After defendant-appellant Walter J. Madera-Ortiz pleaded guilty to transferring obscene materials to a minor, see 18 U.S.C. § 1470, the district court sentenced him to 21 months in prison. The appellant challenges his sentence as substantively unreasonable. We affirm.
As this sentеncing appeal was preceded by a guilty plea, we draw the background facts from the change-of-plea colloquy, the transcript of the disposition hearing, and the uncontested portions of the presentence investigation report (PSI Report).
United States v. Carrasco-de-
*29
Jesús,
On or about January 3, 2009, the appellant entered an internet chat room and initiated a sexually explicit conversation with an individual whom he believed to be a 13-year-old girl. Unbeknownst to the appellant, his correspondеnt was in fact an agent of the Department of Homeland Security. During the ensuing exchange, the appellant transmitted webcam footage that showed him touching his genitals and masturbating. Within a span of approximately five months, the appellant initiаted a total of seven instant messaging conversations with his newfound friend. Each of those contacts featured the transmission of obscene materials. On June 3, 2009, a federal grand jury sitting in the District of Puerto Rico returned a seven-count indictment against the appellant. After initially maintaining his innocence, the appellant admitted his guilt as to all seven counts. The district court accepted the change of plea and ordered the probation department to prepare a presеntence report.
When received, the PSI Report revealed that the appellant had been, for the most part, a model citizen. He was college-educated and had retired after more than three decades of well-regarded employment at the Puerto Rico Municipal Collection Center. He assiduously supported his non-custodial daughter. He was an active member of his community and, among other things, conducted basketball clinics for at-risk youth. He had no history of mental illness, substance abuse, or criminality.
The district court convened the disposition hearing on February 25, 2010. After reviewing the PSI Report and hearing from counsel, the court calculated the guideline sentencing range (GSR). That calculation started with a base оffense level of 10, see U.S.S.G. § 2G3.1(a); added five levels because the offenses of conviction involved a victim whom the appellant believed to be a minor, see id. § 2G3.1(b)(l)(C); added two more levels for the use of an interactive computer service in the cоmmission of the offenses, see id. § 2G3.1(b)(3); and deducted three levels for the appellant’s timely acceptance of responsibility, see id. § 3El.l(a), (b). In making these adjustments, the district court echoed the recommendations contained in the PSI Report in all but one resрect: it granted a three-level decrease for acceptance of responsibility in lieu of the recommended two-level decrease. 1 In conjunction with a criminal history category of I, these computations produced а GSR of 15 to 21 months. The court then briefly reviewed some relevant considerations and concluded that “a sentence at the higher end of the applicable guideline sentencing range is sufficient but not greater than necessary to meet statutory objectives of punishment and of deterrence in this case.” Ultimately, the court sentenced the appellant to a 21-month inearcerative term, to be followed by three years of supervised release. This timely appeal ensued.
We have urged “the district courts to follow a specifically delineated roadmap when sentencing under the now-advisory federal sentencing guidelines.”
United States v. Dávila-González,
Appellatе review of such sentences is highly deferential. We are cognizant that the district court “possesses a number of institutional advantages, including a superior coign of vantage, greater familiarity with the individual case, the opportunity to see and hear the principals and the testimony at first hand, and the cumulative experience garnered through the sheer number of district court sentencing proceedings that take place day by day.”
Id.
(citing
Gall v. United States,
Ordinarily, this review is bifurcated. First, we evaluate the procedural soundness of the sentence; second, we assay its substantive reasonableness. See id. Here, however, the appellant concedes the correctness of the district court’s guideline calculations and lodges no claim of procedural error. Consequently, we narrow the lens of our inquiry to focus on substantive reasonableness.
In assessing the substantive reasonableness of a sentence, it is significant that the sentence falls within the GSR. “[A] defendant who attempts to brand a within-the-range sentence as unreasonable must carry a heavy burden.”
Pelletier,
Before us, the appellant argues that his sentence is substantively unreasonable because the district court (i) “treated the GSR as more of a finish line than as a starting point,” (ii) gave an inadequate explanation, (iii) did not fully consider mitigating circumstances, and (iv) left no wig *31 gle room to sentence a defendant convicted of the same offense on the basis of more heinous conduct. 4 We examine these plaints sequentially.
We need not linger long over the appellant’s first remonstrance. There is simply nothing in the record that suggests that the district court either treated the GSR as a set of shackles or felt itself constrained to sentence within that range regardless of what the record revealed. In fact, at the disposition hearing the court described its guideline calculations as “advisory.” We will not presume based solely on the suspicions of a disappointed defеndant that a sentencing court has turned a blind eye to settled law.
See, e.g., DávilaGonzalez,
We turn next to the district court’s explanation for the sentence. We have confirmed that a sentencing court’s explanation need not be “precise to thе point of pedantry.”
United States v. Fernández-Cabrera,
In the case at hand, the court’s explanation, though brief, contained a clear, cogent, and coherent rationale for its decision: the court found that “[t]he of-fence committed by [the appellant] ... is a very serious and a dangerous one,” which “occurred repeatedly against the same person believed by [the appellant] to be a minor.” It was, in the court’s view, an offensе that “can influence the mind of a very young person in an injurious manner.” Those considerations, the court thought, warranted a 21-month sentence.
To be sure, the sentencing court’s explanation for the sentence is terse. But “brevity is not to be confused with inattention.”
Turbides-Leonardo,
This brings us to the appellant’s third assignment of error. The record makes manifest that the district court examined the relevant sentencing factors. Indeed, the court, in pronouncing sentence, exprеssly stated that it had considered all the section 3553(a) factors. This is an important datum: on appeal, “the fact that the court stated that it had considered all the section 3553(a) factors is entitled to some weight.”
Dávila-González,
Nor was this all. Among other things, the court sрecifically noted many of the appellant’s virtues (e.g., that he had no prior criminal record, that he had no history of substance abuse, that he had earned a college degree, and that he had retired after more than three decаdes of honorable service as a public employee). Stripped of rhetorical flourishes, the appellant’s real complaint seems to be not that the court failed to mull the complex of factors but, rather, that the court weighed those factors in a manner that disfavored the appellant. To be sure, the sentence upon which the court settled was at the top of the GSR. Nevertheless, a defendant does not ensure himself a reduced sentence simply by identifying potentially mitigating factors.
Carrasco-de-Jesús,
Finally, the district сourt’s decision to impose a top-of-the-range sentence will not, as the appellant asseverates, foreclose appropriate punishment for defendants who commit the same offenses by means of more heinous cоnduct. The precedent upon which the appellant relies,
United States v. Franquiz-Ortiz,
We need go no further. The sentence imposed represents a defensible result supported by a plausible sentencing rationale. Consequently, we leave it undisturbed.
Affirmed.
Notes
. At the request of the appellant, the court ordered that the additional reduction be reflected in a revised PSI Report.
. The roadmap is not meant to have universal application. We regard it as “helpful, but not obligatory.”
Dávila-González,
. These factors include:
(1) the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of the defendant;
(2) the need for the sentence imposed—
(A) to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for the law, and to provide just punishment for the offense;
(B) to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct;
(C) to protect the public from further crimes of the defendant; and ...
(6) the nеed to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records....
18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).
. In his brief, the appellant also laments the "onerous” conditions of his supervised release. But the appellant has not developed any argument directed to this point and, thus, we treat it as waived.
See United States v. Zannino,