United States v. Stevenson Trice, 700 F. App'x 282

Defendant Stevenson Gilberto Trice pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).
District court sentenced Trice to 118 months’ imprisonment, with 40 months to run concurrently with any related state sentence; remaining time was not concurrent.
Trice appealed, arguing the district court abused its discretion by not making the federal sentence entirely concurrent with any future related state sentence.
District court acknowledged its discretion under 18 U.S.C. § 3584 and the Guidelines (USSG § 5G1.3) to set concurrency, and explained the partial concurrency reflected both acceptance of responsibility and the seriousness of the offense and need for deterrence/public protection.
The Fourth Circuit reviewed only substantive reasonableness of the sentence under an abuse-of-discretion standard and applied the presumption of reasonableness for within-Guidelines sentences.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the district court abused its discretion by not making the federal sentence entirely concurrent with any future related state sentence	Trice: sentence substantively unreasonable because it was not entirely concurrent	Government: district court properly exercised discretion under § 3584 and the Guidelines, weighing § 3553(a) factors	Affirmed — no abuse of discretion; partial concurrency reasonable

Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38 (2007) (sets deferential abuse-of-discretion review and presumption of reasonableness for within-Guidelines sentences)
Setser v. United States, 566 U.S. 231 (2012) (district courts may order federal sentence to run concurrently or consecutively to an anticipated state sentence)
United States v. Louthian, 756 F.3d 295 (4th Cir. 2014) (explains presumption of reasonableness for Guidelines-range sentences and rebuttal by § 3553(a) factors)