US v. Derrick Summers

Filing

UNPUBLISHED PER CURIAM OPINION filed. Originating case number: 3:03-cr-00040-MR-2 Copies to all parties and the district court/agency. [998676010].. [09-4482]

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Date Filed: 09/13/2011

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UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 09-4482

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
DERRICK LAMONT SUMMERS,
Defendant – Appellant.

On Remand from the Supreme Court of the United States.
(S. Ct. No. 09-10329)

Submitted:

September 8, 2011

Decided:

September 13, 2011

Before MOTZ, GREGORY, and SHEDD, Circuit Judges.

Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Claire J. Rauscher, Executive Director, Ann L. Hester, Counsel
of Record, Beth Blackwood, Research and Writing Attorney,
FEDERAL DEFENDERS OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA, INC.,
Charlotte,
North Carolina, for Appellant.
Edward R. Ryan, Acting United
States Attorney, Mark A. Jones, Assistant United States
Attorney, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
In
possessing

2004,

a

Derrick

firearm

Lamont

during

and

Summers

in

pled

relation

guilty

to

to

crime

of

a

violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1) (2006), and was
sentenced to seven years in prison with three years’ supervised
release.

Summers’ supervised release was revoked shortly after

he was released from prison, and the district court sentenced
him to thirty months in prison, to be followed by thirty months
of supervised release.
Summers timely appealed, asserting that under United
States v. Rodriquez, 553 U.S. 377, 389 (2008) (cautioning that
when

a

judgment

colloquy

of

“do[es]

conviction,

not

show

that

charging
the

document

defendant

or

plea

faced

the

possibility of a recidivist enhancement,” the government might
be

precluded

qualifying

from

offense

establishing
triggering

that

the

application

conviction
of

the

is

a

sentencing

enhancement), the district court erred when it classified one of
his supervised release violations as a Grade A violation and,
thus, erred in calculating his sentencing range.

According to

Summers, since the maximum prison term he faced for the North
Carolina offense underlying the violation was ten months, the
offense was not “punishable by a term of imprisonment exceeding
one

year.”

See

U.S.

Sentencing

§ 7B1.1(a)(A)(1)(ii) (2008).
2

Guidelines

Manual

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We affirmed the district court’s judgment, rejecting
Summers’ argument as contrary to United States v. Harp, 406 F.3d
242, 246 (4th Cir. 2005) (holding that in order to “determine
whether a conviction is for a crime punishable by a prison term
exceeding one year, . . . [the court] consider[s] the maximum
aggravated sentence that could be imposed for that crime upon a
defendant

with

the

worst

possible

criminal

history”),

and

rejecting Summers’ argument that Rodriquez implicitly overruled
See United States v. Summers, 361 F. App’x 539, 541 (4th

Harp.
Cir.

2010)

(No.

09-4482)

(unpublished).

Summers

filed

a

petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court, and the
Supreme

Court

criminal

vacated

judgment

this

and

court’s

remanded

the

judgment
case

to

affirming
this

the

court

for

further consideration in light of Carachuri-Rosendo v. Holder,
130 S. Ct. 2577 (2010).

We vacate Summers’ sentence and remand

the matter to the district court for resentencing.
This

court

will

affirm

a

sentence

imposed

after

revocation of supervised release if it is within the applicable
statutory maximum and is not plainly unreasonable.

See United

States v. Crudup, 461 F.3d 433, 437, 439–40 (4th Cir. 2006).
first

assess

the

sentence

for

reasonableness,

We

“follow[ing]

generally the procedural and substantive considerations that we
employ in our review of original sentences . . . with some
necessary modifications to take into account the unique nature
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of supervised release revocation sentences.”

Id. at 438–39; see

United States v. Finley, 531 F.3d 288, 294 (4th Cir. 2008) (“In
applying

the

determine,
States,

‘plainly

using

552

U.S.

‘unreasonable.’”).

the

unreasonable’

instructions

38,

51

standard,

given

(2007)],

in

we
[v.

Gall

whether

a

first
United

sentence

is

Only if a sentence is found procedurally or

substantively unreasonable will we “decide whether the sentence
is plainly unreasonable.”

Crudup, 461 F.3d at 439; see Finley,

531 F.3d at 294.

A sentence is “plainly unreasonable” if it

“run[s]

clearly

afoul

of

settled

law.”

United

States

v.

Thompson, 595 F.3d 544, 548 (4th Cir. 2010).
We conclude that the district court procedurally erred
when it sentenced Summers.

We recently held in United States v.

Simmons, ___ F.3d ___, 2011 WL 3607266, *3 (4th Cir. Aug. 17,
2011), that a North Carolina offense may not be classified as a
felony based upon the maximum aggravated sentence that could be
imposed upon a repeat offender if the individual defendant was
not eligible for such a sentence.

Thus, if Summers could not

have received a sentence greater than ten months for the North
Carolina crime underlying the challenged violation, the district
court procedurally erred when it calculated Summers’ sentencing
range and his sentence is, thus, procedurally unreasonable.
Because

Summers

objected

to

his

sentencing

range

calculation in the district court, we must proceed to determine
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whether his sentence is “plainly” unreasonable.
595

F.3d

at

546.

The

analysis

of

See Thompson,

“plainly”

in

“plainly

unreasonable” is the same as that of “plain” in “plain error.”
Id. at 547-48.

“An error is plain ‘where the law at the time of

trial was settled and clearly contrary to the law at the time of
appeal.’”
2005)

United States v. Hughes, 401 F.3d 540, 547 (4th Cir.

(quoting

Johnson

v.

United

States,

520

U.S.

461,

468

(1997)); accord United States v. David, 83 F.3d 638, 645 (4th
Cir. 1996) (holding that an error is plain when “an objection at
trial would have been indefensible because of existing law, but
a

supervening

settled

decision

law”).

district

When

court,

his

prior

Summers
challenge

to

appeal

reverses

challenged
was

his

clearly

that

well-

sentence

in

the

foreclosed

by

our

decision in Harp.

Because we recognized in Simmons that Harp is

no

law

longer

good

under

Carachuri-Rosendo,

however,

the

district court’s sentencing error was “plain.”
Finally, we find that the district court’s error was
not harmless.
the

Government

For a procedural sentencing error to be harmless,
must

prove

that

the

error

did

not

have

a

“substantial and injurious effect or influence on the result.”
United

States

v.

Lynn,

592

F.3d

572,

(internal quotation marks omitted).

585

(4th

Cir.

2010)

Because Summers could have

received a lesser sentence if the district court accepted his
argument

regarding

Violation

One,
5

the

Government

cannot

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establish harmlessness.

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See Thompson, 595 F.3d at 548 (finding

that Government could not establish harmlessness because had the
district

court

explicitly

considered

defendant’s

nonfrivolous

arguments for leniency, “it could conceivably have given him a
lower sentence”).
Based on the foregoing, we vacate the district court’s
judgment

and

remand

resentencing. *
and

legal

materials

the

matter

to

the

district

court

for

We dispense with oral argument because the facts

contentions
before

the

are

court

adequately
and

argument

presented

in

the

would

aid

the

not

decisional process.
VACATED AND REMANDED

*

We of course do not fault the Government or the district
court for their reliance upon, and application of, unambiguous
circuit authority at the time of Summers’ sentencing.

6