United States v. Terry Mead ( 2019 )

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
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18-3548
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
TERRY VAN MEAD,
Appellant
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On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
(M.D. Pa. 1-17-cr-00182-001)
Honorable Sylvia H. Rambo, U.S. District Judge
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Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
July 9, 2019
Before: SHWARTZ, KRAUSE, and FUENTES, Circuit Judges
(Opinion filed: July 17, 2019)
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OPINION*
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*
This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not
constitute binding precedent.
KRAUSE, Circuit Judge.
Terry Van Mead appeals his eight-month sentence for violating the conditions of
his supervised release, arguing that the District Court procedurally erred by treating the
Sentencing Guidelines as mandatory. Because the District Court understood and
appropriately exercised its discretion, we will affirm.
I. Background
In 2018, Mead was convicted of escape from a halfway house, and the District
Court sentenced him to eight months’ imprisonment and three years of supervised
release, which was below the applicable Sentencing Guidelines range.1 After his release
from prison, Mead was again placed in a halfway house for supervised release. Within
just ten days, however, he violated the conditions of his release by failing to notify the
probation officer of his contact with police, failing to report to his probation officer, and
abandoning the halfway house without authorization.
At sentencing, Mead admitted to the violations but explained that he left the
halfway house because he needed to support his family, was uncomfortable with his
housemates’ drinking and drug use, and had been unable to secure employment. The
Probation Office determined that Mead’s conduct and criminal history yielded a
Guidelines sentencing range of eight to fourteen months, and Mead did not object to this
calculation. The District Court again sentenced Mead to eight-months’ imprisonment and
1
Mead was originally convicted in the District of Vermont in 2015 of violating the
Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act and possessing stolen firearms. In 2016,
Mead’s case was accepted for courtesy supervision in the Middle District of
Pennsylvania.
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three years’ supervised release, stating, “The Court has determined that a sentence within
the [G]uideline[s] range is appropriate in order to provide adequate punishment and
deterrence.” App. 44. The Court explained its sentencing decision as follows:
Now the Court has listened to your plea, but you have to realize
supervision is part really of your sentence. And within 10 days
of supervision, you violated your terms. I can appreciate your
concern, but your first concern was abiding by those
conditions. . . . [The probation officer] advised me that they
did assist you with location of employment, and . . . they would
have provided you with the funds to travel to those places of
employment. You never advised them of the conditions that
you were living in under this house . . . . I don’t know what
more the probation could have done.
App. 45–46. It then said, “I have given you the minimum that I can give you for
violation of two courts’ supervised release.” App. 46.
II. Discussion2
Based solely on this last sentence of the District Court’s explanation, Mead now
argues that the Court procedurally erred by failing to “appreciate” or “fully exercise[] its
discretion to consider and impose a sentence below the [Guidelines] range.” Appellant’s
Br. 7. Because Mead did not object after his sentence was imposed, we review for plain
error. United States v. Flores-Mejia, 759 F.3d 253, 255 (3d Cir. 2014). Under plain-
error review, we will “grant relief only if we conclude that (1) there was an error, (2) the
error was ‘clear or obvious,’ and (3) the error ‘affected the appellant’s substantial
rights.’” United States v. Stinson, 734 F.3d 180, 184 (3d Cir. 2013) (quoting Puckett v.
2
The District Court had jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3231, and we have
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
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United States, 556 U.S. 129, 135 (2009)). If all three prongs are satisfied, we may
exercise our discretion to correct the error if it “seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or
public reputation of the judicial proceedings.” Id. (quoting Puckett, 556 U.S. at 135)
(alterations omitted). On this record, we find no error, much less plain error.3
As reflected in his equivocal phrasing, Mead in fact appears to be making two
arguments: (1) that the District Court believed the Guidelines were mandatory; and (2)
that, even if it was aware of its discretion, the Court failed to appropriately exercise that
discretion by not considering lower sentences.
As for his first argument, Mead is correct that “treating the Guidelines as
mandatory” would constitute a “significant procedural error,” meriting resentencing.
United States v. Tomko, 562 F.3d 558, 567 (3d Cir. 2009) (en banc) (quoting United
States v. Gall, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007)). But the District Court did not treat the Guidelines
as mandatory. In fact, both parties and the Court referred to the District Court’s
discretion to depart from the applicable Guidelines range throughout the sentencing
hearing. For example, the Government reminded the Court that it had “varied below the
[G]uidelines” for Mead before, and Mead’s counsel unambiguously stated, “Your Honor,
we would just note that obviously the revocation [G]uidelines are advisory and not
actually dictated.” App. 44. And, before pronouncing the sentence, the Court noted “that
3
Mead’s argument is cabined to a procedural challenge. To the extent it could
even conceivably be construed to challenge the sentence’s substantive reasonableness, it
also fails. Indeed, we cannot say that “no reasonable sentencing court would have
imposed the same sentence on that particular defendant for the reasons the district court
provided.” United States v. Tomko, 562 F.3d 558, 568 (3d Cir. 2009) (en banc).
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a sentence within the [G]uideline[s] range is appropriate,” implicitly acknowledging the
possibility of sentencing outside of the range. App. 44. Thus, it is unlikely that the
District Court did not appreciate that it had discretion.
In context, then, the sentencing judge’s statement, “I have given you the minimum
that I can give you,” does not suggest that the Court viewed the Guidelines as mandatory,
but, rather, that eight months was the minimum sentence it felt Mead’s conduct and the
circumstances merited. App. 46. Indeed, the District Court acknowledged Mead’s
arguments and request for leniency but ultimately gave more weight to the need for
punishment and deterrence. And, as the Court explained, it had good reason for doing so:
Mead violated not one, but two courts’ release conditions; the violations included
multiple failures to report; Mead breached the conditions of his release within ten days of
leaving prison; and Mead’s explanations for his unauthorized departure from the halfway
house were not entirely credible.
Given the Court’s explanation for its sentencing decision, Mead’s second
argument that the Court failed to “fully exercise” its sentencing discretion is entirely
unfounded. Appellant’s Br. 7. That Mead’s sentence fell within the Guidelines range
does not suggest a failure to exercise discretion—it simply suggests that the discretion
did not yield Mead’s desired results. In any event, we are confident that the District
Judge here, who has decades of experience in sentencing and who granted this very
defendant a sentence below the Guidelines range the last time he was before her, well
understood her discretion and exercised it in a reasonable manner.
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III. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the sentence imposed by the District
Court.
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