USCA4 Appeal: 21-4529 Doc: 22 Filed: 12/15/2022 Pg: 1 of 4

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 21-4529

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

ANTHONY GABRIEL JOHNSON, a/k/a Duck, a/k/a Gotti,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. Louise W. Flanagan, District Judge. (5:18-cr-00267-FL-1)

Submitted: November 3, 2022 Decided: December 15, 2022

Before NIEMEYER and THACKER, Circuit Judges, and FLOYD, Senior Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ON BRIEF: G. Alan DuBois, Federal Public Defender, Jennifer C. Leisten, Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant. Michael F. Easley, Jr., United States Attorney, David A. Bragdon, Assistant United States Attorney, Joshua L. Rogers, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. USCA4 Appeal: 21-4529 Doc: 22 Filed: 12/15/2022 Pg: 2 of 4

PER CURIAM:

Anthony Gabriel Johnson appeals the district court’s amended judgment of

conviction resentencing him to 212 months’ imprisonment. Johnson contends that his

sentence is procedurally unreasonable because the court did not address his nonfrivolous

arguments for a lower sentence. We affirm.

We review a sentence, “whether inside, just outside, or significantly outside the

Guidelines range[,] under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.” Gall v. United

States,

(2007). This review requires consideration of both the procedural

and substantive reasonableness of the sentence.

. In determining procedural

reasonableness, we consider whether the district court properly calculated the defendant’s

advisory Guidelines range, considered the

(a) factors, analyzed any

arguments presented by the parties, and sufficiently explained the selected sentence.

“Regardless of whether the district court imposes an above, below, or within-Guidelines

sentence, it must place on the record an individualized assessment based on the particular

facts of the case before it.” United States v. Carter,

(4th Cir. 2009)

(internal quotation marks omitted).

The district court is required to “address the parties’ nonfrivolous arguments in

favor of a particular sentence, and if the court rejects those arguments, it must explain why

in a sufficiently detailed manner to allow [us] to conduct a meaningful appellate review.”

United States v. Blue,

(4th Cir. 2017). “The adequacy of the sentencing

court’s explanation depends on the complexity of each case. There is no mechanical

approach to our sentencing review. The appropriateness of brevity or length, conciseness

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or detail, when to write, what to say, depends upon the circumstances. The sentencing

judge should set forth enough to satisfy the appellate court that he has considered the

parties’ arguments and has a reasoned basis for exercising his own legal decision-making

authority.”

(cleaned up). We cannot assume:

that a sentencing court truly considered the parties’ nonfrivolous arguments or the defendant’s individual characteristics when the record fails to make it patently obvious. Engaging counsel in a discussion about the merits of an argument in favor of a particular sentence, for example, may be sufficient to permit a reviewing court to infer that a sentencing court gave specific attention to a defendant’s argument. Absent such contextual indicators, however, we have declined to guess at the district court’s rationale, searching the record for statements or for any other clues that might explain a sentence.

United States v. Provance,

(4th Cir. 2019) (cleaned up). Nor may we

“assume that the court has silently adopted arguments presented by a party.” United

States v. Nance,

(4th Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks omitted). But,

where the court addresses the defendant’s “central thesis” in mitigation, it need not

“address separately each supporting data point marshalled on its behalf.”

Upon our review of the record, we conclude that the district court did not err. This

case was not complex. The court acknowledged that Johnson received his GED, completed

a drug program, and was behaving appropriately in prison. But the court observed that

Johnson was being resentenced after serving only a year and a half of his original 212-

month term. The court highlighted Johnson’s lengthy criminal history, the seriousness of

the convictions, and the need for deterrence.

We conclude that the district court’s reasons for imposing the same term of

imprisonment as originally imposed was adequately explained. Accordingly, we affirm

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the amended judgment. 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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