United States v. Lamar Brown

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
• Decided: April 17, 2024
• Docket: 23-1221
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _______________

No. 23-1221 _______________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

v.

LAMAR BROWN, Appellant _______________

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania (D.C. No. 1:02-cr-00083-001) District Judge: Honorable Yvette Kane _______________

Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) on March 14, 2024

Before: BIBAS, MONTGOMERY-REEVES, and ROTH, Circuit Judges

(Filed: April 17, 2024) _______________

OPINION* _______________ BIBAS, Circuit Judge.

Lamar Brown was convicted of trafficking crack cocaine in 2002. Because he had three

prior felony drug convictions, the Sentencing Guidelines mandated a life sentence. The

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and, under I.O.P. 5.7, is not binding precedent. District Court imposed that sentence. Then the First Step Act retroactively lowered sen-

tences for some drug offenders. Pub. L. No. 115-391, § 404(b), 132 Stat. 5194, 5222 (2018).

So in 2019, the District Court reduced his sentence to time served plus eight years’ super-

vised release. He walked out of prison.

But Brown did not change his ways. During his first eighteen months on supervised

release, he was arrested and charged three separate times for drug trafficking. He pleaded

guilty to those new charges and was sentenced to two to five years in state prison.

At a federal hearing, Brown again admitted these violations. So the District Court

revoked his supervised release and sentenced him to thirty-six months in prison, the top of

his Guidelines range. It also made that sentence consecutive to his new state sentence.

Brown now appeals, challenging this sentence as both procedurally and substantively

unreasonable. We review both issues for abuse of discretion. United States v. Handerhan,

739 F.3d 114, 119 (3d Cir. 2014). In reviewing procedural reasonableness, we ask if the

district court committed a “significant procedural error.” Id. (internal quotation marks omit-

ted). And because Brown never objected to procedural reasonableness, any such error

would also have to satisfy Olano’s plain-error test. United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725,

731–32 (1993). But there was no error, let alone plain error.

As for procedure, Brown first argues that the District Court improperly considered the

seriousness of his prior drug-trafficking convictions. He says the court was not allowed to

take that into account because the supervised-release statute does not list it. 18 U.S.C.

§ 3583(e) (omitting “seriousness of the offense” under § 3553(a)(2)(A) from its cross-

references). This objection misses the mark. Because Brown repeatedly trafficked serious

2 drugs right after release, his conduct suggested that he had not been deterred and still threat-

ened public safety. Thus, the District Court reasoned that “a sentence within the guideline

range is appropriate in order to provide adequate community protection and deterrence.”

JA 27. And the statute does list deterrence and public safety as permissible considerations

for supervised release. § 3583(e) (cross-referencing § 3553(a)(2)(B), (C)). Considering

these factors was proper.

Next, Brown claims that the District Court did not fully explain its rationale for the

thirty-six-month sentence. Not so. A sentencing court need not “discuss and make findings

as to each of the § 3553(a) factors if the record makes clear the court took the factors into

account.” United States v. Tomko, 562 F.3d 558, 568 (3d Cir. 2009) (en banc) (internal

quotation marks and emphasis omitted). The record here does that. At sentencing, the Dis-

trict Court said it “ha[d] considered the factors listed in 18 [U.S.C.] Section 3553.” JA 27.

As noted, it expressly weighed deterrence and incapacitation. And it reasoned that “Brown

hasn’t just failed to adjust, he’s reoffended again and again[,] leading to a sentence in [state

court] and now to a revocation petition here.” Id. That was more than enough explanation.

Third, Brown says the court did not adequately consider his arguments for a lower sen-

tence. But it did. At sentencing, Brown explained the challenges he had faced upon reen-

tering society, and his lawyer noted that he suffered from PTSD. The judge considered and

weighed these arguments carefully, stating: “I’m no stranger to the challenges of reentry. I

deal with it every day. … I understand PTSD. I understand what it's like for an aging person

to come out into the community and start over ….” JA 26. Only after that did the court

reject his plea for a below-Guidelines sentence.

3 Fourth, Brown argues that his new federal sentence should run concurrently with his

state one. Again, though, the court considered and reasonably rejected that argument. The

Guidelines instruct that sentences for violations of supervised release should run consecu-

tively. U.S.S.G. § 7B1.3(f). And as noted, after considering the factors discussed above, the

court did not “think that a below guideline range sentence is appropriate under all of the

circumstances.” JA 27. That also was explanation enough.

Brown’s sentence was substantively reasonable too. It was within the Guidelines range,

so we may presume it reasonable. Handerhan, 739 F.3d at 119–20. And “we will affirm it

unless no reasonable sentencing court would have imposed the same sentence on that par-

ticular defendant for the reasons the district court provided.” Tomko, 562 F.3d at 568.

Brown’s sentence easily clears that low bar. In his first year and a half on supervised

release, Brown trafficked drugs three more times. Given his immediate, repeated reoffend-

ing, the District Court reasonably found a within-Guidelines sentence necessary to deter

him and protect the public from his potential future crimes. Because his sentence was both

procedurally and substantively reasonable, we will affirm.