United States of America v. Ademola John-Gabriel Taiwo

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 12-4016
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
ADEMOLA JOHN-GABRIEL TAIWO,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Greenbelt. Roger W. Titus, District Judge.
(8:11-cr-00216-RWT-1)
Submitted: July 26, 2012 Decided: August 24, 2012
Before DIAZ and FLOYD, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
James Wyda, Federal Public Defender, Meghan S. Skelton, OFFICE
OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Greenbelt, Maryland, for
Appellant. Rod J. Rosenstein, United States Attorney, Jerome M.
Maiatico, Special Assistant United States Attorney, Greenbelt,
Maryland, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Ademola John-Gabriel Taiwo pled guilty, pursuant to a
plea agreement, to one count of possession of a firearm by a
convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (2006)
(count one), and one count of possession with the intent to
distribute marijuana, in violation of 21 U.S.C.A. § 841(a)(1)
(West 2006 & Supp. 2012) (count three). Calculating the
advisory Guidelines sentences pursuant to the U.S. Sentencing
Guidelines Manual (“USSG”) (2011), the district court determined
that the sentencing ranges were fifty-seven to seventy-one
months’ imprisonment on count one and fifty-seven to sixty
months’ imprisonment on count three. The court sentenced Taiwo
to sixty-four months’ imprisonment on count one and a concurrent
term of sixty months’ imprisonment on count three. Taiwo
appeals his sentence, arguing that: the district court erred in
applying the four-level enhancement under USSG § 2K2.1(b)(4)(B)
for a firearm with an altered or obliterated serial number; his
sentence is otherwise procedurally unreasonable; and his
sentence is substantively unreasonable. We affirm.
We review Taiwo’s sentence for reasonableness “under a
deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.” Gall v. United
States, 552 U.S. 38, 41, 51 (2007). A sentence is procedurally
reasonable when the district court properly calculates the
defendant’s advisory Guidelines range, considers the 18 U.S.C.

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§ 3553(a) (2006) sentencing factors, gives the parties an
opportunity to argue for an appropriate sentence, and
sufficiently explains the selected sentence. Id. at 49–51.
“When rendering a sentence, the district court must make an
individualized assessment based on the facts presented,” United
States v. Carter, 564 F.3d 325, 328 (4th Cir. 2009) (internal
quotation marks and emphasis omitted), and must “adequately
explain the chosen sentence to allow for meaningful appellate
review and to promote the perception of fair sentencing.”
Gall, 552 U.S. at 50. “When imposing a sentence within the
Guidelines, however, the explanation need not be elaborate or
lengthy because [G]uidelines sentences themselves are in many
ways tailored to the individual and reflect approximately two
decades of close attention to federal sentencing policy.”
United States v. Hernandez, 603 F.3d 267, 271 (4th Cir. 2010)
(internal quotation marks omitted).
If the sentence is free of significant procedural
error, we review it for substantive reasonableness, “tak[ing]
into account the totality of the circumstances.” Gall, 552 U.S.
at 51. If the sentence is within the appropriate Guidelines
range, this court applies a presumption on appeal that the
sentence is substantively reasonable. United States v.
Mendoza-Mendoza, 597 F.3d 212, 217 (4th Cir. 2010). Such a
presumption is rebutted only by a showing “that the sentence is

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unreasonable when measured against the § 3553(a) factors.”
United States v. Montes-Pineda, 445 F.3d 375, 379 (4th Cir.
2006) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Taiwo first argues that his sentence is procedurally
unreasonable because the district court erred in applying the
four-level enhancement under USSG § 2K2.1(b)(4)(B). In
assessing a challenge to the district court’s application of the
Guidelines, we review de novo the application of the Guidelines
to the facts. United States v. Sosa-Carabantes, 561 F.3d 256,
259 (4th Cir. 2009).
Analysis of section 2K2.1(b)(4)(B) of the Guidelines
properly begins with the plain language of the Guideline itself.
See United States v. Tigney, 367 F.3d 200, 203 (4th Cir. 2004)
(rejecting a party’s Guideline interpretation because it
conflicted with the Guideline’s plain language). This section
provides for a four-level enhancement to a defendant’s offense
level “[i]f any firearm . . . had an altered or obliterated
serial number.” USSG § 2K2.1(b)(4)(B). Neither the Guideline
nor its commentary defines the phrase “altered or obliterated.”
However, application of standard dictionary definitions of these
terms leads us to conclude that the plain language of USSG
§ 2K2.1(b)(4)(B) clearly indicates that the ability to decipher
a firearm’s serial number need not be affected for the

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four-level enhancement to apply. Accordingly, we reject Taiwo’s
argument in this regard.
Taiwo’s argument that the firearm he possessed did not
have an “altered or obliterated” serial number because a scratch
on the firearm’s serial number did not render the number
undecipherable to the naked eye or prevent law enforcement
officials from tracing the number is also without merit. The
district court’s findings make clear that the scratch was both
purposeful and deep enough that the firearm’s serial number was
rendered more difficult to ascertain accurately than it would
have been absent the scratch. Giving effect to the plain
meaning of the Guideline as expressed by the ordinary meaning of
the words used therein, United States v. Chambers, 985 F.2d
1263, 1267 (4th Cir. 1993), and after consideration of the
decisions of the Courts of Appeal that have interpreted the
phrase “altered or obliterated” under the Guideline, United
States v. Jones, 643 F.3d 257, 258-59 (8th Cir. 2011) (listing
cases from the Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth Circuits), we conclude
that the district court did not err in applying the four-level
enhancement under USSG § 2K2.1(b)(4)(B).
Taiwo also argues that his sentence is procedurally
unreasonable because the district court failed to address and
explain why it rejected his arguments for the imposition of a
below-Guidelines sentence. Upon review, we conclude that this

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contention is without merit. At sentencing, Taiwo alluded to
his education and work history, licensure in a trade, and
efforts to support his children without explaining why these
circumstances merited a below-Guidelines sentence. Further, we
conclude that the district court provided an adequate
individualized assessment — taking into account relevant
§ 3553(a) factors — and adequately explained the chosen
sentence.
Finally, we reject as without merit Taiwo’s argument
that his sentence is substantively unreasonable. The argument,
in essence, asks this court to substitute its judgment for that
of the district court. Even if this court may have weighed the
§ 3553(a) factors differently if we had resolved the case in the
first instance, we will defer to the district court’s decision
that a total sentence of sixty-four months’ imprisonment
achieved the purposes of sentencing in Taiwo’s case. See United
States v. Jeffery, 631 F.3d 669, 679 (4th Cir.) (“[D]istrict
courts have extremely broad discretion when determining the
weight to be given each of the § 3553(a) factors.”),
cert. denied, 132 S. Ct. 187 (2011).
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment.
Taiwo’s motion to supplement is denied as unnecessary. We
dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal

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contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED

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