US v. Joey White

Filing

UNPUBLISHED PER CURIAM OPINION filed. Originating case number: 2:11-cr-00028-FL-1. Copies to all parties and the district court/agency. [999138164]. [12-4717]

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UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 12-4717

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
JOEY LAMAR WHITE, a/k/a Little Joey, a/k/a Black, a/k/a
Savage,
Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of North Carolina, at Elizabeth City.
Louise W.
Flanagan, District Judge. (2:11-cr-00028-FL-1)

Submitted:

June 12, 2013

Decided:

June 26, 2013

Before NIEMEYER, DAVIS, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Charles Burnham, Eugene Gorokhov, Ziran Zhang, BURNHAM &
GOROKHOV, PLLC, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Thomas G.
Walker,
United
States
Attorney,
Jennifer
P.
May-Parker,
Kristine L. Fritz, Assistant United States Attorneys, Raleigh,
North Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Joey Lamar White appeals the district court’s judgment
sentencing him to 480 months’ imprisonment for conspiracy to
distribute and possess with intent to distribute 280 grams of
cocaine base in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846 (2006).

On appeal,

White argues that his sentence is substantively unreasonable.
We affirm.
We review a sentence for reasonableness, applying an
abuse of discretion standard.

Gall v. United States, 552 U.S.

38, 51 (2007); United States v. Layton, 564 F.3d 330, 335 (4th
Cir. 2009).

In so doing, we first examine the sentence for

significant procedural error, including failing to calculate (or
improperly

calculating)

the

advisory

Sentencing

Guidelines

range, treating the Guidelines as mandatory, failing to consider
the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2006) factors, selecting a sentence
based

on

explain

clearly

the

chosen

erroneous

facts,

sentence.

or

Gall,

failing
552

U.S.

to

adequately

at

51.

When

considering the substantive reasonableness of the sentence, we
take into account the totality of the circumstances.

United

States v. Mendoza–Mendoza, 597 F.3d 212, 216 (4th Cir. 2010).
If the sentence is within the Guidelines range, we presume on

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appeal that the sentence is reasonable. *

United States v. Go,

517 F.3d 216, 218 (4th Cir. 2008); see Rita v. United States,
551 U.S. 338, 346–56 (2007) (permitting appellate presumption of
reasonableness for within-Guidelines sentence).
We conclude that White’s sentence is not substantively
unreasonable.

The

district

court

considered

all

of

White’s

arguments for a more lenient sentence and concluded that White’s
substantial leadership role in a gang engaged in violent acts
weighed against him.

The district court noted White’s extensive

criminal history as evidence of his disregard for the law and
concluded that a high, within-Guidelines sentence was necessary
to

protect

the

offense conduct.

public

from

White

and

to

discourage

similar

Therefore, we cannot conclude that White’s

480-month sentence is greater than necessary to effectuate the
§ 3553(a) sentencing factors.
Accordingly,

we

dispense

with

oral

argument

because

the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the
*

White urges that we disregard the presumption of
reasonableness for his case because the Guidelines for drug
offenses are not the product of the Sentencing Commission’s
expertise.
We decline to do so.
See United States v.
Mondragon-Santiago,
564
F.3d
357,
367
(5th
Cir.
2009)
(explaining that, although “district courts certainly may
disagree with the Guidelines for policy reasons and may adjust a
sentence accordingly . . . if they do not, we will not
second-guess their decisions under a more lenient standard
simply
because
the
particular
Guideline
is
not
empirically-based.”).

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material

before

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this

court

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and

argument

will

not

aid

the

decisional process.
AFFIRMED

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