Court Opinion

ID: 9939369
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-09 21:00:42.231077+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:41:11.892005
License: Public Domain

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                                             UNPUBLISHED

                               UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                               No. 23-4187

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                             Plaintiff - Appellee,

                      v.

        IVAN LELANE SMITH,

                             Defendant - Appellant.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at
        Raleigh. James C. Dever III, District Judge. (5:08-cr-00184-D-1)

        Submitted: December 21, 2023                                      Decided: February 8, 2024

        Before KING and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges, and TRAXLER, Senior Circuit
        Judge.

        Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

        ON BRIEF: G. Alan DuBois, Federal Public Defender, Andrew DeSimone, Assistant
        Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Raleigh,
        North Carolina, for Appellee. Michael F. Easley, Jr., United States Attorney, David A.
        Bragdon, Assistant United States Attorney, Kristine L. Fritz, Assistant United States
        Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Raleigh, North Carolina,
        for Appellee.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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        PER CURIAM:

               Ivan Lelane Smith appeals the district court’s judgment revoking his supervised

        release and sentencing him to 24 months’ imprisonment. Smith argues that the district

        court violated his due process right by prejudging him guilty of absconding from

        supervision and that the court failed to adequately address several mitigating arguments he

        presented in support of a lower sentence. We affirm.

               “One of the most fundamental rights of an accused is the right to a fair [hearing] by

        an impartial tribunal.” United States v. Cassiagnol, 420 F.2d 868, 878 (4th Cir. 1970).

        However, because Smith did not raise his due process claim in the district court, we review

        only for plain error. See United States v. Combs, 36 F.4th 502, 505 (4th Cir. 2022). To

        succeed on plain error review, “the trial judge’s comments [must be] so prejudicial as to

        deny a party an opportunity for a fair and impartial [hearing].” United States v. Godwin,

        272 F.3d 659, 679 (4th Cir. 2001) (internal quotation marks omitted). We have reviewed

        the record and conclude that the comments made by the district judge were not so egregious

        as to deny Smith an opportunity for a fair hearing before an impartial tribunal. Cf. Belue v.

        Leventhal, 640 F.3d 567, 573 (4th Cir. 2011) (noting, in review of recusal motion, that

        “opinions formed by the judge on the basis of facts introduced or events occurring in the

        course of the current proceedings, or of prior proceedings almost never constitute a valid

        basis for a bias or partiality motion”). We therefore find no plain error.

               With respect to Smith’s sentence, “[a] district court has broad discretion when

        imposing a sentence upon revocation of supervised release.” United States v. Webb, 738

        F.3d 638, 640 (4th Cir. 2013). Thus, we will “affirm a revocation sentence so long as it is

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        within the prescribed statutory range and is not plainly unreasonable.” United States v.

        Coston, 964 F.3d 289, 296 (4th Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks omitted). When

        reviewing whether a revocation sentence is plainly unreasonable, we first determine

        “whether the sentence is unreasonable at all.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

               “A revocation sentence is procedurally reasonable if the district court adequately

        explains the chosen sentence after considering the Sentencing Guidelines’ nonbinding

        Chapter Seven policy statements and the applicable 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors,” id. at 297

        (internal quotation marks omitted), and the explanation indicates “that the court considered

        any potentially meritorious arguments raised by the parties,” United States v. Patterson,

        957 F.3d 426, 436-37 (4th Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks omitted). The sentencing

        court “need not be as detailed or specific when imposing a revocation sentence as it must

        be when imposing a post-conviction sentence,” but “it still must provide a statement of

        reasons for the sentence imposed.” United States v. Slappy, 872 F.3d 202, 208 (4th Cir.

        2017) (internal quotation marks omitted). Indeed, a revocation sentence “need not always

        be accompanied by a fulsome explanation for [the court’s] acceptance or rejection of the

        parties’ arguments in favor of a particular sentence because, in many circumstances, a

        court’s acknowledgment of its consideration of the arguments will suffice.” Patterson, 957

        F.3d at 438 (emphasis omitted). Further, “[w]here a sentencing court hears a defendant’s

        arguments and engages with them at a hearing, we may infer from that discussion that

        specific attention has been given to those arguments.” United States v. Nance, 957 F.3d

        204, 213 (4th Cir. 2020).

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               We conclude that Smith’s revocation sentence is procedurally reasonable. While

        Smith argues that the district court should have more thoroughly addressed his mitigating

        arguments, the record reflects that the court explicitly or implicitly engaged with many of

        those arguments. In any event, we “will not vacate a sentence simply because the court

        did not spell out what the context of its explanation made patently obvious: namely, that a

        shorter prison term was inappropriate under the circumstances.” United States v. Lester,

        985 F.3d 377, 386 (4th Cir. 2021) (cleaned up).

               Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment and deny Smith’s motion to

        expedite our decision as moot. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal

        contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would

        not aid the decisional process.

                                                                                      AFFIRMED

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