United States of America v. Nathaniel Colleton

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 11-4537
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
NATHANIEL COLLETON,
Defendant - Appellant.
No. 11-4538
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
NATHANIEL COLLETON, a/k/a Kiki,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the District
of South Carolina, at Charleston. David C. Norton, Chief
District Judge. (2:09-cr-01084-DCN-1; 2:08-cr-00581-DCN-1)
Submitted: February 21, 2012 Decided: March 8, 2012
Before DAVIS, KEENAN, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges.

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Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
J. Robert Haley, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Charleston,
South Carolina, for Appellant. William N. Nettles, United
States Attorney, Peter T. Phillips, Assistant United States
Attorney, Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Nathaniel Colleton pled guilty to one count of
conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute and to
distribute 100 grams or more of heroin, in violation of
21 U.S.C. § 846 (2006), one count of possession with the intent
to distribute and distribution of heroin to another person,
resulting in the death or serious bodily injury of that person,
in violation of 21 U.S.C.A. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C) (West 2006 &
Supp. 2011), and one count of possession with the intent to
distribute and distribution of heroin while on release pending
sentencing, in violation of 21 U.S.C.A. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C)
and 18 U.S.C. § 3147(1) (2006). Calculating the advisory
Guidelines sentence pursuant to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines
Manual (2010), the district court determined the sentencing
range was 324 to 405 months’ imprisonment. The court sentenced
Colleton to a total of 324 months’ imprisonment. Colleton now
appeals, arguing that the sentence is procedurally and
substantively unreasonable. We affirm.
We review a sentence for reasonableness under an 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. § 3553(a) (2006)
sentencing factors, analyzes any arguments presented by the

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parties, 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 [district court’s]
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 the substantive reasonableness of the sentence,
“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 reasonable. United States v.
Mendoza-Mendoza, 597 F.3d 212, 217 (4th Cir. 2010). Such a
presumption is rebutted only by showing “that the sentence is
unreasonable when measured against the § 3553(a) factors.”

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United States v. Montes-Pineda, 445 F.3d 375, 379 (4th Cir.
2006) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Colleton argues that his sentence is procedurally
unreasonable because the district court failed to address and
explain why it rejected his argument for the imposition of a
below-Guidelines sentence. Upon our review, we conclude that
this contention is without merit. At sentencing, Colleton
alluded to the circumstances surrounding the drug overdose death
of the person to whom he delivered heroin, without explaining
why those circumstances merited a below-Guidelines sentence.
Further, we conclude that the district court provided an
adequate individualized assessment, taking into account
counsel’s arguments for a below-Guidelines sentence and relevant
§ 3553(a) factors.
Finally, we reject as without merit Colleton’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 the 324-month sentence achieved the
purposes of sentencing in Colleton’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

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given each of the § 3553(a) factors.”), cert. denied, 132 S. Ct.
187 (2011).
We accordingly affirm the judgments. 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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