United States of America v. William Parros

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 07-4760
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
WILLIAM PARROS,
Defendant - Appellant.
No. 07-4772
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
OWEN ROBINSON, a/k/a Heavy,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Baltimore. Benson Everett Legg, Chief District Judge.
(1:98-cr-00259-BEL-14; 1:98-cr-00259-BEL-5)
Submitted: June 30, 2008 Decided: September 4, 2008
Before NIEMEYER, MOTZ, and KING, Circuit Judges.

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Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Gerald D. Glass, LAW OFFICES OF GERALD D. GLASS, Towson, Maryland;
G. Godwin Oyewole, Washington, D.C., for Appellants. Rod J.
Rosenstein, United States Attorney, Robert R. Harding, Assistant
United States Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
In these consolidated appeals, William Parros and Owen
Robinson appeal the district court’s sentences imposed after we
remanded for resentencing consistent with the rules announced in
United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005). See United States v.
Robinson, 460 F.3d 550 (4th Cir. 2006). At resentencing, the court
sentenced Parros to twenty years’ imprisonment and Robinson to two
concurrent terms of thirty years’ imprisonment, in each case the
statutory maximum sentence and the Sentencing Guidelines’ sentence.
On appeal, the Appellants claim the district court committed plain
error because it did not have the benefit of the Supreme Court’s
opinions in Gall v. United States, 128 S. Ct. 586 (2007), and
Kimbrough v. United States, 128 S. Ct. 558 (2007). They also argue
the court treated the Guidelines as mandatory and used facts to
increase their offense levels that were not found by a jury or
admitted by the Appellants. We affirm.
Appellate courts review sentences imposed by district
courts for reasonableness, applying an abuse of discretion
standard. Gall, 128 S. Ct. at 597-98; United States v. Pauley, 511
F.3d 468, 473-74 (4th Cir. 2007). When sentencing a defendant, a
district court must: (1) properly calculate the guideline range;
(2) determine whether a sentence within that range serves the
factors set out in § 3553(a); (3) implement mandatory statutory
limitations; and (4) explain its reasons for selecting a sentence.

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Pauley, 511 F.3d at 473. The Guidelines is “the starting point and
the initial benchmark.” Gall, 128 S. Ct. at 596. Next, the court
should give the parties the opportunity to argue for whatever
sentence they deem appropriate. The court is then instructed to
consider the § 3553(a) factors in light of the defendant’s request
to impose a specific sentence. Id. In the Fourth Circuit, “[a]
sentence within the proper Sentencing Guidelines range is
presumptively reasonable.” United States v. Allen, 491 F.3d 178,
193 (4th Cir. 2007); see Rita v. United States, 127 S. Ct. 2456,
2462-69 (2007) (upholding presumption of reasonableness for
within-guidelines sentence). This presumption can be rebutted only
by showing that the sentence is unreasonable when measured against
the § 3553(a) factors. United States v. Montes-Pineda, 445 F.3d
375, 379 (4th Cir. 2006). The district court, however, must not
presume that a sentence within the Guidelines is reasonable. Gall,
128 S. Ct. at 597. The court must instead “make an individualized
assessment based on the facts presented.” Id.
Upon review, this court must first determine whether the
district court committed any significant procedural error, Gall,
128 S. Ct. at 597, such as “failing to calculate (or improperly
calculating) the Guidelines range, treating the Guidelines as
mandatory, failing to consider the § 3553(a) factors, selecting a
sentence based on clearly erroneous facts, or failing to adequately
explain the chosen sentence--including an explanation for any

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deviation from the Guidelines range.” Id. If this court finds the
sentence is procedurally sound, we must next “consider the
substantive reasonableness of the sentence imposed under an abuse-
of-discretion standard. When conducting this review, the court
will, of course, take into account the totality of the
circumstances, including the extent of any variance from the
Guidelines range. If the sentence is within the Guidelines range,
the appellate court may, but is not required to, apply a
presumption of reasonableness.” Gall, 128 S. Ct. at 597.
We find the district court appropriately followed the
post-Booker sentencing procedure. In each case, it properly
determined the offense level and criminal history category. We
find no procedural error. We further find the sentences were
substantively reasonable. The court was aware of its authority to
go below the Guidelines based on the § 3553(a) sentencing factors.
Accordingly, we affirm the sentences. 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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