Court Opinion

ID: 9410981
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-25 15:01:08.302993+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:01.914570
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                 For the Seventh Circuit
                     ____________________
No. 21-3287
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                   Plaintiff-Appellee,
                                 v.

KOBE HENDRIX,
                                               Defendant-Appellant.
                     ____________________

         Appeal from the United States District Court for the
           Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
           No. 1:20-cr-760 — Ronald A. Guzmán, Judge.
                     ____________________

     ARGUED DECEMBER 2, 2022 — DECIDED JULY 25, 2023
                ____________________

   Before EASTERBROOK, SCUDDER, and LEE, Circuit Judges.
   LEE, Circuit Judge. After pleading guilty to one count of
possessing a ﬁrearm as a felon in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 922(g)(1), Kobe Hendrix was sentenced to 78 months in
prison, signiﬁcantly more than the range of 46 to 57 months
under the United States Sentencing Guidelines. Hendrix has
timely appealed the sentence. Because the district court’s sen-
tence was well within its discretion, we aﬃrm.
2                                                 No. 21-3287

                    I. BACKGROUND
A. Oﬀense, Indictment, and Guilty Plea
    On the Fourth of July of 2020, Hendrix was selling mariju-
ana out of his car in a busy commercial and residential area in
Chicago. He had a loaded gun with him at the time, with a
live round in the chamber. He kept it in the center console of
his car, but at one point he picked it up to show to someone
outside the car.
    For reasons unknown, Hendrix did all of this in plain view
of a police surveillance camera. He was promptly arrested,
and police found the gun and $320 in cash inside his car. Hen-
drix also attempted to discard some marijuana while he was
riding inside the squad car to the police station, which was
later found.
    This was not Hendrix’s ﬁrst run-in with the law or his ﬁrst
oﬀense involving a ﬁrearm. In 2015, he was convicted of bat-
tery after he, along with two other assailants, punched and
kicked a victim who was lying on the ground. And in 2017, he
pleaded guilty to aggravated discharge of a ﬁrearm after he
had walked into a public street and ﬁred several shots at a
passing vehicle. Hendrix was released on parole for this latter
crime on September 13, 2019, about ten months before he was
arrested for the instant oﬀense.
    By indictment dated October 27, 2020, Hendrix was
charged with possessing a ﬁrearm as a felon in violation of
18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and with knowingly and intentionally
possessing with intent to distribute a controlled substance in
violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Hendrix pleaded guilty to
the felon-in-possession charge on July 14, 2021, and as part of
his plea agreement, he admitted that he had knowingly and
No. 21-3287                                                    3

intentionally possessed marijuana with the intent to distrib-
ute. Hendrix’s total oﬀense level was 21, and his criminal his-
tory category was III, resulting in a guidelines range of 46–57
months in prison.
B. Sentencing
    The district court conducted the sentencing hearing on
November 30, 2021. At the hearing, the government requested
a sentence within the guidelines range. In so doing, it argued
that Hendrix’s drug-traﬃcking activities made his ﬁrearm
possession that much more dangerous. The government rea-
soned that guns are “tools of the drug trade,” used to protect
dealers from robbery. Had someone attempted to rob Hen-
drix, the government argued, he would have used his ﬁrearm,
endangering anyone in the surrounding area.
    The government contended that the risk created by Hen-
drix’s actions was particularly grave, since he was selling
drugs in broad daylight, outside an open grocery store, in a
well-populated commercial and residential district. The gov-
ernment also noted that Hendrix had committed the instant
oﬀense a mere ten months after he had been paroled for his
aggravated-discharge conviction. This short span of time, in
the government’s view, showed that Hendrix was “unde-
terred or unreformed” by the prior conviction and sentence.
In the end, however, the government did not seek an above-
guidelines sentence due to Hendrix’s “challenging upbring-
ing” and struggle with “mental health issues.”
    Defense counsel requested a sentence of time served (ap-
proximately seventeen months) with supervised release. In
his view, Hendrix’s activities, while illegal, were substantially
harmless. He noted that Hendrix had only sold “little
4                                                 No. 21-3287

