Filed: Jul. 25, 2016
Latest Update: Mar. 03, 2020
Summary: UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 15-4665 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. THOMAS EARL TILLEY, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, at Greensboro. William L. Osteen, Jr., Chief District Judge. (1:14-cr-00130-WO-1) Submitted: July 21, 2016 Decided: July 25, 2016 Before SHEDD, AGEE, and WYNN, Circuit Judges. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Brian Michael Aus, D
Summary: UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 15-4665 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. THOMAS EARL TILLEY, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, at Greensboro. William L. Osteen, Jr., Chief District Judge. (1:14-cr-00130-WO-1) Submitted: July 21, 2016 Decided: July 25, 2016 Before SHEDD, AGEE, and WYNN, Circuit Judges. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Brian Michael Aus, Du..
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UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 15-4665
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
THOMAS EARL TILLEY,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle
District of North Carolina, at Greensboro. William L. Osteen,
Jr., Chief District Judge. (1:14-cr-00130-WO-1)
Submitted: July 21, 2016 Decided: July 25, 2016
Before SHEDD, AGEE, and WYNN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Brian Michael Aus, Durham, North Carolina, for Appellant. Caroline
D. Ciraolo, Acting Assistant Attorney General, S. Robert Lyons,
Gregory Victor Davis, Katie Bagley, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF
JUSTICE, Washington, D.C.; Ripley Rand, United States Attorney,
Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Thomas Earl Tilley pled guilty to interference with the
administration of Internal Revenue laws by corrupt or forcible
means, in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7212(a) (2012) and 18 U.S.C.
§ 2 (2012). The district court sentenced him to 32 months’
imprisonment. Tilley appeals his sentence, arguing that the
district court plainly erred by assessing a criminal history point
under U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 4A1.1(c) (2014), for his
prior conviction of misdemeanor disorderly conduct for which he
received a 30–day suspended sentence and 12 months of unsupervised
probation. Finding no error, much less plain error, we affirm.
Tilley did not object at sentencing to the criminal history
points assessed in the presentence report. Therefore, we review
his claim for plain error. See United States v. Lynn,
592 F.3d
572, 576-77 (4th Cir. 2010). Under this standard, Tilley has the
burden of showing: (1) there was error; (2) the error was plain;
and (3) the error affected his substantial rights. United
States v. Olano,
507 U.S. 725, 732–34 (1993); United States v.
Strickland,
245 F.3d 368, 379–80 (4th Cir. 2001). When these
conditions are satisfied, this court may exercise its discretion
to notice the error only if it “seriously affect[s] the fairness,
integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.”
Olano,
507 U.S. at 736 (internal quotation marks omitted).
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Section 4A1.2(c)(1) of the Sentencing Guidelines provides
that certain misdemeanor offenses will be counted in computing a
defendant’s criminal history if “the sentence was a term of
probation of more than one year or a term of imprisonment of at
least thirty days.” The Guideline lists “[d]isorderly conduct” as
one such countable offense.
Id. The court looks to the term of
imprisonment imposed—not the amount of time the defendant actually
serves—in order to determine whether to assess criminal history
points for a prior conviction. Id.; see USSG § 4A1.2 cmt. n.2
(2014) (“[C]riminal history points are based on the sentence
pronounced, not the length of time actually served.”).
Here, Tilley was sentenced to thirty days’ imprisonment on
the disorderly conduct offense. Although this sentence was
suspended, the Guidelines provide that a totally suspended
sentence “shall be counted as a prior sentence under § 4A1.1(c).”
USSG § 4A1.2(a)(3). Because the sentence imposed on Tilley for
the disorderly conduct offense was “at least thirty days,” the
court properly assessed one criminal history point for this
sentence. USSG § 4A1.2(c)(1)(A).
Accordingly, we find no error, much less plain error, in the
district court’s computation of Tilley’s criminal history score
and thus his Guidelines range. We therefore affirm Tilley’s
sentence. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and
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legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before
this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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