Filed: Jun. 23, 2014
Latest Update: Mar. 02, 2020
Summary: UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 13-4770 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. LAURA SUE JONES, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Wilmington. James C. Fox, Senior District Judge. (7:08-cr-00105-F-1) Submitted: June 19, 2014 Decided: June 23, 2014 Before NIEMEYER, MOTZ, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Thomas P. McNamara, Federal
Summary: UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 13-4770 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. LAURA SUE JONES, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Wilmington. James C. Fox, Senior District Judge. (7:08-cr-00105-F-1) Submitted: June 19, 2014 Decided: June 23, 2014 Before NIEMEYER, MOTZ, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Thomas P. McNamara, Federal ..
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UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 13-4770
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
LAURA SUE JONES,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of North Carolina, at Wilmington. James C. Fox, Senior
District Judge. (7:08-cr-00105-F-1)
Submitted: June 19, 2014 Decided: June 23, 2014
Before NIEMEYER, MOTZ, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Thomas P. McNamara, Federal Public Defender, G. Alan DuBois,
First Assistant Federal Public Defender, Raleigh, North
Carolina, for Appellant. Thomas G. Walker, United States
Attorney, Jennifer P. May-Parker, Shailika K. Shah, Assistant
United States Attorneys, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
In 2008, Laura Sue Jones pled guilty pursuant to a
written plea agreement to conspiracy to possess with intent to
distribute more than fifty grams of methamphetamine, 21 U.S.C.
§§ 841(a)(1), 846 (2012). She was sentenced to thirty-eight
months in prison and a five-year term of supervised release.
Pursuant to Fed. R. Crim. P. 35(a), Jones was resentenced to
sixty months’ imprisonment and a five-year term of supervised
release. Jones’ term of supervised release commenced in July
2012. In August 2013, the probation officer petitioned for
revocation of Jones’ supervised release, based in part on Jones’
arrest on state drug charges. In the absence of any challenge
to the factual allegations supporting the motion for revocation,
the district court revoked Jones’ supervised release. The court
subsequently imposed the statutory maximum sentence of thirty-
six months’ imprisonment, finding Jones’ continued involvement
in the distribution of controlled substances posed a significant
risk to society.
On appeal, Jones does not challenge the district
court’s decision to revoke her supervised release or its policy
statement calculations. Rather, she argues her thirty-six-month
sentence is plainly unreasonable because the district court
failed to consider the inadequacy of the Bureau of Prisons’
(“BOP”) drug treatment program and whether community-based
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programs would have better provided Jones with the needed
rehabilitative treatment.
A district court has broad discretion to impose a
sentence upon revoking a defendant’s supervised release. United
States v. Thompson,
595 F.3d 544, 547 (4th Cir. 2010). We will
affirm a sentence imposed after revocation of supervised release
if it is within the applicable statutory maximum and not
“plainly unreasonable.” United States v. Crudup,
461 F.3d 433,
437, 439–40 (4th Cir. 2006). In determining whether a
revocation sentence is plainly unreasonable, we first assess the
sentence for unreasonableness, “follow[ing] generally the
procedural and substantive considerations that we employ in our
review of original sentences.”
Id. at 438.
A supervised release revocation sentence is
procedurally reasonable if the district court considered the
Sentencing Guidelines’ Chapter 7 advisory policy statements and
the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2012) factors it is permitted to
consider in a supervised release revocation case. 18 U.S.C.
§ 3583(e) (2012);
Crudup, 461 F.3d at 439. Such a sentence is
substantively reasonable if the district court stated a proper
basis for concluding the defendant should receive the sentence
imposed, up to the statutory maximum.
Crudup, 461 F.3d at 440.
Only if a sentence is found procedurally or substantively
unreasonable will we “then decide whether the sentence is
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plainly unreasonable.”
Id. at 439. A sentence is plainly
unreasonable if it is clearly or obviously unreasonable.
Id.
Jones argues her sentence is procedurally unreasonable
because the district court failed to adequately consider the
inadequacy of the BOP’s substance abuse treatment. Ideally,
Jones argues, the district court should have “imposed a modest
active sentence of incarceration, and then imposed an additional
release period that required her to participate in a community
program.” However, a district court is not authorized to
“impose or lengthen a prison sentence to enable an offender to
complete a treatment program or otherwise to promote
rehabilitation.” Tapia v. United States,
131 S. Ct. 2382, 2393
(2011). In United States v. Bennett,
698 F.3d 194, 197 (4th
Cir. 2012), we held that that Tapia applies to revocation
sentencing. We further added, “[t]rial judges should thus make
plain that a defendant’s rehabilitative needs relate at most to
recommended programs or locations—not to the fact or length of
imprisonment.”
Id. at 199.
Upon review of the parties’ briefs and the record, we
conclude that Jones’ thirty-six-month prison sentence, which
represents an upward variance from the advisory policy statement
range of twelve to eighteen months of imprisonment, is not
plainly unreasonable. We therefore affirm Jones’ sentence. We
dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
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contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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