amounts of marijuana.” And he denied that Hendrix had had
“any present plan or reason” to use his gun. He explained
Hendrix’s ﬁrearm possession by stating that many people in
communities like the one in which Hendrix was arrested have
guns for protection.
   Hendrix’s counsel also argued that his client was entitled
to a reduced sentence due to his diﬃcult personal history.
Hendrix’s mother was a sex worker and was often absent
when he was growing up. She had had many boyfriends, who
exposed Hendrix to drugs, violence, and abuse at an early
age. As a result of these diﬃcult circumstances, counsel ar-
gued, Hendrix has experienced severe psychological prob-
lems. He has attempted suicide on three separate occasions
and has been in and out of psychiatric facilities. He has also
suﬀered from substance abuse issues, having ﬁrst consumed
alcohol at eight and marijuana at fourteen.
    In a personal statement to the court, Hendrix added that
he had been trying to better himself and learn marketable
skills. He told the court that he had recently become a father
and that he wanted to be there for his son since his father had
not been there for him.
    When stating the sentence, the district court acknowl-
edged the parties’ arguments and Hendrix’s statement and
stated that it had taken into account the “presentence investi-
gation report, the submissions of the attorneys, and the de-
fendant’s written submission.” In explaining its sentence, the
court began with Hendrix’s mitigating factors. The court
acknowledged that Hendrix had had a diﬃcult upbringing as
“one of eight children in a single-parent household,” with a
mother who was only occasionally present and a father who
was never around. The court noted that Hendrix’s family
No. 21-3287                                                   5

often lacked enough money for “basic necessities” during his
childhood, and it acknowledged that these diﬃcult circum-
stances “undoubtedly” impacted Hendrix’s personal devel-
opment.
    But the court found these mitigating factors to be out-
weighed signiﬁcantly by numerous aggravating factors. It
noted that, although Hendrix was only twenty-three, he had
already racked up a substantial criminal history, including a
prior conviction involving a ﬁrearm. The court observed that
Hendrix’s prior convictions and sentences had failed to deter
him from further crime, given that he had been paroled from
his most recent conviction less than a year before the instant
oﬀense.
    The court also took issue with defense counsel’s character-
ization of Hendrix’s conduct as being “innocent.” “[T]here’s
nothing innocent about selling drugs on the streets of the city
of Chicago,” the court stated. “Selling drugs is one of the fac-
tors which enables people like this defendant and others to
purchase guns illegally[.]” Additionally, the court found it
troubling that Hendrix, despite being unemployed and hav-
ing “no visible means of support,” had a car and was arrested
with a large amount of cash. The court inferred from this evi-
dence that Hendrix was making a living as a drug dealer,
which it found to be an additional aggravating factor.
   The district court then went on at some length about the
“pandemic of gun violence” in Chicago. Because these re-
marks form the primary grounds of Hendrix’s appeal, we re-
count them in full.
       Now I don’t think I have to paint a detailed pic-
       ture for anyone here of the pandemic of gun
6                                               No. 21-3287

    violence that is going on in the city of Chicago.
    Murders by gun ﬁre are at the highest they’ve
    ever been. Victims of gun ﬁre are at a rate higher
    than any other prior year. The victims most of
    the time, it appears, are innocent people who in-
    clude children and infants, infants in car seats,
    children playing in front of their homes. Bullets
    being ﬁred through windows into people’s
    homes while they’re watching television.
    Hardly a day goes by that we don’t see a parent
    or sister or a brother of someone killed by gun
    ﬁre from an illegal gun, such as the one this de-
    fendant had and has previously used.
    Chicago is particularly vulnerable to gun vio-
    lence because of the large number of weapons
    that ﬁnd themselves on our streets. These weap-
    ons come from many diﬀerent places. Over 50
    percent of the weapons recovered by the Chi-
    cago Police Department generally come from
    other states, states like Indiana, Missouri, Wis-
    consin, all of whom have very lenient gun laws.
    Because of that, the number of guns on the
    streets of Chicago is extremely high and the
    amount of gun violence that follows from it is
    extremely high. Chicago’s murder by gun ﬁre
    rate is higher than that of New York or Los An-
    geles, both of which have signiﬁcantly larger
    populations.
    Even our expressways today ﬁnd themselves to
    be venues for gun violence, drive-by shootings,
    so much so that the Illinois State Highway
No. 21-3287                                                   7

