United States v. Jones, No. 23-1816 (8th Cir. 2023)
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The case involves a defendant, Daryl Stephen Jones, III, who appealed his sentencing after pleading guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, which is a violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(8). Jones had absconded from a residential reentry facility where he was serving a previous sentence for possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime. He was arrested six months later in Des Moines, Iowa, with a loaded handgun and extra ammunition. The district court sentenced Jones to 84 months’ imprisonment with 3 years of supervised release, to be served consecutively to any term of imprisonment or supervised release imposed for the then-pending escape charge in the District of Kansas.
In his appeal, Jones claimed procedural error and argued that the sentence was substantively unreasonable. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, applying a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard, affirmed the sentence. The court found no clear error in the district court's application of a four-level sentencing enhancement for Jones' possession of a firearm in connection with the escape felony, as well as its calculation of two criminal-history points for Jones' 2013 controlled substance possession offense. The court also determined that because the district court was aware of its authority to depart downward based on the alleged overrepresentation of Jones' criminal history and there was no allegation of an unconstitutional motive, its decision not to depart was unreviewable. Lastly, the court found no abuse of discretion in the district court's determination that Jones' sentence was substantively reasonable, noting that a sentence within the Guidelines range is accorded a presumption of substantive reasonableness on appeal.
Court Description: [Shepherd, Author, with Benton and Kelly, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Sentencing. The district court did not err in applying a four-level enhancement under Guidelines Sec. 2K2.1(b)(6)(B) for possessing the handgun in connection with defendant's escape felony as the court could find, on the sentencing hearing facts, that defendant had committed the federal crime of escape; nor did the court err in concluding that the handgun facilitated the escape as defendant was carrying the weapon on his person at the time of his arrest; nor did the court err in imposing two criminal history points for defendant's 2013 controlled substance conviction as he served more than the 60-day minimum time set out in Guidelines Sec. 4A1.1(b); the district court's decision to deny defendant's request for a downward departure based on overstated criminal history is unreviewable; defendant's within-guidelines sentence was not substantively unreasonable.
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