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 1997-01

United States v. Parks ( 1997 )


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  • UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.                                                                    No. 96-4531
REGINALD PARKS,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Alexandria.
T. S. Ellis, III, District Judge.
(CR-95-208-A)
Submitted: January 7, 1997
Decided: January 31, 1997
Before HALL and NIEMEYER, Circuit Judges, and
BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge.
_________________________________________________________________
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
_________________________________________________________________
COUNSEL
Dale W. Dover, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellant. Helen F. Fahey,
United States Attorney, Mark S. Determan, Special Assistant United
States Attorney, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee.
_________________________________________________________________
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See
Local Rule 36(c).
OPINION
PER CURIAM:
Reginald Parks, an American citizen, was convicted of engaging in
a scheme in which he married women from Sierra Leone for money
in order to circumvent the immigration laws, and he was sentenced
to five concurrent twenty-six-month sentences. On appeal, Parks chal-
lenges the district court's denial of his motion to suppress his tape-
recorded confession and the calculation of his criminal history score
under the Sentencing Guidelines.1 Finding no error, we affirm.
The district court's legal conclusion concerning the motion to sup-
press is reviewed de novo, and its findings of fact are reviewed for
clear error. United States v. Han,
    74 F.3d 537
    , 540 (4th Cir.), cert.
denied, ___ U.S. ___,
    64 U.S.L.W. 3807
     (U.S. June 3, 1996) (No. 95-
8891); United States v. Williams,
    10 F.3d 1070
    , 1077 (4th Cir. 1993),
cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___,
    63 U.S.L.W. 3292
     (U.S. Oct. 11, 1994)
(No. 93-9441). The test for voluntariness of the confession is whether,
considering the totality of the circumstances, the agents overcame
Parks's will. Haynes v. Washington,
    373 U.S. 503
     (1963). Coercive
police activity is a necessary predicate to a finding that the confession
was involuntary. Colorado v. Connelly,
    479 U.S. 157
    , 167 (1986).
In the present case, the district court made the factual determina-
tion that Parks was read his rights and waived them prior to being
interviewed and that an arrest warrant was issued prior to Parks's
arrest. These findings are supported by the record. While Parks argues
that he was a drug addict and of limited intelligence, these factors are
only material upon a showing of coercive police activity. Parks makes
no such showing. Therefore, we find that the district court did not err
by denying Parks's motion to suppress his confession.
We also affirm the district court's calculation of Parks's criminal
history score. Parks's prior offenses were not related because there
was an intervening arrest. USSG § 4A1.2, comment. (n.3). Moreover,
even though Parks was sentenced for two of the offenses in the same
_________________________________________________________________
1 United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual (Nov.
1995).
2
hearing, there was no formal consolidation order. See United States
v. Allen,
    50 F.3d 294
    , 297 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___,
    63 U.S.L.W. 3907
     (U.S. Jun. 26, 1995) (No. 94-9414) (formal consolida-
tion order required before offenses will be considered consolidated
for sentencing for purposes of USSG § 4A1.2).
We reject Parks's argument that credit for time served equates
to a suspended sentence for purposes of USSG §§ 4A1.1(c),
4A1.2(a)(3), and 4A1.2, comment. (n.2).2 We find the two concepts
clearly distinguishable.
We therefore affirm the findings and sentence of the district court.
We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal conten-
tions are adequately presented in the materials before the court and
argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
_________________________________________________________________
2 These sections allow for the imposition of only one criminal history
point in cases where the defendant did not serve any actual time in prison
(i.e., where the defendant received a suspended sentence).
3