      Patrol has determined to reassign highway pa-
      trol oﬃcers from other areas in the state to Chi-
      cago and its surrounding[] areas because of the
      large increase in shootings that are occurring on
      our interstates, our expressways almost on a
      daily basis.
      The Department of Justice has seen it necessary
      to assign task forces, special task forces to re-
      duce gun violence in areas like Chicago, specif-
      ically targeting Chicago as one of those areas.
      The amount of harm being done to the neigh-
      borhoods of the city of Chicago and the sur-
      rounding areas, to the people who are forced to
      live in some of the neighborhoods, forced to get
      up in the morning and go to work in fear, forced
      to drive on expressways where shootings are oc-
      curring in fear, forced to walk their children to
      school through special safe routes so that they
      won’t be harmed, these things can and do cause
      havoc with neighborhoods and can and do re-
      sult in the disintegration of—degeneration—
      I’m sorry—of neighborhoods as such.
      Now, the guidelines are generally helpful to this
      court in determining the appropriate sentence
      in a case. But for all of the reasons I’ve just given
      and have spoken about in prior sentencings, sta-
      tistics that anyone can look up, it’s apparent to
      me that the guidelines fail to take into account
      the magnitude of the need to reduce the number
      of illegal guns on the streets of the city of Chi-
      cago and its surrounding areas. They simply
8                                                    No. 21-3287

       don’t address what’s going on in our communi-
       ties today.
    Ultimately, the court, after “taking into account all the fac-
tors of the defendant’s background, as well as his criminal his-
tory,” imposed an above-guidelines sentence of 78 months in
prison.
                        II. ANALYSIS
A. Legal Standard and Standard of Review
    Hendrix raises both procedural and substantive chal-
lenges to his sentence. These challenges are governed by dif-
ferent legal frameworks.
    As to the ﬁrst, a sentence may not stand if it was the prod-
uct of a “signiﬁcant procedural error, such as failing to calcu-
late (or improperly calculating) the Guidelines range, treating
the Guidelines as mandatory, failing to consider the [sentenc-
ing factors found at 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)], selecting a sentence
based on clearly erroneous facts, or failing to adequately ex-
plain the chosen sentence.” United States v. Jackson, 547 F.3d
786, 792 (7th Cir. 2008) (quoting Gall v. United States, 552 U.S.
38, 51 (2007)). We review such procedural issues de novo.
United States v. Morgan, 987 F.3d 627, 632 (7th Cir. 2021).
    A sentence may also be vacated if it is substantively unrea-
sonable, that is to say, excessively harsh. Jackson, 547 F.3d at
792. A guidelines-range sentence is presumptively reasona-
ble, but an above-guidelines sentence is not presumptively
unreasonable. Morgan, 987 F.3d at 632. We review a sentence’s
substantive reasonableness using the abuse of discretion
standard. Id.
No. 21-3287                                                     9

