in his

  50s or 60s.” Opening Br. at 11. He contends “the district court reasoned

  that, if Mr. Williams has not aged out of crime by now, there is no reason to

  believe he will desist his criminal behavior until he is in his mid-70s, . . . .

  [b]ut this is not how recidivism works.” Opening Br. at 11. In support of this

  contention, Mr. Williams points to empirical data purportedly indicating “a

  significant proportion of defendants who continue to offend into their 40s

  will stop such criminal behavior in their 50s or 60s.” Opening Br. at 11.

        The empirical data marshalled by Mr. Williams on appeal was not

  presented to the district court. See Resp. Br. at 18–19. We cannot say the

                                        11
Appellate Case: 23-6034   Document: 010110967046    Date Filed: 12/12/2023   Page: 12

  district court abused its discretion by failing to consider evidence not

  brought before it. Nor may we consider such evidence for the first time

  ourselves. See United States v. Suggs, 998 F.3d 1125, 1141 (10th Cir. 2021)

  (“[W]e are ‘a court of review, not of first view.’” (quoting Cutter v. Wilkinson,

  544 U.S. 709, 718 n.7 (2005)); see generally United States v. Wilson, 839 Fed.

  App’x. 269, 271 n.7 (10th Cir. 2021) (“Because Mr. Wilson’s letter was not

  before the district court at the time that the court imposed Mr. Wilson’s

  sentence, its contents cannot properly factor into our decisional calculus.”).

        To the extent Mr. Williams argues generally that, given his age, the

  sentence imposed was greater than necessary to protect the public from

  further crimes, we see no reversible error. The district court observed “Mr.

  Williams was . . . past the age that you would normally see aging out [of

  criminal activity], and yet nothing was changing and the prior interventions

  just hadn’t seemed to do anything.” R.III at 29. The district court

  thoughtfully considered how best to weigh Mr. Williams’s risk of recidivism

  alongside § 3553(a)’s mandate to “impose a sentence sufficient, but not

  greater than necessary.” See R.III at 26 (describing the court’s “overarching

  concern” as “impos[ing] a sentence that’s sufficient, but not greater than

  necessary to comply with the purposes of sentencing.”); see also R.III at 33

  (explaining the court “was thinking very much about how long does [Mr.

  Williams] need to stay in” in light of his age and criminal history). The

                                         12
Appellate Case: 23-6034   Document: 010110967046   Date Filed: 12/12/2023   Page: 13

  record shows the court was aware of its obligation to impose a parsimonious

  sentence. See United States v. Martinez-Barragan, 545 F.3d 894, 904 (10th

  Cir. 2008) (“When crafting a sentence, the district court must be guided by

  the ‘parsimony principle’-that the sentence be ‘sufficient, but not greater

  than necessary, to comply with the purposes’ of criminal punishment, as

  expressed in § 3553(a)(2).” (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a))). Conducting the

  balancing inquiry, the court reasoned “a very lengthy sentence [is]

  necessary in light of [Mr. Williams’s] criminal history and [his] refusal to

  give up criminal conduct, despite being given many, many chances.” R.III

  at 37. On this record, we conclude the district court’s decision was one of

  the “rationally available choices” before it. See Durham, 902 F.3d at 1236

  (quoting McComb, 519 F.3d at 1053).

                                        C

        As for the need to avoid unwarranted sentencing disparities, Mr.

  Williams contends the district court gave insufficient weight to the JSIN

  data submitted at sentencing. Mr. Williams asserts, based on those

  statistics, the average sentence for defendants “similarly situated to Mr.

  Williams” is 240 months—many-months lower than the 272-month

  sentence imposed by the district court on resentencing. Opening Br. at 12.

        “It is unquestionably true that under § 3553(a)(6), a sentencing court

  must consider ‘the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among

                                        13
Appellate Case: 23-6034     Document: 010110967046   Date Filed: 12/12/2023   Page: 14

  defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar

  conduct.’” United States v. Garcia, 946 F.3d 1191, 1214–15 (10th Cir. 2020)

  (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6)). Here, the district court acknowledged “the

  need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among similarly-situated

  defendants” in explaining its consideration of the § 3553(a) factors, though

  it did not reference the JSIN data. R.III at 27. Mr. Williams accurately

  describes the JSIN data; at the time of Mr. Williams’s resentencing, it

  showed defendants with a total offense level of 36 and a criminal history

  category of VI were sentenced on average to 240 months for trafficking

  methamphetamine. But recall, the court observed it was “concerned . . .

  about . . . this sort of continuous, but escalating conduct related to drug

  trafficking . . . past the age that you would normally see aging out [of this

  conduct].” R.III at 29.

        The national JSIN statistics cited by Mr. Williams, without more, did

  not account for—and could not alone resolve—the district court’s expressed

  apprehensions in this case. See Garcia, 946 F.3d at 1215 (“[Appellant’s] bare

  national statistics do not shed light on the extent to which the sentences

  that the statistics pertain to involve defendants that are similarly situated

  to [Appellant] . . . . notably, whether those defendants have been involved a

  similar longstanding pattern of . . . serious lawbreaking, which not

  infrequently involved unlawful possession of inherently dangerous

                                          14
Appellate Case: 23-6034   Document: 010110967046   Date Filed: 12/12/2023   Page: 15

  firearms.”). Particularly considering the § 3553(a) factors “in light of the

  ‘totality of the circumstances,’” United States v. Sayad, 589 F.3d 1110, 1118

  (10th Cir. 2009) (quoting Gall v. United States, 522 U.S. 38, 51 (2007)), and

  mindful of the district court’s concerns expressed on this record, we reject

  Mr. Williams’s argument based on the JSIN data. The sentence imposed

  here—which is below Guidelines and presumptively reasonable—falls

  squarely within the range of outcomes permitted by the facts and the law.

  See Durham, 902 F.3d at 1236; Richards, 958 F.3d at 968–69.

                                       III

        The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

                                         ENTERED FOR THE COURT

                                         Veronica S. Rossman
                                         Circuit Judge

                                        15