Filed: Nov. 04, 2013
Latest Update: Mar. 02, 2020
Summary: 1, Because this appeal stems from a conviction via a guilty, plea, we draw the following facts from the plea colloquy and, sentencing materials., Taylor committed the instant offense five months after release from, this sentence.United States v. Innarelli, 524 F.3d 286, 292 (1st Cir.
Not for Publication in West's Federal Reporter
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 12-1469
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
DWAYNE M. TAYLOR,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
[Hon. John J. McConnell, Jr., U.S. District Judge]
Before
Lynch, Chief Judge,
Stahl and Howard, Circuit Judges.
J. Martin Richey, Federal Defender Office, on brief for
appellant.
Donald C. Lockhart, Assistant United States Attorney, and
Peter F. Neronha, United States Attorney, on brief for appellee.
November 4, 2013
Per Curiam. Dwayne M. Taylor appeals his ten-year prison
sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm. Because his
sentence was not substantively unreasonable, we affirm.
On October 23, 2011, police received a report that four
men, carrying firearms and masks, were traveling in a Chevy SUV.1
Officers attempted to stop a vehicle matching the description
given. The vehicle initially came to a stop but sped away as
officers approached; it was eventually pulled over after being
pursued by approximately ten police vehicles. Taylor, who was
sitting in the rear driver's side seat, exited the vehicle; as he
did so, he removed a firearm from his waistband and discarded it
onto the vehicle's floor. When Taylor attempted to flee, an
officer gave chase and, after a struggle, apprehended Taylor.
Officers retrieved a Sig Sauer nine-millimeter semi-automatic
pistol, loaded with twelve live rounds of ammunition, from the area
where Taylor had discarded the firearm. Officers also seized a
mask and five pairs of plastic gloves from the vehicle, and an
additional pair of plastic gloves from Taylor's pocket.
A federal grand jury returned a one-count indictment
charging Taylor with being a felon in possession of a firearm in
violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2). On January 19,
1
Because this appeal stems from a conviction via a guilty
plea, we draw the following facts from the plea colloquy and
sentencing materials. See United States v. Whitlow, 714 F.3d 41,
42 (1st Cir. 2013).
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2012, Taylor pleaded guilty without a plea agreement. The
probation department prepared a presentence report ("PSR") that
determined that Taylor's total offense level was 17 and criminal
history category was VI, yielding a sentencing guidelines range of
51 to 63 months. Both the probation department and the district
court rejected the government's request for a two-level increase
for reckless endangerment during flight under U.S.S.G. § 3C1.2.
The district court adopted the PSR's calculations.
The government urged an upward variance to the statutory
maximum ten-year sentence, to which the district court ultimately
agreed. In justifying the variance, the court relied primarily on
three sentencing considerations: (1) the severe and dangerous
nature of the instant offense and the impact of firearm offenses on
public safety; (2) Taylor's consistent pattern of criminal
involvement, including several violent offenses;2 and (3) the
apparent inefficacy of his prior sentences. The court also took
2
As a juvenile, Taylor was adjudicated delinquent first for
robbery and subsequently for escaping from the facility to which he
had been sentenced. His adult convictions include misdemeanor
assault (after which he violated the terms of his probation),
manufacture and delivery of marijuana and cocaine, two misdemeanor
domestic assault offenses, two willful trespassing offenses, three
offenses of driving either without a license or with an expired
license, obstructing police (after which he violated the terms of
his suspended sentence), and a prior federal conviction for being
a felon in possession of a firearm. For this last offense, he
received a forty-month sentence and, after violating the terms of
his supervised release, an additional twenty-two month sentence;
Taylor committed the instant offense five months after release from
this sentence.
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note of Taylor's difficult childhood.3 After considering these
factors, the court noted that it would impose a sentence above the
statutory maximum if it could. The district court then stated
that, with that limitation, the only way to keep the public safe
from Taylor, and to keep Taylor himself safe, was to impose the
statutory maximum sentence. This appeal followed.
Taylor argues that his sentence was substantively
unreasonable because the magnitude of the variance -- all the way
to the statutory maximum, nearly two times the top of the
sentencing guidelines range -- was disproportionate to the offense
and to his history and characteristics. This court reviews the
district court's fact-finding for clear error, United States v.
Walker, 665 F.3d 212, 233 (1st Cir. 2011), and the substantive
reasonableness of the resulting sentence for abuse of discretion,
"tak[ing] into account the totality of the circumstances, including
the extent of any variance from the Guidelines range," United
States v. Prosperi,
686 F.3d 32, 42 (1st Cir. 2012) (quoting Gall
v. United States,
552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007)) (internal quotation mark
omitted). When the sentence is outside of the guidelines range,
the "reasons for deviation should typically be rooted either in the
3
According to the PSR, his childhood was marked by drug or
alcohol abuse by each parent, his mother's death when he was twelve
or thirteen years old and his father's death sixteen years later,
multiple separations from his family and sixteen different
residential placements between the ages of three and fourteen, and
various problems with his mental and emotional health.
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nature and circumstances of the offense or the characteristics of
the offender; must add up to a plausible rationale; and must
justify a variance of the magnitude in question." United States v.
Martin, 520 F.3d 87, 91 (1st Cir. 2008). A sentence will generally
be found substantively reasonable if "the court has provided a
plausible explanation, and the overall result is defensible."
United States v. Innarelli,
524 F.3d 286, 292 (1st Cir. 2008).
Upon review of the record, we cannot say that the
sentence and reasons provided for it fall afoul of these rules. A
sentencing court may properly consider all of the factors upon
which the district court relied, see 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a); United
States v. Flores-Machiote, 706 F.3d 16, 22–23 (1st Cir. 2013)
(sentencing judge may consider community-based factors, such as the
incidence of particular crimes, as relevant to general deterrence),
and the sentence, while undoubtedly severe, was individually
calibrated to Taylor's offense and history.
Taylor argues that the district court misapprehended the
violence inherent in the instant and prior offenses, and that,
understood properly, these characteristics do not take this case
out of the mine-run of felon-in-possession cases contemplated by
the sentencing guidelines. However, the district court thoroughly
and convincingly explained how this case was distinguishable from
the "typical" felon-in-possession case for which the guidelines
range accurately captures the warranted sentence. J.A. 89:14–90:8,
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91:10–23, 95:21–96:3, 96:21–98:8. The variance was "rooted . . .
in the nature and circumstances of the offense [and] the
characteristics of the offender," Martin, 520 F.3d at 91; it was
based upon "a plausible explanation[;] and the overall result [was]
defensible,"
Innarelli, 524 F.3d at 292.
Taylor also claims that the district court improperly
relied upon rank speculation that he and his compatriots were about
to commit some unspecified separate crime. He directs us to United
States v. Van, ___ F. App'x ___, 2013 WL 5539617, at *4–5 (6th Cir.
Oct. 8, 2013) (unpublished), in which the Sixth Circuit held that
an above-guidelines sentence was substantively unreasonable when it
was based upon suspicion, lacking record support, that the charged
offense was part of an undisclosed larger scheme. Here, the
sentencing transcript reflects that it was the government, not the
court, that advanced this theory as a rationale for a variance to
the statutory maximum. Although the court noted that there was
evidence that the four men were about to perpetrate a crime, J.A.
87:7–24, in the court's statement of sentencing reasons, it did not
appear to rely in any particular way on this speculation,4 J.A.
89:12–90:21, 91:10–23, 95:21–98:11. Taylor's argument is,
therefore, without merit.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm Taylor's sentence.
4
We also note that, unlike in Van, there was record evidence
in support of this theory.
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