United States v. Montrivel Woods

Filing

OPINION FILED - THE COURT: WILLIAM JAY RILEY, ROGER L. WOLLMAN and BOBBY E. SHEPHERD. William Jay Riley, Authoring Judge (PUBLISHED) [3662837] [09-1364]

United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

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No. 09-1364
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United States of America,
Appellee,
v.
Montrivel Deon Woods,
Appellant.

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*
*
* Appeal from the United States
* District Court for the
* Northern District of Iowa.
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*
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Submitted: November 18, 2009
Filed: May 10, 2010
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Before RILEY, Chief Judge1, WOLLMAN and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.
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RILEY, Chief Judge.
Montrivel Woods (Woods) pled guilty to conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine.
After Woods was sentenced, the United States Sentencing Guidelines (Guidelines or
U.S.S.G.) were amended to reduce the sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and
powder cocaine offenses. We remanded for resentencing in light of the retroactive
amendments to the Guidelines. See United States v. Woods, 531 F.3d 701, 703 (8th

1

The Honorable William Jay Riley became Chief Judge of the Untied States
Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on April 1, 2010.

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Cir. 2008). Woods now appeals the sentence the district court2 imposed following our
remand, arguing the district court failed to consider all of the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)
factors and imposed an unreasonable sentence. We affirm.
I.

BACKGROUND
Woods pled guilty to conspiring to distribute 5 grams or more of crack cocaine
after having previously been convicted of two felony drug offenses, in violation of 21
U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(B), 846, and 851. At Woods’s original sentencing
hearing on October 11, 2007, the district court determined Woods’s adjusted offense
level was 35 and his criminal history category was VI, resulting in an advisory
Guidelines range of 292 to 365 months imprisonment.
Woods requested that the district court vary downward from the advisory
Guidelines range due to a pending amendment to the Guidelines which would address
the disparity in sentencing between crack cocaine and powder cocaine offenses. The
district court was “sympathetic to the fact [the Guidelines] could be changed”;
however, the district court explained, at best, the proposed amendment would reduce
Woods’s offense level to 33, and the district court “[felt] that a reasonable sentence
[was] 292 months, which would be the bottom of the range under 35, [VI] and the top
of the range of 33, [VI].” The district court declared 292 months would be the
appropriate sentence, even “if Congress were to adopt the new guidelines,” due to
Woods’s extensive criminal history, especially his assaultive behavior, his “very high
risk to recidivate,” and the amount of drugs involved. The district court then granted
the government’s motion for a substantial assistance downward departure pursuant to
U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1, applied a 15% downward departure, and sentenced Woods to 248
months imprisonment.

2

The Honorable Linda R. Reade, Chief Judge, United States District Court for
the Northern District of Iowa.
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The new amendment to the Guidelines became effective on November 1, 2007,
and was retroactive effective March 3, 2008. See Woods, 531 F.3d at 702. Woods
appealed his sentence, “challeng[ing] the reasonableness of his sentence in light of
Kimbrough v. United States, [552 U.S. 85] (2007) and the retroactive crack/powder
guidelines amendments.” Id. We remanded the case “to the district court for
consideration of whether Woods’s sentence should be modified in light of the
retroactive amendments to the guidelines affecting crack.” Id. at 703 (quotation and
alterations omitted).
The district court resentenced Woods on February 11, 2009. Woods’s adjusted
offense level decreased to 33 as a result of the amendments to the Guidelines, and his
revised advisory Guidelines range was 235 to 293 months imprisonment. In light of
the 15% downward departure the district court previously granted for substantial
assistance, the district court observed Woods’s effective range was 200 to 249 months
imprisonment. Woods requested a sentence of 200 months, the low end of the
effective range. The district court declared, “I think I made it clear that regardless of
what happened with the advisory guidelines, whether they were retroactively
amended, that the Court felt the sentence of 248 months was appropriate . . . after
analyzing all the statutory factors.” After recounting Woods’s extensive criminal
history and considering the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, the district court again
sentenced Woods to 248 months imprisonment.
II.

