United States v. Wireman

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Defendant Mark Wireman, a frequent sexual offender who pled guilty to counts of possessing and distributing child pornography, argued his sentence was procedurally unreasonable because the district court did not specifically address and reject his arguments for a downward variance from his within-Guidelines sentence. The question this case presented for the Tenth Circuit’s review was whether the particular argument he made to the district court—namely, that the Guideline under which he was sentenced was inherently flawed on policy grounds—warranted an exception to a long-held rule that the district court was not required to explicitly address and reject his arguments in such an instance. “But no matter how inherently fluid this area of law may be, we have held time and time again that a district court does not run astray of its duty to ‘consider[] the parties’ arguments’ simply because it does not directly address those arguments head-on—assuming, that is, that the district court imposes a within-Guidelines sentence.” Accordingly, the Court affirmed the district court’s judgment. View "United States v. Wireman" on Justia Law