064795.U

06-4795Court of Appeals for the Fourth CircuitJan 31, 2007

Full text

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 06-4795
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
NICHOLAS JERMAINE WILLIAMS, a/k/a NIC NIC,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle
District of North Carolina, at Durham. William L. Osteen, Senior
District Judge. (1:06-cr-00029-WLO)
Submitted: January 25, 2007 Decided: January 31, 2007
Before WIDENER and MICHAEL, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Jason Goins, Asheboro, North Carolina, for Appellant. Anna Mills
Wagoner, United States Attorney, Sandra J. Hairston, Assistant
United States Attorney, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Nicholas Jermaine Williams pled guilty to distributing
forty-three grams of cocaine base (crack) in August 2005, 21
U.S.C.A. § 841(a), (b)(1)(B) (West 1999 & Supp. 2006), and received
a sentence of 120 months imprisonment. At his sentencing hearing,
Williams agreed that the advisory guideline range set out in the
presentence report was correctly calculated. He requested a
sentence below the range based on his cooperation with authorities
and his desire to be with his family. However, the court imposed
a sentence within the guideline range. On appeal, Williams
contends that the district court violated his Sixth Amendment and
due process rights because the calculation of both his base offense
level and criminal history score took into account conduct that was
not charged in the indictment or admitted by him. He also argues
that the alleged error rendered the sentence unreasonable. Because
Williams did not challenge his sentence on constitutional grounds
in the district court, we review the constitutional claim for plain
error, United States v. Hughes, 401 F.3d 540, 547-48 (4th Cir.
2005). Finding no such error, we conclude that the sentence is
reasonable, and affirm.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision in United
States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), the sentencing court is
required to calculate the appropriate advisory guideline range
after making any necessary findings of fact, and consider the range

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in conjunction with all relevant factors under the guidelines and
18 U.S.C.A. § 3553(a) (West 2000 & Supp. 2006), before imposing a
sentence. Hughes, 401 F.3d at 546-47. The district court followed
this procedure in Williams’ case. No Sixth Amendment error
occurred. Moreover, the district court did not plainly err in
adopting the presentence report, which took into account Williams’
first sale of crack to a confidential informant in May 2005 (three
months before the instant offense) to determine the drug quantity
and to assess two criminal history points for an offense committed
within two years of Williams’ release from imprisonment in July
2003. Thus, Williams has failed to show that his sentence was
unreasonable due to error in the calculation of the guideline
range.
We therefore affirm the sentence imposed by the district
court. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED

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