Court Opinion

ID: 9364448
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-19 17:00:33.42427+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:15:38.255129
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-12009    Document: 21-1     Date Filed: 01/19/2023   Page: 1 of 8

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-12009
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                      Plaintiff-Appellee,
       versus
       BRENTON MAURICE EDWARDS,

                                                  Defendant-Appellant.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Middle District of Alabama
                 D.C. Docket No. 2:22-cr-00108-RAH-KFP-1
                          ____________________
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       2                      Opinion of the Court                22-12009

       Before JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM, and TJOFLAT, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Brenton Edwards appeals his 21-month sentence imposed
       by the United States District Court for the Middle District of Ala-
       bama upon revocation of his supervised release. He argues that
       the sentence was substantively unreasonable because it was greater
       than necessary to achieve the sentencing purposes identified in 18
       U.S.C. § 3553(a). He also argues that the District Court did not
       adequately consider the mitigating aspects of his history and char-
       acteristics in imposing the sentence. We affirm the bottom-of-the-
       guidelines sentence imposed by the District Court.
                                        I.
              In March 2015, a federal grand jury in the Western District
       of Oklahoma indicted Edwards for failure to register as a sex of-
       fender, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2250(a). Edwards pled guilty and
       that District Court sentenced him to 57 months’ imprisonment, fol-
       lowed by 15 years of supervised release.
              Edwards completed his sentence and began his 15-year term
       of supervised release on November 24, 2021. The terms of his su-
       pervised release, as relevant here, required that he: (1) participate
       in a program of substance abuse aftercare at the direction of the
       probation officer; (2) follow the instructions of the probation of-
       ficer; and (3) avoid committing another federal, state, or local
       crime. On April 6, 2022, the Western District of Oklahoma
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       22-12009               Opinion of the Court                        3

       transferred jurisdiction of Edwards’s case to the Middle District of
       Alabama.
               On May 2, 2022, the United States Probation Office filed a
       petition with the District Court, recommending revocation of Ed-
       wards’s supervised release based on violations of the three terms of
       his release discussed above. First, the petition alleged that Edwards
       failed to participate in substance abuse aftercare because on March
       22, 2022, he left Aletheia House in Montgomery, Alabama, where
       he was participating in an inpatient substance abuse treatment pro-
       gram, without permission. Second, the petition alleged that Ed-
       wards’s probation officer instructed him to report to the probation
       office on March 24, 2022, which Edwards failed to do. Finally, the
       petition alleged that Edwards was arrested by deputies in Autauga
       County, Alabama, on March 25, 2022, and was charged with Un-
       lawful Possession of a Controlled Substance in violation of the
       Code of Alabama 1975, § 13A-12-212.The District Court ordered a
       warrant for Edwards, who waived his preliminary and detention
       hearing.
              At the revocation hearing on June 6, 2022, Edwards admit-
       ted the first two violations of his supervised release. He pled no
       contest to the third violation because of pending charges in Au-
       tauga County. The District Court heard evidence from Investiga-
       tor Prieur, who testified that he responded to a call of a suspicious
       person outside a volunteer fire department, which turned out to be
       Edwards. Once Edwards had been identified, the police deter-
       mined that he had an outstanding warrant and they took him into
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       4                      Opinion of the Court               22-12009

       custody and searched him. Upon searching Edwards, the police
       found approximately 1.5 grams of methamphetamine on his per-
       son.
              The District Court found Edwards guilty of all three viola-
       tions. The Court calculated the guidelines range, which was deter-
       mined to be 21 to 24 months. There were no objections to the
       guidelines range.
               Edwards’s brother and girlfriend each addressed the District
       Court and requested that the Court sentence Edwards to rehabili-
       tative treatment instead of imprisonment. Edwards also submitted
       an affidavit from a social worker who claimed that Dismas Chari-
       ties, a halfway house, could offer mental health and substance
       abuse treatment to Edwards. Edwards requested the opportunity
       to attend the program at Dismas Charities.
              Edwards’s probation officer also addressed the Court, ex-
       plaining that Dismas Charities was a reentry center, not a drug
       treatment facility. According to the probation officer, if Edwards
       needed treatment, the best place for him would have been Aletheia
       House.
              The District Court was “troubled” by the fact that Edwards
       walked out of Aletheia House and failed to report to his probation
       officer; the Court believed that based on the overall picture of the
       case, the guidelines were appropriate. The Court sentenced Ed-
       wards to 21-months’ imprisonment, the lowest sentence under the
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       22-12009               Opinion of the Court                         5

