Case No: 07-2563 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. CHRIS HARRY EVERLEY a/k/a Michael Lanier a/k/a Charles Elias Disney a/k/a Chris…

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
Case No: 07-2563
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
CHRIS HARRY EVERLEY
a/k/a Michael Lanier
a/k/a Charles Elias Disney
a/k/a Chris Elliott
a/k/a Gene Botsford
Chris Harry Everley,
Appellant
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
District Court No. 01-CR-543
District Judge: The Honorable Mary A. McLaughlin
Submitted pursuant to Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
July 1, 2008
Before: RENDELL, SMITH, and FISHER, Circuit Judges
(Filed: July 2, 2008)
OPINION
SMITH, Circuit Judge.
Appellant Chris Harry Everley (“Everley”) pleaded guilty in September of 2001 to

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The District Court had jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3231. This Court1
possesses jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742. See United States v.
Cooper, 437 F.3d 324, 327-28 (3d Cir. 2006).
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a 30-count information charging him with various fraud-related offenses. On October 23,
2002, the District Court sentenced him to forty-two months imprisonment, three years of
supervised release, $20,880.74 in restitution, and a $3,000.00 special assessment. Within
three weeks of his release from custody, state authorities arrested Everley in Arizona for
passing bad checks and various other reporting violations. Eventually, on May 17, 2007,
the District Court found that Everley was in violation of the terms of his supervised
release and sentenced him to fifteen months imprisonment, to be served consecutive to his
state sentence. This timely appeal followed.1
The sole issue on appeal is whether the sentence the District Judge imposed was
reasonable. Everley argues that the court’s imposition of a fifteen-month consecutive
sentence was procedurally unreasonable because the District Judge failed to explicitly
address his request for a concurrent sentence. He also argues that the sentence is
substantively unreasonable given his medical history, family circumstances, efforts at
rehabilitation, and the length of his state sentence. Neither argument is at all persuasive.
Post-Booker, appellate review is limited to reviewing the trial court’s sentence for
“reasonableness.” United States v. Cooper, 437 F.3d 324, 327 (3d Cir. 2006). The
reasonableness standard of appellate review is akin to abuse of discretion. Gall v. United
States, 128 S.Ct. 586, 594 (2007) (“Our explanation of ‘reasonableness’ review in the

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Booker opinion made it pellucidly clear that the familiar abuse-of-discretion standard of
review now applies to appellate review of sentencing decisions.”). In reviewing the
reasonableness of a sentence, we must ensure that the sentencing court gave “meaningful
consideration” to the sentencing factors articulated in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) and
“reasonably applied them to the circumstances of the case.” Cooper, 437 F.3d at 300.
Everley argues that the District Judge erred, procedurally, by failing to explicitly
address his request for a concurrent sentence. That argument is without force. As we
have previously instructed, a sentencing judge “need not discuss every argument made by
a litigant if an argument is clearly without merit.” Id. Moreover, the record in this case
shows that the District Judge considered and implicitly rejected Everley’s optimistic
request for a concurrent sentence. Everley’s contention that his sentence was
substantively unreasonable is similarly unsupportable. To put it mildly, the sentence
imposed was generous, given the nature of the violations at issue and their occurrence
within weeks of Everley’s release from prison. As such, we are well satisfied that the
sentence imposed was reasonable and we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.

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