United States v. White, No. 15-3932 (8th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseDefendant appealed the district court's revocation of his term of supervised release and imposition of two years of imprisonment. The court concluded that the district court did not procedurally err by relying on the violent facts set out in the presentence investigative report (PSIR) underlying defendant's prior arrests. The court explained that specific facts underlying the arrests may be considered for an upward departure and so should be fair game for a variance as well. The court also concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion by imposing a substantively unreasonable sentence where it gave proper consideration to the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors and in reaching the sentence it did. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
Court Description: Per Curiam - Before Murphy, Beam and Gruender, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Sentencing. The district court did not impose an unreasonable sentencing when it revoked defendant's supervised release; in deciding whether to impose an upward variance,, the specific facts underlying defendant's prior arrests, as set out in the presentence report, could be considered without creating a procedural error; even if it was an error to consider the arrests, the presentence report contained information concerning defendant's thirteen prior convictions, many of them for violent offenses, and the error did not affect the sentence; the sentence, while 167% above the top of the recommended guidelines range, was not substantively unreasonable where the court detailed the inefficacy of its efforts to impose alternative punishments in defendant's four prior revocation proceedings, as well as defendant's history and characteristics as a violent offender.
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