       guidelines. Edwards objected to the substantive reasonableness of
       the sentence. This timely appeal followed.
                                        II.
              We review a sentence imposed upon revocation of super-
       vised release for reasonableness. United States v. Vandergrift, 754
       F.3d 1303, 1307 (11th Cir. 2014). We review the reasonableness of
       a sentence under the deferential abuse of discretion standard. Gall
       v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41, 128 S. Ct. 586, 591 (2007). The
       party challenging a sentence bears the burden of proving that the
       sentence is unreasonable in light of the record, the factors listed in
       18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), and the substantial deference afforded sentenc-
       ing courts. United States v. Rosales-Bruno, 789 F.3d 1249, 1256
       (11th Cir. 2015).
               The weight given to any specific § 3553(a) factor is commit-
       ted to the sound discretion of the district court, and we will not
       substitute our judgment in weighing the relevant factors. United
       States v. Amedeo, 487 F.3d 823, 832 (11th Cir. 2007). We will some-
       times “affirm the district court even though we would have gone
       the other way had it been our call.” United States v. Irey, 612 F.3d
       1160, 1189 (11th Cir. 2010) (en banc) (quotation marks omitted).
       Though it has a great deal of discretion, a district court can abuse
       that discretion if it (1) fails to consider relevant factors that were
       due significant weight, (2) gives an improper or irrelevant factor
       significant weight, or (3) commits a clear error of judgment by bal-
       ancing the proper factors unreasonably. Id. Moreover, a district
       court’s unjustified reliance on any one § 3553(a) factor may be
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       6                       Opinion of the Court                 22-12009

       indicative of an unreasonable sentence. United States v. Crisp, 454
       F.3d 1285, 1292 (11th Cir. 2006).
               The district court must impose a sentence that is sufficient,
       but not greater than necessary, to comply with the sentencing fac-
       tors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). Kimbrough v. United States, 552
       U.S. 85, 101, 128 S. Ct. 558, 570 (2007). Nevertheless, a district
       court need not address every factor or every argument in mitiga-
       tion; rather, simply acknowledging that it considered the § 3553(a)
       factors and the parties’ arguments is sufficient. United States v.
       Taylor, 997 F.3d 1348, 1354 (11th Cir. 2021). If the district court
       “decides simply to apply the Guidelines to a particular case, doing
       so will not necessarily require lengthy explanation.” Rita v. United
       States, 551 U.S. 338, 356, 127 S. Ct. 2456, 2468 (2007).
              We will vacate the defendant’s sentence only if we are “left
       with the definite and firm conviction that the district court com-
       mitted a clear error of judgment in weighing the § 3553(a) factors
       by arriving at a sentence that lies outside the range of reasonable
       sentences dictated by the facts of the case.” United States v. Trailer,
       827 F.3d 933, 936 (11th Cir. 2016) (quotation marks omitted). Alt-
       hough we do not presume that a sentence falling within the guide-
       line range is reasonable, we ordinarily expect such a sentence to be
       reasonable. United States v. Hunt, 526 F.3d 739, 746 (11th Cir.
       2008).
              The failure to discuss mitigating evidence does not indicate
       that the court erroneously ignored or failed to consider this evi-
       dence. Amedeo, 487 F.3d at 833. The district court’s failure to
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       22-12009               Opinion of the Court                         7

       specifically mention at sentencing certain mitigating factors does
       not compel the conclusion that the sentence crafted in accordance
       with the § 3553(a) factors was substantively unreasonable. United
       States v. Snipes, 611 F.3d 855, 873 (11th Cir. 2010).
              Here, the District Court did not abuse its discretion in
       weighing the § 3553(a) factors to find that, given Edwards’s history
       and characteristics and the nature of his violations of failing to re-
       port to an inpatient substance abuse treatment facility as required,
       a 21-month sentence was sufficient but not greater than necessary.
       Moreover, the fact that the District Court did not specifically dis-
       cuss the mitigating evidence in the record does not compel the con-
       clusion that the sentence crafted in accordance with the § 3553(a)
       factors and at the low end of the guideline range was substantively
       unreasonable.
              The District Court discussed that Edwards had previously
       failed a drug test and had been given another chance at Aletheia
       House, which he walked out of after two weeks. Based on the
       “overall picture,” the District Court decided to apply the guide-
       lines. The Court said:
             [H]aving considered and consulted the guidelines and
             the parties’ arguments and evaluated the reasonable-
             ness of a sentence through the lens of 18 U.S.C. 3553,
             it is the order, judgment, and decree of the Court that
             the defendant is committed to the custody of the Fed-
             eral Bureau of Prisons to be imprisoned for a term of
             21 months.
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       8                      Opinion of the Court               22-12009

       Tr. of Revocation Proceeding, Doc. 34 at 24.
               While this Circuit does not apply an automatic presumption
       of reasonableness to within-guidelines sentences, we do normally
       expect within-guidelines sentences like Edwards’s to be reasonable.
       Hunt, 526 F.3d at 746. The District Court simply applied the guide-
       lines to Edwards’s revocation. It acknowledged that it had consid-
       ered the relevant arguments and the § 3553(a) factors. It did not
       need to do more than that. See Taylor, 997 F.3d at 1354.
              The District Court did not abuse its discretion in sentencing
       Edwards to 21 months’ imprisonment upon revocation of his su-
       pervised release. The District Court’s sentence is
             AFFIRMED.