By: Kaitlin Price
In United States v. Kessinger, the Defendant appealed the district court’s issuance of a six-month sentence of imprisonment imposed after revocation of his supervised release. The Defendant questioned whether the Defendant’s sentence is plainly unreasonable. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s sentence.
District courts are given a broad discretion in imposing a sentence after a revocation of a supervised release. The only requirements are that the sentence must be within the statutory maximum and cannot be “plainly unreasonable”. Here, the district court explained the basis for Defendant’s sentence and considered the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2012) factors. The Fourth Circuit held that the district court did not abuse its discretion.
