United States v. Hagerman

506 F. App'x 14
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit·Decided December 20, 2012·No. 11-3421-cr·Unpublished·Cited by 5 cases

Opinion

SUMMARY ORDER

Defendant-Appellant Paul Hagerman appeals from a judgment and a post-judgment restitution order of the United States *16 District Court for the Northern District of New York (Suddaby, /.), convicting him, following his guilty plea, of one count of receiving child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(2)(A) & (a)(5)(B). On August 17, 2011, the district court imposed a Guidelines sentence of ninety-seven months’ imprisonment, a life term of supervised release, and a special assessment of $200. On November 30, 2011, the district court entered a post-judgment order holding the defendant jointly and severally liable to the victim for $975,917.64 in restitution, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2259. On appeal, Hagerman contends that his sentence is procedurally unreasonable because the district court offered only a limited explanation for its sentence, and substantively unreasonable because it fails to take into account his personal circumstances. Hagerman also contends that the order of restitution is unlawful because: (1) Hagerman’s possession of the pornography did not proximately cause the victim’s harm; (2) the monetary harm the district court attributed to Hagerman’s conduct is too high; (3) he cannot be held jointly and severally liable for all of the harm suffered by the victim; and (4) the district court failed to consider his financial ability to pay the restitution award and set an appropriate payment schedule. We presume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts and procedural history of this case as well as with the issues on appeal.

We review a district court’s sentence for “reasonableness, which is ‘akin to review for abuse of discretion, under which we consider whether the sentencing judge exceeded the bounds of allowable discretion, committed an error of law in the course of exercising discretion, or made a clearly erroneous finding of fact.’ ” United States v. Leslie, 658 F.3d 140, 142 (2d Cir.2011) (per curiam) (quoting United States v. Williams, 475 F.3d 468, 474 (2d Cir.2007)). “A district court commits procedural error where it fails to calculate the Guidelines range (unless omission of the calculation is justified),” “makes a mistake in its Guidelines calculation,” “treats the Guidelines as mandatory,” “does not consider the [sentencing] factors” set out in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), “rests its sentence on a clearly erroneous finding of fact,” or “fails adequately to explain its chosen sentence.” United States v. Cavera, 550 F.3d 180, 190 (2d Cir.2008) (en banc). Where the Court determines that there was no procedural error in a district court’s sentencing, it “then considers the substantive reasonableness of the sentence imposed under an abuse-of-discretion standard, taking into account the totality of the circumstances.” United States v. Rigas, 583 F.3d 108, 121 (2d Cir.2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). Although we do not presume that a sentence within the Guidelines range is reasonable, United States v. Dorvee, 616 F.3d 174, 182 (2d Cir.2010), a district court’s substantive findings will be set aside only “in exceptional cases where the trial court’s decision cannot be located within the range of permissible decisions,” Cavera, 550 F.3d at 189 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Hagerman contends that the district court’s imposition of a 97-month term of imprisonment is procedurally unreasonable because the court offered a very limited explanation for its sentence. We disagree. Although the district court did not offer a lengthy explanation for its sentence, viewing the transcript in context, the district court provided a reasoned justification. Before pronouncing its sentence, the district court noted that it had reviewed and considered all of the information provided to it, and adopted the factual information contained in the Pre-sentence Report. The court then sen *17 tenced Hagerman to 97 months’ imprisonment, concluding this was “sufficient but not greater than necessary to satisfy the requirements of justice in this case.” App’x 76-77.

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