United States v. Douglas Jones

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: January 25, 2023
• Docket: 22-10021
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JAN 25 2023 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 22-10021

Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. 3:18-cr-08040-SMB-1

v. MEMORANDUM* DOUGLAS ALLEN JONES,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona Susan M. Brnovich, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted January 18, 2023**

Before: GRABER, PAEZ, and NGUYEN, Circuit Judges.

Douglas Allen Jones appeals from the district court’s judgment and

challenges the 180-month sentence imposed following his jury-trial conviction for

distribution and possession of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2252

and 2256. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). Jones contends that the district court procedurally erred and imposed a

substantively unreasonable sentence when it failed to grant him a greater

downward variance to avoid unwarranted sentencing disparities. We review

Jones’s procedural claim for plain error, see United States v. Valencia-Barragan,

608 F.3d 1103, 1108 (9th Cir. 2010), and his substantive unreasonableness claim

for abuse of discretion, see Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007).

The record shows that the district court considered all of Jones’s mitigating

arguments—including the need to avoid unwarranted sentencing disparities—and

adequately explained that the nature of Jones’s offense and his individual

circumstances justified the sentence imposed. See United States v. Carty, 520 F.3d

984, 991-93 (9th Cir. 2008) (en banc). The court’s comment that the content of the

pornography possessed by Jones was “worse than others” was in reference to child

pornography offenses generally and not, as Jones contends, relative to the specific

defendant Jones identified as similarly situated. Finally, the below-Guidelines

sentence is substantively reasonable given the totality of the circumstances and the

18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, including the nature and seriousness of the offense,

and Jones’s criminal history. See Gall, 552 U.S. at 51; United States v. Gutierrez-

Sanchez, 587 F.3d 904, 908 (9th Cir. 2009) (“The weight to be given the various

factors in a particular case is for the discretion of the district court.”).

AFFIRMED.

2 22-10021