DISCUSSION
A.
18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) Sentencing Factors
Woods first claims the district court failed to consider all of the 18 U.S.C.
§ 3553(a) factors in imposing his sentence. Because Woods did not raise this
objection at his resentencing hearing, we review his claim for plain error. See United
States v. Moore, 565 F.3d 435, 437 (8th Cir. 2009) (“We apply a plain-error standard
of review to [defendant’s] claims that the district court failed to adequately consider
the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors and failed to sufficiently explain its sentencing
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decision because [defendant] did not raise these claims at sentencing.” (citation
omitted)). “Under plain error review, the defendant must show: (1) an error; (2) that
is plain; and (3) that affects substantial rights.” Id. (quoting United States v. Phelps,
536 F.3d 862, 865 (8th Cir. 2008)).
Woods argues, had the district court considered 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(4), the
district court “could not have imposed the same sentence for both the original
sentencing and the resentencing.” Section 3553(a)(4) requires the district court to
consider “the kinds of sentence and the sentencing range established for . . . the
applicable category of offense committed by the applicable category of defendant as
set forth in the guidelines.” Woods insists, while “none of the other sentencing factors
changed adversely,” “§3553(a)(4) shifted dramatically in favor of a lower sentence.”
Although the district court found a sentence at the bottom of the advisory
Guidelines range was appropriate when the range was 292 to 365 months, the district
court was not required to sentence Woods to the bottom of the revised range when the
range became 235 to 293 months as a result of the retroactive amendments to the
Guidelines. At resentencing, the district court properly calculated Woods’s new
advisory Guidelines range, as required by 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(4), and accounted for
the 15% substantial assistance downward departure the court previously granted. The
district court then recited Woods’s criminal history and explained that this history, as
well as the amount of drugs involved, formed the bases of the district court’s sentence.
The district court explicitly stated, “I make this decision after considering all the
statutory factors at 18 United States Code Section 3553(a).” We have no reason to
question the district court’s statement. See United States v. Feemster, 572 F.3d 455,
461 (8th Cir. 2009) (en banc) (“In determining whether a district court committed
procedural error, we do not require a district court to provide a mechanical recitation
of the § 3553(a) factors when determining a sentence. Rather, it simply must be clear
from the record that the district court actually considered the § 3553(a) factors in

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determining the sentence.” (quotation and alteration omitted)). We conclude the
district court did not commit plain procedural error.
B.
Reasonableness of the Sentence
Having found no procedural error, we turn to Woods’s second argument that
the district court imposed an unreasonable sentence. We review the reasonableness
of a sentence under an abuse of discretion standard. See Gall v. United States, 552
U.S. 38, 51 (2007) (standard of review). As an appellate court, we may apply a
presumption of reasonableness to a sentence within the advisory Guidelines range.
See id. (citation omitted). Woods urges us to find his sentence substantively
unreasonable based on the district court’s failure to take into account the impact of the
crack cocaine amendment and the sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and
powder cocaine offenses. The district court did consider the amendment to the
Guidelines when it recalculated Woods’s new offense level. While the district court
would have been within its discretion to consider further the crack versus powder
cocaine disparity in arriving at Woods’s sentence, the district court was not required
to apply this consideration by lowering Woods’s sentence further. See United States
v. Saddler, 538 F.3d 879, 891 (8th Cir. 2008) (declaring, “a district court does not
abuse its discretion when it fails to consider the crack/powder sentencing disparity”).
“[G]iv[ing] due deference to the district court’s decision that the § 3553(a)
factors, on a whole, justify” Woods’s sentence, our review of Woods’s sentence
reveals no abuse of the district court’s considerable discretion and no basis for
concluding Woods’s within Guidelines sentence is substantively unreasonable. Gall,
552 U.S. at 51.
III.

CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated in this opinion, we affirm the district court’s judgment
and Woods’s sentence.
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