Court Opinion

ID: 9405801
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-29 15:01:28.820287+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:24.322801
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                            For the Eighth Circuit
                       ___________________________

                               No. 22-3505
                       ___________________________

                            United States of America

                       lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellee

                                          v.

                              James Blake McFarlin

                      lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellant
                                      ____________

                    Appeal from United States District Court
                  for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Central
                                  ____________

                             Submitted: May 8, 2023
                              Filed: June 29, 2023
                                 [Unpublished]
                                 ____________

Before SHEPHERD, STRAS, and KOBES, Circuit Judges.
                           ____________

PER CURIAM.

       In 2007, James Blake McFarlin pleaded guilty to possession with intent to
distribute more than 50 grams of methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C.
§ 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(B). McFarlin received a sentence of 188 months’
imprisonment and 4 years of supervised release. We affirmed this sentence on
appeal. 1 On July 28, 2022, the United States moved to revoke McFarlin’s supervised
release alleging that he had violated the terms and conditions of release by
committing another crime. Specifically, on July 3, 2022, he was arrested by state
law enforcement officers in Jonesboro, Arkansas for possession of illegal narcotics
with intent to deliver and criminal trespass. McFarlin also submitted a urine
specimen that tested positive for marijuana. The district court 2 then set an initial
revocation hearing for August 25, 2022. McFarlin failed to appear, but his attorney
was present.

       McFarlin appeared at a continued revocation hearing on November 17, 2022,
where he admitted to simple possession of narcotics on July 3, 2022, but denied an
intent to distribute. He further admitted to using a controlled substance, testing
positive for marijuana, and failing to report for substance abuse testing. The matter
proceeded solely on McFarlin’s admission to simple possession of a controlled
substance, a Grade C violation.

       The district court accepted McFarlin’s admissions, revoked his supervised
release, and sentenced him to 18 months’ imprisonment—4 months above the United
States Sentencing Guidelines (USSG) range of 8 to 14 months—with no supervised
release to follow.

        In this appeal, McFarlin argues that the district court erred by finding that
McFarlin had not communicated with counsel before he failed to appear for his
initial revocation hearing; by failing to adequately explain its decision to vary
upward; and by basing the length of the term of imprisonment imposed on the length
of the unserved portion of the term of supervised release revoked. McFarlin did not
object to any of these alleged procedural errors at sentencing. Finally, McFarlin

      1
          United States v. McFarlin, 306 F. App’x 342 (8th Cir. 2009).
      2
       The Honorable James M. Moody, Jr., United States District Judge for the
Eastern District of Arkansas.
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asserts that the revocation sentence was substantively unreasonable. After carefully
reviewing these claims, we affirm.

       We review McFarlin’s revocation sentence under a deferential abuse-of-
discretion standard. United States v. Richey, 758 F.3d 999, 1001 (8th Cir. 2014).
We first ensure that the district court committed no significant procedural error and
then determine whether the sentence was substantively reasonable. Id. Since
McFarlin did not object to the alleged procedural errors at sentencing, we review the
same for plain error. United States v. Isler, 983 F.3d 335, 341 (8th Cir. 2020).
“Under plain error review, the defendant must show: (1) an error; (2) that is plain;
and (3) that affects substantial rights.” Id. (citation omitted). We review the
substantive reasonableness of a revocation sentence for abuse of discretion. Richey,
758 F.3d at 1001.

        First, McFarlin alleges that the district court clearly erred in finding that
McFarlin had not communicated with his attorney before he failed to appear for the
initial revocation hearing. However, the district court made no such finding. In fact,
it was McFarlin’s attorney who interjected the fact of McFarlin’s failure to appear
with his statement that “[a]s far as the failure to appear goes, Your Honor, I know
that that’s obviously going to weigh on the Court.” Counsel then proceeded to
explain that McFarlin was “not in his right mind at th[e] time” because he was still
“using,” and that “he just didn’t come to court because he wasn’t ready to go to
prison” because he needed time to arrange for the storage of his belongings. Counsel
added, “I don’t think any of that excuses his failure to appear.” While Counsel’s
statements prompted an exchange between the court and Counsel as to what exactly
Counsel had advised the court at the time of McFarlin’s nonappearance, the record
reflects no finding as to the extent of the communication between McFarlin and his
attorney. Accordingly, we find no error.

       Next, McFarlin asserts that the district court procedurally erred by failing to
adequately explain the sentence. While “[t]he explanation given by the district
court . . . was sparse [it] did not ‘cause[] prejudice and a miscarriage of justice.’”

                                         -3-
United States v. Needom, 819 F. App’x 448, 450 (8th Cir. 2020) (quoting United
States v. Fry, 792 F.3d 884, 891 (8th Cir. 2015) (fourth alteration in original)). “A
sentencing error is prejudicial if there is a reasonable probability the defendant
would have received a lighter sentence but for the error.” United States v. Bain, 586
F.3d 634, 640 (8th Cir. 2009) (per curiam). McFarlin offers no evidence that the
district court would have imposed a shorter sentence had it explained the sentence
in greater detail. See United States v. Chavarria-Ortiz, 828 F.3d 668, 672 (8th Cir.
2016) (finding no plain error when appellant pointed “to nothing to suggest a
reasonable probability that the district court would have imposed a more lenient
sentence if the court had elected to discuss the appropriateness of the sentence at
greater length”). Accordingly, we find no plain error with respect to the district
court’s explanation of McFarlin’s sentence.

      McFarlin also contends that the district court erred when it “sentenced
McFarlin using a mechanical calculation whereby it derived ‘the balance’ of his
supervised release term and imposed that as his sentence on revocation,” without
considering “the policy statements of the Sentencing Commission applicable to
probation and supervised release recommendations.” While, after announcing the
sentence, the district court alluded to the fact that the sentence equaled the unserved
portion of the previously imposed term of supervised release, this was clearly a mere
passing observation and not offered by the district court as a reason for the sentence
already announced. Again, we find no error, plain or otherwise.

       Finally, we review the substantive reasonableness of a revocation sentence for
an abuse of discretion. United States v. Phillips, 785 F.3d 282, 284 (8th Cir. 2015).
“A district court abuses its discretion and imposes an unreasonable sentence when it
fails to consider a relevant and significant factor, gives significant weight to an
irrelevant or improper factor, or considers the appropriate factors but commits a clear
error of judgment in weighing those factors.” Id. (citation omitted). Here, McFarlin
alleges that the district court did not give adequate weight to his drug addiction and
gave weight to an irrelevant factor, namely “‘the balance’ of McFarlin’s supervised
release term.” We explained above that the record does not reflect that the district

                                         -4-
court relied on the length of McFarlin’s unserved term of supervised release as a
factor in the sentence now appealed. Further, the district court judge presided over
McFarlin’s original sentencing and heard argument of McFarlin’s counsel with
respect to his drug addiction and was thus well aware of McFarlin’s substance-abuse
issues. The district court is given “wide latitude to weigh the § 3553(a) factors in
each case and assign some factors greater weight than others.” United States v.
Boelter, 806 F.3d 1134, 1136 (8th Cir. 2015) (per curiam). The district court did not
abuse its discretion with respect the sentence imposed in this case.

      Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
                     ______________________________

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