USA v. Mario Jackson

Filing

Opinion issued by court as to Appellant Mario Lamonte Jackson. Decision: Affirmed. Opinion type: Non-Published. Opinion method: Per Curiam. The opinion is also available through the Court's Opinions page at this link http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions.

Case: 16-13287

Date Filed: 02/06/2017

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 16-13287
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 1:08-cr-00124-KD-B-1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
MARIO LAMONTE JACKSON,
Defendant-Appellant.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Alabama
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(February 6, 2017)
Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, MARCUS and FAY, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:

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Mario Jackson violated his supervised release and was sentenced to 36
months in prison followed by 2 years of supervised release, a sentence well below
the advisory guideline range of 51 to 63 months in prison that applied to his
conduct. He contends that his sentence was substantively unreasonable.
In 2008 Jackson pleaded guilty to using and carrying a firearm in relation to
a drug trafficking offense in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). Although Jackson’s
guidelines range was 262 to 327 months due, in part, to the addition of a career
offender enhancement, the district court sentenced him to 60 months in prison and
5 years on supervised release. Two conditions of his supervised release provided
that he was not to commit any crimes or illegally possess any controlled
substances. Following his release from prison, Jackson was charged with
possession of ecstasy, possession of marijuana, possession of synthetic marijuana,
possession of drug paraphernalia, attempting to elude, and resisting arrest. Jackson
waived his right to a revocation hearing, admitting that the government could
prove a violation of his supervised release.
Jackson asked the court to impose a sentence of a year and a day in prison
— well below his guidelines range of 51 to 63 months. He apologized to the
district court and attempted, through counsel, to explain his behavior. According
to Jackson, thinking about his daughter was the only thing that got him through
prison. After he was released, he discovered that the daughter was not really his.
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Jackson said that he turned to drugs to cope with the pain of that revelation and
admitted that he needed treatment. Jackson also argued that the court should
impose a lower guidelines sentence because his two career offender predicate
offenses were crimes that he committed when he was 16 and 17 years old. 1
Jackson argues that his sentence was substantively unreasonable because the
district court did not give adequate weight to his explanation and overweighed his
criminal history and the nature of his offense. We disagree.
We review the substantive reasonableness of the district court’s sentence for
an abuse of discretion, Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51, 128 S. Ct. 586, 597
(2007), and “[t]he party challenging the sentence bears the burden to show it was
unreasonable in light of the record and the [18 U.S.C.] § 3553(a) factors,” United
States v. Tome, 611 F.3d 1371, 1378 (11th Cir. 2010). “[W]e are to vacate the
sentence if, but only if, we are left with the definite and firm conviction that the
district court committed a clear error of judgment in weighing the § 3553(a) factors
by arriving at a sentence that lies outside the range of reasonable sentences dictated
by the facts of the case.” United States v. Irey, 612 F.3d 1160, 1190 (11th Cir.
2010) (en banc) (quotation marks omitted); 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e) (requiring
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At his revocation hearing, Jackson argued that he was improperly classified as a career
offender because the Supreme Court’s decision in Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. ___, 135
S. Ct. 2551 (2015), voided the residual clause of the Sentencing Guidelines. But Jackson has not
asserted that claim before this Court and so has abandoned it. Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian Ins.
Co., 739 F.3d 678, 681 (11th Cir. 2014) (“We have long held that an appellant abandons a claim
when he either makes only passing references to it or raises it in a perfunctory manner without
supporting arguments and authority.”).
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consideration of many of the § 3553(a) factors when deciding whether to modify or
revoke supervised release).
“In general, the district court is not required to state on the record that it has
explicitly considered each of the § 3553(a) factors or to discuss each of the
§ 3553(a) factors. . . . It is sufficient that the district court considers the
defendant’s arguments at sentencing and states that it has taken the § 3553(a)
factors into account.” United States v. Sanchez, 586 F.3d 918, 967 (11th Cir.
2009) (quotation marks and citation omitted). “Although we do not automatically
presume a sentence within the guidelines range is reasonable, we ordinarily . . .
expect a sentence within the [g]uidelines range to be reasonable.” United States v.
Hunt, 526 F.3d 739, 747 (11th Cir. 2008) (quotation marks omitted) (first
alteration in original).
Here, the district court said in the sentence hearing that it had “considered
the chapter 7 provisions” and “the factors” in determining Jackson’s sentence.
And it discussed a number of the factors on the record. For instance, it discussed
Jackson’s criminal history, 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1), telling him: “Well, Mr.
Jackson, when you came before me [at the initial sentence hearing] . . . . I felt like
applying the Career Offender to you would be unjust, but at this point I have to say
you are earning that status.” It also considered that the nature of Jackson’s new
criminal charges were similar to those of his underlying convictions. See id.
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(directing a sentencing court to consider “the nature and circumstances of the
offense”). Moreover, it declined to follow the government’s request for a 60month jail term, because it felt that placing Jackson on supervised release for at
least some period of time after his new prison sentence would be a better way to
address his drug problem. Id § 3553(a)(2) (directing a sentencing court to consider
“the need for the sentence imposed . . . to provide the defendant with needed . . .
correctional treatment in the most effective manner”). Even in light of Jackson’s
explanations for his conduct, it was not unreasonable for the district court to
conclude that his criminal history and the nature of his new offenses in relation to
the underlying federal offense militated in favor of a longer prison sentence than
Jackson had hoped for.
For that reason and because we would “expect” a sentence below the
guidelines range to be substantively reasonable, see Hunt, 526 F.3d at 747, we
cannot say that the district court made a “clear error in judgment” by imposing a
36-month prison sentence, Irey, 612 F.3d at 1190. It is not our job to reweigh all
the factors considered by the district court. Gall, 552 U.S. at 51, 128 S. Ct. at 597
(“The fact that the appellate court might reasonably have concluded that a different
sentence was appropriate is insufficient to justify reversal of the district court.”)
Having determined that the district court considered the relevant factors and
assigned them a reasonable weight, our inquiry is at an end.
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AFFIRMED.

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