US v. Stacy Williams

Filing 920100210

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 09-4507

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. STACY RENEE WILLIAMS, Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Charleston. Patrick Michael Duffy, Senior District Judge. (2:07-cr-01122-PMD-2)

Submitted:

January 19, 2010

Decided:

February 10, 2010

Before MOTZ and GREGORY, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Dennis E. Jones, DENNIS E. JONES & ASSOCIATES, P.C., Lebanon, Virginia, for Appellant. W. Walter Wilkins, United States Attorney, Alston C. Badger, Assistant United States Attorney, Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

PER CURIAM: Stacy Renee Williams pled no contest to one count of possession with intent to distribute a quantity of crack cocaine and a quantity of marijuana, in violation of 21 U.S.C.A. Under the

§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C), (D) (West 1999 & Supp. 2009).

properly calculated advisory Sentencing Guidelines, her range of imprisonment was forty-one to fifty-one months. court, after giving consideration to the The district factors

sentencing

under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2006) and the disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine sentencing, varied downward, She filed

sentencing Williams to eighteen months' imprisonment. a timely notice of appeal. On appeal, Williams states that

"[s]entencing

based

upon anything other than a 1 to 1 crack to powder cocaine ration [sic] is inherently unfair and unreasonable," citing

Kimbrough v. United States, 552 U.S. 85 (2007), and Spears v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 840 (2009), as well as several We

district court cases. disagree.

See Appellant's brief at 8, 10-12.

We review a sentence for reasonableness under an abuse of discretion standard. (2007). the Id. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51

This review requires appellate consideration of both and substantive reasonableness is of a by sentence. reviewing

procedural

Procedural

reasonableness 2

determined

whether the district court properly calculated the defendant's advisory Guidelines range and then considered the 18 U.S.C.

§ 3553(a) (2006) factors, analyzed any arguments presented by the parties, and sufficiently explained the selected sentence. Id. at 49-51. "Regardless of whether the district court imposes

an above, below, or within-Guidelines sentence, it must place on the record an facts F.3d `individualized of the case 330 assessment' it." based United on States the v.

particular Carter,

before (4th

564

325,

Cir.

2009).

Substantive

reasonableness of the sentence is determined by "taking into account the `totality of the circumstances, including the extent of any variance from the Guidelines range.'" United States v.

Pauley, 511 F.3d 468, 473 (4th Cir. 2007) (quoting Gall, 552 U.S. at 51). We procedurally find and the district court's reasonable. sentence was both we

substantively

Accordingly,

affirm the sentence. facts and legal before

We dispense with oral argument because the are and adequately argument presented not in aid the the

contentions the court

materials

would

decisional process. AFFIRMED

3