B. Procedural Issues
   We start with procedure. Hendrix claims that his sentence
was the product of various procedural errors. None of Hen-
drix’s arguments have merit.
       1. § 3553(a) Factors
    First, Hendrix contends that the district court did not ade-
quately assess the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors relevant to his
case. Section 3553(a) lists several factors for district courts to
consider in imposing sentences in criminal cases. Considera-
tion of these factors is “mandatory.” Jackson, 547 F.3d at 792.
    Not only must a district court consider the § 3553(a) fac-
tors, but it must adequately explain its sentence with refer-
ence to these factors. United States v. Robinson, 829 F.3d 878,
880 (7th Cir. 2016). That said, the burden of explanation on the
district court “is not particularly onerous.” United States v.
Steele, No. 21-2740, 2022 WL 3334533, at *3 (7th Cir. Aug. 12,
2022) (non-precedential) (quoting Morgan, 987 F.3d at 632).
All we require is that the district court “adequately explain
the chosen sentence to allow for meaningful appellate review
and to promote the perception of fair sentencing.” United
States v. Kuczora, 910 F.3d 904, 907 (7th Cir. 2018) (quoting
Gall, 552 U.S. at 50). And, indeed, the district court need not
recite and apply every single § 3553(a) factor, so long as the
record indicates that the district court considered the sentenc-
ing factors in toto and created an adequate record for review.
United States v. Dawson, 980 F.3d 1156, 1164–65 (7th Cir. 2020)
(stating that the factors need not be applied in “check-list
form”); United States v. Patel, 921 F.3d 663, 671 (7th Cir. 2019)
(stating that district courts need only consider the factors and
10                                                 No. 21-3287

provide a reviewable record, and that they do not need to
reach an express conclusion regarding every factor).
    This is so even where, as here, the district court imposes
an above-guidelines sentence. It is enough that the court con-
siders the § 3553(a) factors and articulates why its sentence is
appropriate on a reviewable record. It may, but need not, ex-
plain why a guidelines sentence would be insuﬃcient. United
States v. Bartlett, 567 F.3d 901, 909 (7th Cir. 2009).
    Under these standards, the district court’s explanation of
Hendrix’s sentence was more than adequate. The court dis-
cussed and applied multiple § 3553(a) factors in detail. For in-
stance, the court carefully considered Hendrix’s personal
“history and characteristics.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1). It found
that this factor was mitigating in some respects, but aggravat-
ing in others. The court noted Hendrix’s “diﬃcult childhood”
in an impoverished single-parent home, and it concluded that
Hendrix’s situation “undoubtedly aﬀected” his “develop-
ment as a human being and as an adult.” But the court con-
sidered it an aggravating factor that Hendrix had a lengthy
criminal history at just twenty-three years of age.
    The court also discussed the “nature and circumstances of
the oﬀense.” Id. The court found Hendrix’s conduct to be se-
rious because Hendrix had possessed a ﬁrearm in connection
with drug traﬃcking and had a prior ﬁrearms conviction. As
to other factors, the court reasoned that a heavy sentence was
necessary to deter illegal gun possession generally and to de-
ter further crimes by Hendrix speciﬁcally (since this was his
third oﬀense and second ﬁrearms oﬀense). Id. § 3553(a)(2)(A)–
(C) (stating that a sentence should “reﬂect the seriousness of
the oﬀense,” “aﬀord adequate deterrence to criminal con-
duct,” and “protect the public from further crimes of the
No. 21-3287                                                     11

defendant”). And the court recommended that Hendrix be
placed in a drug-abuse treatment program. Id. § 3553(a)(2)(D)
(stating that a sentence should “provide the defendant with
needed … medical care[] or other correctional treatment”). In
short, the district court provided a thorough explanation for
its sentence, applying various § 3553(a) factors along the way.
    Hendrix insists that the court did not give meaningful con-
sideration to “all” the § 3553(a) factors. But the court was not
required to walk through each factor in a robotic, check-list
fashion, Dawson, 980 F.3d at 1164–65, and Hendrix does not
point to any especially relevant factor that the court failed to
consider. Hendrix’s real problem with the district court’s dis-
cussion is that, in his view, the court relied too much on some
factors and too little on others. For instance, Hendrix contends
that the court placed too much emphasis on deterrence and
did not pay suﬃcient attention to his traumatic personal his-
tory. But disagreement as to how a court weighs the § 3553(a)
factors cannot support a claim of procedural error. United
States v. Volpendesto, 746 F.3d 273, 298 (7th Cir. 2014). It is ap-
parent that the district court considered Hendrix’s personal
history and characteristics, even if it did not weigh that factor
in Hendrix’s favor as much as he would have liked.
   Hendrix also complains that the district court held his
young age against him, when it should have viewed it as a
mitigating factor. But, again, this is a challenge to the district
court’s weighing of the evidence. In short, Hendrix has not
identiﬁed any reversible procedural error in the court’s dis-
cussion of the § 3553(a) factors.
12                                                   No. 21-3287

