United States v. Brown

11-4663-cr

United States v. Brown

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A

SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED

BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1.

WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY

MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE

NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY

OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

At a stated Term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the

Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, in the City of New York,

on the 26th day of October, two thousand twelve,

Present: PIERRE N. LEVAL,

ROSEMARY S. POOLER,

REENA RAGGI,

Circuit Judges.

_____________________________________________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

-v- 11-4663-cr

JEROME BROWN, also known as Jamel Brown,

Defendant-Appellant.

_____________________________________________________

Appearing for Appellant: David A. Lewis, Federal Defenders of New York, New York, NY

Appearing for Appellee: Daniel C. Richenthal, Assistant United States Attorney (Preet

Bharara, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New

York; Brent S. Wible, Assistant United States Attorney, on the

brief), New York, NY

Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of

New York (Castel, J.).

ON CONSIDERATION WHEREOF, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED,

AND DECREED that the judgment of said District Court be and it hereby is AFFIRMED.

Jerome Brown appeals the sentence of 72 months’ imprisonment imposed by the district

court on October 28, 2011. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts,

procedural history, and specification of issues for review.

“Reasonableness review 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. Williams, 475 F.3d 468, 474 (2d Cir. 2007) (citation and alterations

omitted). “Whether the District Court correctly interpreted U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1 is a question of

law, which we review de novo.” United States v. Cuello, 357 F.3d 162, 164 (2d Cir. 2004).

The district court correctly considered the factors identified in Cuello to determine that

Brown’s previous New York state youthful offender adjudication counted as a previous

conviction for a crime of violence under U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1. This Court has addressed the status

of New York state youthful offender adjudications as previous convictions in many contexts, see,

e.g., United States v. Pereira, 465 F.3d 515 (2d Cir. 2006); United States v. Jones, 415 F.3d 256

(2d Cir. 2005); United States v. Driskell, 277 F.3d 150 (2d Cir. 2002); United States v.

Matthews, 205 F.3d 544 (2d Cir. 2000), and we do not disturb those decisions here. As the

district court identified the proper Guidelines range and sentenced Brown accordingly, we

cannot conclude that the sentence in this case was either procedurally or substantively

unreasonable. See United States v. Eberhard, 525 F.3d 175, 179 (2d Cir. 2008) (“[I]n the

overwhelming majority of cases, a Guidelines sentence will fall comfortably within the broad

range of sentences that would be reasonable in the particular circumstances.” (citation omitted)).

We find Brown’s remaining arguments to be without merit. Accordingly, the judgment

of the district court hereby is AFFIRMED.

FOR THE COURT:

Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk

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