US v. Steve Washington, No. 16-4535 (4th Cir. 2017)
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UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 16-4535 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. STEVE DANTAY WASHINGTON, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, at Huntington. Robert C. Chambers, Chief District Judge. (3:98-cr-00018-1) Submitted: January 18, 2017 Decided: January 20, 2017 Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, and WILKINSON and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Christian M. Capece, Federal Public Defender, Jonathan D. Byrne, Research and Writing Specialist, Ann Mason Rigby, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellant. Carol A. Casto, United States Attorney, Joseph F. Adams, Assistant United States Attorney, Huntington, West Virginia, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Steve Dantay Washington appeals the district court’s judgment order revoking his supervised release and sentencing him to 12 months in prison. his within-Policy unreasonable. We have supervised On appeal, Washington claims that Statement range sentence is plainly We affirm. routinely release recognized revocation, that, “the in the sentencing context court of a retains broad discretion to impose a term of imprisonment up to the statutory maximum.” (4th Cir.) United States v. Padgett, 788 F.3d 370, 373 (ellipsis and internal quotation cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 494 (2015). marks omitted), “We will not disturb a district court’s revocation sentence unless it falls outside the statutory maximum or is otherwise plainly unreasonable.” (internal quotation marks omitted). sentence, we utilize the familiar Id. In reviewing a revocation procedural and substantive considerations employed for evaluating the reasonableness of an original criminal sentence, but “we strike a more deferential appellate posture than we do when reviewing original sentences.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). A revocation sentence is procedurally reasonable if the district court considered the advisory Policy Statement range and the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2012) supervised release revocation. factors applicable to Id.; United States v. Crudup, 2 461 F.3d 433, substantively 438–40 (4th reasonable if Cir. the 2006). district A court sentence is “sufficiently stated a proper basis” for the selected sentence, up to the statutory maximum. Crudup, 461 F.3d at 440. Only if we determine that a revocation sentence is unreasonable need we consider “whether it is plainly so.” In exercising its sentencing Padgett, 788 F.3d at 373. discretion, “the [district] court should sanction primarily the defendant’s breach of trust, while taking into account, to a limited degree, the seriousness of the underlying violator.” violation and the criminal history of the United States v. Webb, 738 F.3d 638, 641 (4th Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted). Washington contends that the revocation sentence imposed by the district court is unduly punitive and fails to promote the supervised society. release goal of easing his transition back into He points to his successful employment on supervised release and the fact that, in comparison to his original crimes of conviction, his supervised release violations, which involved termination from a halfway house for repeated rules violations, were relatively minor. would have properly He argues that a shorter prison term punished his breach of trust while recognizing his progress towards rehabilitation. The current supervised revocation release were not violations that Washington’s 3 resulted first. As in the defense counsel acknowledges, Washington’s earlier violations previously resulted in revoked. his supervised release being both modified and Despite that history, when Washington violated the terms of his supervised release by being ejected from a halfway house after repeatedly breaking rules, the district court did not immediately revoke his supervised release, but instead gave Washington a second chance by allowing him to return to the halfway house. Only when Washington was kicked out a second time did the court punish this breach of trust by revoking his supervised release and imposing a 12-month within-Policy Statement Range term of imprisonment. On this record, we uphold the revocation reasonableness of the selected sentence. See Crudup, 461 F.3d at 440 (holding that imposition of statutory maximum term of imprisonment was substantively reasonable, given that the district “admitted pattern court of expressly violating relied numerous on defendant’s conditions of his supervised release,” despite several extensions of leniency by the district court). Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. We dispense with contentions are oral argument adequately because presented in the the facts and legal materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process. AFFIRMED 4
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