       2. Arguments in Mitigation
    Next, Hendrix argues that the district court did not give
adequate consideration to his key mitigation arguments. A
district court commits procedural error when it fails to ad-
dress a defendant’s mitigating arguments that are not “so
weak as not to merit discussion.” Steele, 2022 WL 3334533, at
*3 (quoting United States v. Sanchez, 989 F.3d 523, 540 (7th Cir.
2021)). As with the § 3553(a) factors, the burden we impose on
district courts here is not a heavy one. We will not ﬁnd proce-
dural error so long as “the totality of the record establishes
that the district court considered the arguments in mitigation,
even if implicitly and imprecisely.” Id. (quoting United States
v. Bour, 804 F.3d 880, 885 (7th Cir. 2015)); Robinson, 829 F.3d at
881 (“[T]he court ‘is not obliged to engage in a lengthy discus-
sion of every argument for leniency that the defendant
raises.’”) (quoting United States v. Patrick, 707 F.3d 815, 818
(7th Cir. 2013)).
    Hendrix points to several mitigating circumstances that,
he believes, the district court failed to consider, including his
“early childhood trauma, history of mental illness, lifelong
struggle with suicide, his genuine show of remorse, the non-
violent nature of the oﬀense, and the signiﬁcant change in his
family status as his ﬁrst child was born while he was incarcer-
ated.”
    Turning ﬁrst to Hendrix’s “early childhood trauma, his-
tory of mental illness, [and] lifelong struggle with suicide,”
the district court acknowledged these circumstances, recog-
nizing that Hendrix’s diﬃcult upbringing “undoubtedly af-
fected [his] development as a human being and as an adult.”
Admittedly, the court never incanted speciﬁc terms like
“childhood trauma,” “mental illness,” or “suicide,” but the
No. 21-3287                                                   13

record indicates that the court considered Hendrix’s personal
history and trauma when fashioning its sentence.
    Second, having apologized for his actions at sentencing,
Hendrix contends that the district court should have explicitly
acknowledged his remorse. But, as we have said elsewhere,
remorse is among the “stock” arguments common to most de-
fendants that a district court may, but is not required to, ad-
dress expressly. United States v. Chapman, 694 F.3d 908, 916
(7th Cir. 2012). We ﬁnd no error in the district court’s passing
over it here.
   Third, Hendrix emphasizes the “non-violent nature of the
oﬀense.” While it is true that Hendrix did not physically harm
anyone, the district court found his oﬀense to be serious none-
theless because of his criminal history and possession of a ﬁre-
arm in connection with drug traﬃcking. Because the court
considered Hendrix’s arguments regarding the severity of his
oﬀense, no procedural error occurred. United States v. Trujillo-
Castillon, 692 F.3d 575, 578 (7th Cir. 2012) (ﬁnding no proce-
dural error where court considered mitigating argument “but
simply assigned it lesser weight than the defendant would
have liked”).
    Lastly, Hendrix believes that the district court should have
explicitly mentioned the birth of his son. “[A] defendant’s
family circumstances may be a legitimate basis for a below-
guidelines sentence if the district court ﬁnds ‘that a defend-
ant’s family ties and responsibilities … are so unusual that
they may be characterized as extraordinary.’” United States v.
Graham, 915 F.3d 456, 459 (7th Cir. 2019) (quoting United States
v. Schroeder, 536 F.3d 746, 755–56 (7th Cir. 2008)). But the mere
fact that a defendant has a family, without more, is not
“enough to warrant speciﬁc discussion.” Id. at 459–60.
14                                                             No. 21-3287

