Court Opinion

ID: 1001044
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2013-07-04 17:49:44.786099+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:42.429857
License: Public Domain

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.                                                                    No. 99-4573

RONALD ALLEN KEATON,
Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Wilmington.
W. Earl Britt, Senior District Judge.
(CR-95-4-BR)

Submitted: January 11, 2000

Decided: March 6, 2000

Before NIEMEYER and LUTTIG, Circuit Judges, and
BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge.

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Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

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COUNSEL

Stephen C. Gordon, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Raleigh,
North Carolina, for Appellant. Janice McKenzie Cole, United States
Attorney, Anne M. Hayes, Assistant United States Attorney, Raleigh,
North Carolina, for Appellee.

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Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

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OPINION

PER CURIAM:

Ronald Allen Keaton was sentenced to sixty months imprisonment
following the revocation of his term of supervised release. On appeal,
Keaton alleges that the sentence was unreasonable and that the district
court failed to articulate the reasons for the sentence. Finding no
reversible error, we affirm.

Keaton was convicted and sentenced in 1995 for his part in a drug
conspiracy. The court initially sentenced him to 120 months imprison-
ment to be followed by sixty months supervised release. A few
months later, the court reduced the active term of imprisonment to
forty-eight months after the Government filed a motion for downward
departure.

The evidence presented at the revocation hearing showed that, less
than three months after being released from prison, Keaton conspired
with two other men to rob a convenience store at gunpoint. Specifi-
cally, witnesses testified that Keaton berated one of the other men into
committing the actual robbery. Keaton then led police on a high-
speed chase for several miles until he wrecked the vehicle.1 Keaton
was able to flee the scene, but his accomplices were arrested. Keaton
turned himself in the next day.

Keaton claims that his sentence is unreasonable because: (1) it
greatly exceeded the recommended range set forth in USSG § 7B1.4,
p.s.;2 (2) the Government presented only hearsay evidence against
him at the revocation hearing; and (3) he was unable to fully defend
himself because he was still awaiting trial in state court. Keaton fur-
ther alleges that the district court erred by failing to explain the rea-
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1 Police were able to determine that the vehicle was stolen.
2 U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual (1998).

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soning behind its sentence, as required under 18 U.S.C. §§ 3553,
3583(c) (1994). We find Keaton's arguments unpersuasive.

As a threshold matter, Keaton did not object to the district court's
sentencing decision at trial. Therefore, we review Keaton's sentence
for plain error, and find none.3

As Keaton himself acknowledges, the policy statements found in
Chapter 7 of the Guidelines are merely advisory. 4 Nevertheless, the
Guidelines expressly provide that a sentence in excess of the recom-
mended range may be appropriate where, as here, the original sen-
tence was the result of a downward departure.5 We find no plain error
in the court's decision to give Keaton the maximum sentence. Keaton
committed these violations shortly after being released from prison,
and his use of a firearm and subsequent efforts to elude police suggest
that he poses a significant risk to society. Finally, there is no prohibi-
tion to the use of hearsay evidence in a revocation hearing,6 and we
see no reason to find Keaton's sentence plainly unreasonable simply
because he made the tactical decision to "hedge his bets" with regard
to his state trial.

We likewise reject Keaton's assertion that the district court com-
mitted plain error by not expressly stating its reasons for imposing the
sentence. Nothing in the statute or in the Federal Rules of Criminal
Procedure requires the court to state on the record that it considered
each of the factors contained in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (1994). More-
over, although the Sixth Circuit has recently held that a district court
should at least provide some explanation for imposing a sentence
which exceeds the range recommended by § 7B1.4,7 we have never
imposed such a requirement.

Accordingly, we affirm Keaton's sentence. We dispense with oral
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3 See United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732-34 (1993).
4 See United States v. Davis, 53 F.3d 638, 642 (4th Cir. 1995).
5 See USSG § 7B1.4, comment. (n.4).
6 See generally Fed. R. Evid. 1101(d)(3) (rules of evidence not applica-
ble in revocation proceedings).
7 See United States v. McClellan , 164 F.3d 308, 310 (6th Cir. 1999).

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argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately pre-
sented in the materials before the court and argument would not aid
the decisional process.

AFFIRMED

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