United States v. Jeff Beran, 751 F.3d 872

Beran pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute ≥500g methamphetamine and was sentenced to 235 months, later reduced to 66 months under Rule 35(b), with five years’ supervised release.
While on supervised release, Beran committed public intoxication and third-degree domestic assault; the court revoked release and imposed one day (time served) plus 54 months of supervised release.
After treatment and probation instructions to avoid contact with his ex-girlfriend, Beran repeatedly contacted her, frightening her and prompting a protection-order proceeding; probation filed a petition for revocation based on failure to follow officer instructions.
At the second revocation hearing Beran admitted the violation; the guidelines called for 8–14 months, but the district court sentenced him to 48 months imprisonment with no supervised release.
Beran did not object at sentencing to the adequacy of the court’s § 3553(a) consideration; he appealed claiming (1) the court failed to consider § 3553(a)(6) (avoid unwarranted disparities) and (2) the 48-month sentence was substantively unreasonable.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed, finding no plain error in the court’s § 3553(a) consideration and concluding the sentence was reasonable given the history, prior reductions, repeated violations, and danger of the conduct.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether district court failed to consider § 3553(a)(6) (avoid unwarranted disparities)	Beran: court did not consider § 3553(a)(6) and thus inadequately explained sentence	Government: court reviewed comparisons and considered disparities; no categorical recitation required	No plain error; court adequately considered disparity concerns
Whether district court gave sufficient explanation for a sentence well above the guidelines	Beran: 48 months (3× guideline) was excessive given progress, nature of violation, history	Gov: court considered prior reductions, resources expended, repeated violations, danger of conduct	Sentence substantively reasonable; no abuse of discretion
Whether sentence was disproportionate compared to similarly situated offenders	Beran: sentence unreasonable relative to others	Gov: defendant gets no particular term; sentence within statutory limits and supported by record	Court rejects disparity comparison; sentence not so disproportionate
Standard of review for these claims	Beran: (implicit) challenges subject to plain error or abuse review	Gov: plain-error for procedural failure; abuse-of-discretion for substantive reasonableness	Procedural review: plain error; Substantive review: abuse of discretion—all claims fail

United States v. Benton, 627 F.3d 1051 (8th Cir. 2010) (plain-error review for unpreserved sentencing objections)
United States v. Dieken, 432 F.3d 906 (8th Cir. 2006) (no requirement to recite each § 3553(a) factor on the record)
United States v. Gray, 533 F.3d 942 (8th Cir. 2008) (presumption that district judges consider § 3553(a) factors)
United States v. Carty, 520 F.3d 984 (9th Cir. 2008) (en banc) (discussion of sentencing-factor consideration presumption)
United States v. Thunder, 553 F.3d 605 (8th Cir. 2009) (abuse-of-discretion standard for revocation-sentence substantive review)
United States v. Kreitinger, 576 F.3d 500 (8th Cir. 2009) (framework for unreasonable-sentence abuse-of-discretion review)
United States v. Larison, 432 F.3d 921 (8th Cir. 2006) (upholding substantial upward variance for repeated supervised-release violations and prior sentence reductions)
United States v. Cotton, 399 F.3d 913 (8th Cir. 2005) (affirming lengthy revocation sentence where prior reductions and repeated violations justified variance)