Hendrix oﬀers no indication that his family situation was so
unique as to merit particular attention in the district court’s
sentencing analysis. 1
         3. Comments About Gun Violence in Chicago
    Turning, ﬁnally, to Hendrix’s main argument, Hendrix
contends that his sentence was tainted by the district court’s
lengthy commentary on the general prevalence of gun vio-
lence in Chicago. A district court commits procedural error
when it makes “extraneous and inﬂammatory comments dur-
ing the sentencing hearing” that cast “doubt on the validity of
the sentence” imposed. Robinson, 829 F.3d at 880 (quoting
United States v. Figueroa, 622 F.3d 739, 741 (7th Cir. 2010)). For
instance, we have said that a district court should not “blame”
the defendant for “issues of broad local, national, and inter-
national scope that only tangentially relate to his underlying
conduct.” United States v. Smith, 400 F. App’x 96, 99 (7th Cir.
2010) (non-precedential) (citing Figueroa, 622 F.3d at 743–44).
    On the other hand, district courts may consider locality-
based factors in gauging the impact a particular oﬀense has
on the community in which it was committed, and these fac-
tors may inform a court’s decision to impose an above-

     1 In a different section of his brief, Hendrix identifies more potentially
mitigating arguments. He notes that he has been studying and hopes to
find a job after his release from prison, that he has been a “positive influ-
ence” while in custody, that he has sought mental health counseling, and
that he stays in touch with his family. To the extent Hendrix argues that
the district court committed procedural error in failing to address these
mitigating circumstances, the arguments are unfounded. None of these
arguments, when viewed in the context of this record, are so noteworthy,
unique, or compelling that the district court was required to discuss them
individually. Chapman, 694 F.3d at 916.
No. 21-3287                                                  15

guidelines sentence. United States v. Hatch, 909 F.3d 872, 875
(7th Cir. 2018). In keeping with this principle, we repeatedly
have held that district courts may consider the serious prob-
lem of gun violence in Chicago in imposing stiﬀ sentences on
those who commit ﬁrearms oﬀenses in the city. See id. (aﬃrm-
ing above-guidelines sentence); United States v. Johnson, No.
21-2553, 2022 WL 703889, at *3 (7th Cir. Mar. 9, 2022) (non-
precedential) (same); Steele, 2022 WL 3334533, at *3 (same);
United States v. Irving, No. 22-1258, 2022 WL 17576552, at *3
(non-precedential) (7th Cir. Dec. 6, 2022) (same); United States
v. Austin, 760 F. App’x 456, 458–59 (7th Cir. 2019) (non-prece-
dential) (substantially aﬃrming within-guidelines sentence).
There is no reason for us to deviate from those holdings here.
    For his part, Hendrix attacks the district court’s analysis
on numerous grounds, but none are persuasive. Principally,
he contends that the court’s discussion raised circumstances
irrelevant to the case at hand. For instance, Hendrix points out
that the district court mentioned gun deaths, even though no
one died in this case. Similarly, Hendrix faults the court for
discussing shootings of children, shootings of people watch-
ing television in their homes, and shootings on expressways:
obviously, none of those things happened here. But we have
never demanded an exact correspondence between locality-
based factors and the facts of a particular case; a reasonable
nexus is enough. See United States v. Saldana-Gonzalez, 70 F.4th
981, 984–85 (7th Cir. 2023). And, here, the court’s comments
focused on the scourge of gun violence in Chicago, which is
plainly relevant to Hendrix’s illegal possession of a gun in
Chicago. See Hatch, 909 F.3d at 874 (aﬃrming sentence in
which district court discussed shootings of children, even
though defendant had been convicted only of gun traﬃck-
ing).
16                                                    No. 21-3287

