US v. Allen Sammons, No. 12-4713 (4th Cir. 2013)
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UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 12-4713 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. ALLEN LEON SAMMONS, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, at Abingdon. James P. Jones, District Judge. (1:08-cr-00014-JPJ-PMS-1) Submitted: July 9, 2013 Decided: July 16, 2013 Before NIEMEYER, KING, and AGEE, Circuit Judges. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Larry W. Shelton, Federal Public Defender, Nancy C. Dickenson, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Christine Madeleine Lee, Research and Writing Attorney, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellant. Timothy J. Heaphy, United States Attorney, Jennifer R. Bockhorst, Assistant United States Attorney, Abingdon, Virginia, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Allen Leon Sammons, who finished serving a forty-eight month sentence on his conviction to five counts of interstate transmission of threats to injure another person, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 875(c) (2006), now appeals the district court s order modifying the conditions of his include a geographical exclusion zone. Because [d]istrict courts supervised release to latitude to We affirm. have broad impose conditions on supervised release, the conditions imposed are reviewed only for abuse of discretion. United States v. Armel, 585 F.3d 182, 186 (4th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). When modifying a defendant s conditions of supervised release, the sentencing court must consider several of the factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2006), including the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of the defendant ; the adequate deterrence; and the goal of public safety. U.S.C. § 3583(e) (2006). See also 18 U.S.C. need for See 18 § 3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(B), (a)(2)(C), (a)(2)(D), (a)(4)-(7). The court must also ensure that any modification it makes to a defendant s supervised release conditions satisfies the provisions conditions. special applicable to the initial See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(2). condition of supervised 2 release imposition of In pertinent part, any must be reasonably related to the factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1) and (a)(2)(B)-(D) and liberty is than must involve reasonably enumerated in § 3553(a). no greater necessary to deprivation achieve the of goals Armel, 585 F.3d at 186 (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)(2)). Here, the district court imposed the geographical exclusion zone upon Sammons based largely on several thinlyveiled threats he made to various federal officials. Sammons argues that the geographical exclusion Although zone is unreasonable in scope and unnecessary because of his limited history of following through on his threats, we disagree. The circumstances of Sammons offenses, his history of taking action in furtherance of carrying out his threats, and his failure to demonstrate either that the district court s rationale for the zone was faulty or that the zone would be unduly burdensome for him suggest related to that the the imposed pertinent exclusion factors and zone does was not unreasonable deprivation of Sammons liberty. F.3d at 186. reasonably involve an See Armel, 585 His argument that the district court abused its discretion in imposing the zone is, as a result, unpersuasive. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court. legal We dispense with oral argument because the facts and contentions are adequately 3 presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process. AFFIRMED 4
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