United States v. Gant, No. 11-2060 (8th Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CaseDefendant pleaded guilty to one count of willfully making a telephone threat to kill, injure, and intimidate another individual and to damage and destroy a building by means of a fire or explosive. Defendant was sentenced to 120 months imprisonment to run consecutively to an unrelated and undischarged term of imprisonment imposed in Fayette County, Iowa, followed by a three year term of supervised release. Defendant appealed his sentence. The court held that, even if the district court placed too much weight on the sentencing exhibits at issue and improperly mistook an inference of criminal conduct for actual criminal conduct, any procedural error was harmless as a matter of law because the district court alternatively reasoned that it would impose the same sentence after considering the factors in 18 U.S.C. 3553. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in imposing a substantively reasonable sentence.
Court Description: Criminal case - Sentencing. To the extent the district court may have relied on certain contested exhibits at sentencing, the error was harmless as the facts contained in the PSR and uncontested exhibits was more than sufficient to support the court's finding that defendant's criminal history category inadequately represented the seriousness of his past criminal conduct and his likely recidivism; further, any procedural error in imposing an upward departure was harmless in light of the court's statement that it would impose an upward variance under the 3553(a) factors; sentence was not substantively unreasonable.
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