United States v. Alvin Burris

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Decided: June 22, 2000
• Docket: 97-4840
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v. No. 97-4840

ALVIN LOMAX BURRIS, Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. Marvin J. Garbis, District Judge. (CR-96-427-MJG)

Submitted: June 6, 2000

Decided: June 22, 2000

Before TRAXLER and KING, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge.

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Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

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COUNSEL

Fred Warren Bennett, BENNETT & NATHANS, L.L.P., Greenbelt, Maryland, for Appellant. Lynn A. Battaglia, United States Attorney, Martin J. Clarke, Assistant United States Attorney, Baltimore, Mary- land, for Appellee.

_________________________________________________________________ Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See Local Rule 36(c).

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OPINION

PER CURIAM:

Alvin Lomax Burris appeals his sentence for one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C.A. § 922(g) (West 1976 & Supp. 2000). Burris claims that the district court erred by not back-dating the starting date of the sentence so that it would run concurrently with a previously-discharged state sentence. Finding no reversible error, we affirm.

Legal questions involving the application of the sentencing guide- lines are reviewed de novo. See United States v. Mosley, 200 F.3d 218, 221 (4th Cir. 1999). "Section 5G1.3 of the Sentencing Guide- lines deals with the imposition of a sentence on a defendant who is subject to an undischarged term of imprisonment ." Id. at 222 (empha- sis added). Section 5G1.3 is only concerned with undischarged sen- tences. See United States v. McHan, 101 F.3d 1027, 1040 (4th Cir. 1996). This proposition holds even if there is a delay in sentencing that results in the prior sentence becoming completely discharged. See id. Thus, the district court properly denied Burris' request to back- date the starting date of his federal sentence so that it could run con- currently to his then discharged state sentence.

We affirm the conviction and sentence.* We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately pre- sented in the materials before the court and argument would not aid in the decisional process.

AFFIRMED _________________________________________________________________ *We decline to dismiss the appeal as moot because there is not conclu- sive evidence in the materials before the court to establish that the appeal is in fact moot.