Sentencing; Procedural reasonableness; Adequate explanation; Whether the district court relied on erroneous facts; Sufficiency of the evidence as to supervised release violations; Substantive reasonableness; Sentencing discretion; Imposition of an upward variance

Holding that defendant-Croom’s 24-month sentence for violating the conditions of his supervised release for a third time was procedurally and substantively reasonable, the court affirmed. After he pled guilty to money laundering and wire fraud conspiracy charges, he was sentenced to 30 months in prison followed by 5 years of supervised release. Due to his drinking and driving history, “the district court forbade him from using or possessing alcohol during his term of supervision.” After his first supervised release violations arising from drunk driving, he was sentenced at the low end of his guidelines range to 8 months. After the second, the district court honored the supervising officer’s request for leniency. About two years later, he admitted to three supervised release violations arising from another incident, including using alcohol. His guideline range was 8 to 14 months. On appeal, the court found as to procedural reasonableness that the district court “adequately explained the sentence it chose.” The district court determined that, based “on Croom’s recalcitrant drinking and driving and the danger his conduct posed to others, . . . a within-guidelines sentence would be ‘insufficient’ to deter similar conduct in the future. This fair-minded explanation sufficed.” He contended that it “improperly treated his revocation proceeding as an opportunity to impose more punishment for his state drunk driving offense.” But the court noted that “a sentencing court does not commit reversible error simply by considering how a federal sentence ‘would interact with its state counterpart.’” The court noted that this “is especially so when the same conduct ‘formed the basis of’ the state offense and the federal supervised release violation.” It also concluded that the district court did not clearly err in finding that a “mother and her two children were injured when Croom struck their car.” As to substantive reasonableness, the court held that the “district court’s firm but reasonable sentence did not exceed its discretion.” In light of the nature and extent of his breach of trust, his upward variance “sentence was not disproportionate, and it did not fail to account for any other relevant factors.”