Court Opinion

ID: 995583
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2013-07-04 00:39:39.014325+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:34:52.507939
License: Public Domain

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.
                                                                      No. 97-4992
WILLIAM M. JACKSON BAILEY, a/k/a
Troy,
Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of West Virginia, at Martinsburg.
Robert Earl Maxwell, Senior District Judge.
(CR-93-98)

Submitted: June 9, 1998

Decided: July 24, 1998

Before MURNAGHAN, WILKINS, and MOTZ, Circuit Judges.

_________________________________________________________________

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

_________________________________________________________________

COUNSEL

Dorwin J. Wolfe, Elkins, West Virginia, for Appellant. William D.
Wilmoth, United States Attorney, Sam G. Nazzaro, Assistant United
States Attorney, Wheeling, West Virginia, for Appellee.

_________________________________________________________________

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See
Local Rule 36(c).
OPINION

PER CURIAM:

Appellant William McKinley Jackson Bailey appeals from the
sixty-month sentence he received after the district court revoked his
term of supervised release. He alleges that the court erred by impos-
ing a sentence in excess of the sentencing range set out by the policy
statements in Chapter 7 of the Sentencing Guidelines.1 Bailey also
alleges that the district court erroneously sentenced him to the maxi-
mum term of imprisonment under 18 U.S.C. § 3583 (1994). Finding
no error, we affirm.

Bailey was originally convicted pursuant to his guilty plea to one
count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and to distrib-
ute crack cocaine, and his sentence included a five-year term of super-
vised release. Shortly after beginning his term of supervised release,
Bailey's probation officer filed a petition to revoke his release, alleg-
ing that Bailey sold crack cocaine to a confidential informant, failed
to report to the probation officer as ordered, and stole money from his
father. During the revocation hearing, Bailey also admitted to smok-
ing marijuana and crack cocaine while on supervised release.2 The
district court considered the sentencing tables in Chapter 7, but sen-
tenced Bailey to the statutory maximum under § 3583(e).

Because Bailey did not object to the sentence during the hearing,
we review for plain error, and we find no such error here. See Fed.
R. Crim. P. 52(b); United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732-37
(1993). Chapter 7 policy statements "are now and always have been
non-binding, advisory guides to the district courts in supervised
release revocation proceedings." United States v. Davis, 53 F.3d 638,
642 (4th Cir. 1995). Here, we find that the district court properly con-
sidered the guidelines and exercised its considerable discretion in
imposing a sentence in excess of the sentencing range set out in the
Chapter 7 policy statements.
_________________________________________________________________
1 U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 7B1.4 (1997).
2 Bailey admitted to the charges of failure to report during the revoca-
tion hearing, but denied the other charges.

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Bailey's assertions concerning the imposition of a sixty-month sen-
tence is without merit. Pursuant to § 3583(e)(3), the district court was
authorized to sentence Bailey to serve in prison all or part of the origi-
nal term of supervised release, which in this case was five years. Bai-
ley alleges that the court should not have considered the alleged drug
distributions because he denied those charges. We disagree. The stat-
ute expressly states that the court need only find that a defendant vio-
lated a condition of his supervised release by a preponderance of the
evidence, and we find that the Government met this burden.3 More-
over, under the statute, only one violation is needed to justify the
maximum sentence, and Bailey admitted to two such violations. Since
the sentence imposed was within the limits contained in the statute,
we find that the district court's decision was not clearly erroneous.

Accordingly, we affirm the sentence imposed by the district court.
Bailey's unopposed motion to submit the case for consideration on
the briefs is granted. We dispense with oral argument because the
facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the material
before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED
_________________________________________________________________
3 Bailey was under indictment for these charges in state court. In addi-
tion, evidence was presented showing that Bailey sold crack cocaine to
a confidential informant. We find that the probation officer's petition put
Bailey on notice that these charges would be used against him.

                     3