    Next, Hendrix argues that some of the district court’s com-
ments were substantively inaccurate. A defendant has a due
process right to be sentenced “based on accurate infor-
mation.” United States v. Sanchez, 989 F.3d 523, 546 (7th Cir.
2021) (quoting United States v. Propst, 959 F.3d 298, 304 (7th
Cir. 2020)). To prove a violation of this right, the defendant
must show that the court actually relied on inaccurate infor-
mation in imposing a sentence. Id. Hendrix asserts that the
district court wrongly stated that a majority of gun-violence
victims in Chicago are children. But the district court never
said this; rather, it stated that most victims are “innocent peo-
ple who include children and infants” (emphasis added).
    Hendrix identiﬁes some more alleged inaccuracies for the
ﬁrst time in his reply brief: for instance, he disagrees with the
district court’s assertion that “[v]ictims of gun ﬁre are at a rate
higher than in any prior year.” But Hendrix waived these ad-
ditional points by failing to include them in his opening brief.
White v. United States, 8 F.4th 547, 552 (7th Cir. 2021) (“[A]rgu-
ments raised for the ﬁrst time in [a] reply brief are waived be-
cause they leave no chance to respond.”). And even if the dis-
trict court did make some factual misstatements, Hendrix has
not attempted to show that it actually relied on any inaccurate
information in imposing sentence. The main point the district
court was making in its discussion of locality-based factors
was that gun violence is a serious problem in Chicago, a
premise Hendrix has not disputed. It was this overarching re-
ality, rather than any particular data point, that drove the
court toward an above-guidelines sentence.
   Finally, Hendrix argues that he was not given a chance to
respond to the district court’s discussion of gun violence at
the sentencing hearing because the court did not alert the
No. 21-3287                                                              17

parties beforehand that it would be considering such infor-
mation. “Defendants are entitled to a ‘meaningful oppor-
tunity to rebut the information’ that a judge considers during
sentencing.” United States v. Wood, 31 F.4th 593, 599 (7th Cir.
2022) (quoting United States v. Farrington, 783 F. App’x 610,
612 (7th Cir. 2019)). Given the government’s discussion of
Chicago’s “ongoing gun violence epidemic” and supporting
statistics in its sentencing memorandum, whether Hendrix
had adequate notice that this issue would come up at sentenc-
ing is an open question. But, assuming that Hendrix is correct,
the most he could have done at sentencing (as he does on ap-
peal) would have been to suggest that the district court’s dis-
cussion of gun violence was overstated in some respects. Hen-
drix could not have reasonably disputed the basic premise
that gun violence is a serious problem in the city. And, even if
Hendrix had drawn the court's attention to some favorable
statistics, the court also relied on Hendrix's criminal history,
as well as the court's own observations about gun violence, in
crafting the sentence. On this record we do not see a realistic
prospect that the court would have imposed a diﬀerent sen-
tence. See id. (noting that “[a] procedural sentencing error is
harmless if the sentence would have been the same without
the error”). 2

    2 Hendrix also seems to suggest that the district court erred in failing
to cite specific sources in support of its observations about gun violence.
But district courts need not use “formal statistics” in discussing gun vio-
lence at sentencing, and judges may apply their own “personal experi-
ence” in tandem with empirical observations. Austin, 760 F. App’x at 458–
59. We see no basis in our case law for requiring district courts to provide
full citations on the record in support of such discussions.
18                                                   No. 21-3287

