US v. Garron Sparks, No. 14-4440 (4th Cir. 2014)
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UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 14-4440 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. GARRON TAUFEEQ SPARKS, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, at Greensboro. Thomas D. Schroeder, District Judge. (1:13-cr-00357-TDS-1) Submitted: November 24, 2014 Decided: December 4, 2014 Before NIEMEYER, KING, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Louis C. Allen, Federal Public Defender, Greg Davis, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for Appellant. Ripley Rand, United States Attorney, Stephen T. Inman, Assistant United States Attorney, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Garron Taufeeq Sparks pled guilty to possession of a firearm by a § 922(g)(1) convicted (2012). felon, The in district violation court of 18 sentenced him Guidelines sentence of fifty-five months’ imprisonment. appeals, claiming unreasonable. that his sentence is U.S.C. to a Sparks substantively We affirm. We review the district court’s sentence, “whether inside, just outside, or significantly outside the Guidelines range[,]” for reasonableness discretion standard.” 51 (2007). “under a deferential abuse-of- Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41, Because Sparks does not challenge the procedural reasonableness of his sentence, we turn our attention to substantive reasonableness, “tak[ing] into account the totality of the circumstances.” Id. at 51. “Any sentence that is within or below a properly calculated Guidelines range is presumptively reasonable[,]” and this “presumption can only be rebutted by showing that the sentence is unreasonable when measured against the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) [(2012)] factors.” United States v. Louthian, 756 F.3d 295, 306 (4th Cir. 2014), cert. denied, __ U.S.L.W. __, 2014 WL 4717386 (U.S. Oct. 20, 2014) (No. 14-336). Sparks asserts that the district court inadequately considered his youth when imposing a Guidelines sentence. disagree. We The district court expressly relied on Sparks’ age as 2 its basis Guidelines for imposing criminal range, history, a while which illegal gun possession. sentence also near taking included two the low end of into account prior convictions the Sparks’ for Sparks has not shown that this sentence is unreasonable when measured against the § 3553(a) factors. Accordingly, we hold that the Guidelines sentence imposed by the district court is substantively reasonable, and we affirm the judgment of the district court. We dispense with oral legal contentions are before this and argument adequately because presented in the the facts and materials court argument would not aid the decisional process. AFFIRMED 3
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