United States v. Rafael Rodriguez , 545 F. App'x 259 ( 2013 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 13-4213
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
RAFAEL ACEVEDO RODRIGUEZ,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. Malcolm J. Howard,
Senior District Judge. (5:12-cr-00277-H-1)
Submitted: October 28, 2013 Decided: November 6, 2013
Before AGEE, WYNN, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Thomas P. McNamara, Federal Public Defender, Stephen C. Gordon,
Assistant Federal Public Defender, Raleigh, North Carolina, for
Appellant. Thomas G. Walker, United States Attorney, Jennifer
P. May-Parker, Kristine L. Fritz, Assistant United States
Attorneys, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Rafael Acevedo Rodriguez pled guilty, without a plea
agreement, to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, in
violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), 924 (2012). The district
court sentenced Rodriguez within the Sentencing Guidelines to
sixteen months’ imprisonment to be followed by a three-year term
of supervised release. On appeal, Rodriguez argues that his
supervised release term is substantively unreasonable. We
affirm.
A “term of supervised release . . . [is] part of the
original sentence[,]” United States v. Evans, 159 F.3d 908, 913
(4th Cir. 1998), “and is reviewed for reasonableness.” United
States v. Preston, 706 F.3d 1106, 1121 (9th Cir. 2013); see Gall
v. United States, 522 U.S. 38, 46, 51 (2007) (stating that
appellate standard of review is for abuse of discretion). In
reviewing a sentence for substantive reasonableness, this Court
“examines the totality of the circumstances[.]” United States
v. Mendoza-Mendoza, 597 F.3d 212, 216 (4th Cir. 2010). If the
sentence is within the properly calculated Guidelines range,
this Court applies a presumption of reasonableness on appeal
that the sentence is substantively reasonable. Id. at 216-17;
see United States v. Cancino-Trinidad, 710 F.3d 601, 607 (5th
Cir. 2013) (applying presumption of reasonableness to within-
Guidelines supervised release term). Such a presumption is
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rebutted only by showing “that the sentence is unreasonable when
measured against the [18 U.S.C.] § 3553(a) [(2012)] factors.”
United States v. Montes-Pineda, 445 F.3d 375, 379 (4th Cir.
2006) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Rodriguez argues that his supervised release term,
which is at the high end of the Guidelines range, is
substantively unreasonable and he should have been sentenced to
a supervised release term at the bottom of the Guidelines range.
Rodriguez asserts that supervised release is “arduous,”
particularly for individuals like him with substance abuse
problems, and if he violates the terms of supervised release and
is returned to prison, his life will be jeopardized due to his
health problems. We conclude that Rodriguez has failed to rebut
the presumption of reasonableness afforded his within-Guidelines
sentence.
Accordingly, we affirm. We dispense with oral
argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately
presented in the materials before this Court and argument would
not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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