   In short, we ﬁnd no procedural error in the district court’s
discussion of the prevalence of gun violence in Chicago at
sentencing.
C. Substantive Reasonableness
    Finally, Hendrix argues that his sentence was substan-
tively unreasonable. Again, we review the substantive reason-
ableness of a sentence for abuse of discretion, and we will not
presume a sentence to be unreasonable merely because it ex-
ceeds the guidelines range. Morgan, 987 F.3d at 632. Nor will
we substitute our sentencing judgment for that of the district
court, which heard the evidence and the parties’ arguments
ﬁrsthand and is in the best position to impose an appropriate
sentence. United States v. Porraz, 943 F.3d 1099, 1104 (7th Cir.
2019).
    When a district court departs from the guidelines range,
we “take the degree of variance into account and consider the
extent of [the] deviation,” requiring more of an explanation
the greater the deviation. United States v. Gonzalez, 3 F.4th 963,
966 (7th Cir. 2021) (quoting Gall, 552 U.S. at 47). In explaining
the deviation, however, the district court may rely on the
§ 3553(a) factors alone and need not justify its sentence vis-a-
vis the guidelines range. Id.
    Here, Hendrix contends that the district court’s sentence
was unreasonable because it was based solely on general de-
terrence and community-based factors, rather than any indi-
vidualized considerations. This is simply not the case. As de-
scribed above, the district court considered and applied nu-
merous § 3553(a) factors, including Hendrix’s personal his-
tory and characteristics, the nature of his oﬀense, and his re-
cent criminal history. The court explained that speciﬁc and
No. 21-3287                                                                19

general deterrence had motivated it to depart from the guide-
lines range, given that Hendrix’s ﬁrst ﬁrearms conviction had
not deterred him from criminal conduct and tough sentences
were needed to crack down on gun crime in Chicago. These
were permissible justiﬁcations for the sentence imposed. The
court was entitled to deviate from the Guidelines based on its
“own penal theory” and to consider locality-based factors in
doing so. Hatch, 909 F.3d at 875. Because the court’s sentence
was “ﬁrmly grounded” in the § 3553(a) factors and the court
reasonably justiﬁed its sentence, the sentence was substan-
tively sound and not an abuse of discretion. Gonzalez, 3 F.4th
at 966.
    Hendrix also suggests that his oﬀense was not serious, and
that his mitigating circumstances, including his traumatic up-
bringing, required a lighter sentence. But the district court
reasonably found otherwise. Given Hendrix’s criminal his-
tory, his possession of a ﬁrearm in connection with drug traf-
ﬁcking, the severity of gun violence in Chicago, and other fac-
tors, it was not an abuse of discretion for the court to conclude
that an above-guidelines sentence was warranted. We decline
to second-guess the district court’s weighing of the infor-
mation at its disposal, a task committed to its sound discre-
tion. Wood, 31 F.4th at 600. Thus, we conclude that the sen-
tence was substantively reasonable. 3

    3 Hendrix raises some additional arguments in his briefing, but none
merit substantial discussion. For one, Hendrix attempts, unsuccessfully,
to analogize this case to United States v. Omole, 383 F. App’x 571 (7th Cir.
2010). There, the district court expressed at sentencing that it felt a below-
guidelines sentence would be appropriate, but it imposed a guidelines
sentence because it “felt constrained” by our remand of its previous
20                                                            No. 21-3287

                         III. CONCLUSION
   We have considered Hendrix’s remaining arguments, and
none have merit. For the reasons stated above, we AFFIRM
the sentence imposed by the district court.

sentence as unreasonably lenient. Id. at 572. We vacated the district court’s
sentence again, reasoning that it was not consistent with its stated “ra-
tionale for imposing a lower sentence.” Id. at 573. Here, however, there is
no inconsistency between the district court’s comments and the above-
guidelines sentence it imposed.
    Hendrix also contends that the government’s request for a guidelines-
range sentence at the sentencing hearing “cannot be harmonized” with its
defense of the district court’s above-guidelines sentence on appeal. We see
no inconsistency. Even if the government believes that Hendrix should
have received a lighter sentence, that does not mean it also must believe
that the district court’s sentence was procedurally or substantively unrea-
sonable.