NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 20a0553n.06 No. 19-6109 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Sep 28, 2020 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk ) Plaintiff-Appellee, ) ) ON APPEAL FROM THE v. ) UNITED STATES DISTRICT ) COURT FOR THE EASTERN KANE JACQUES MALONE, ) DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE ) Defendant-Appellant. ) OPINION ) BEFORE: NORRIS, NALBANDIAN, and READLER, Circuit Judges. ALAN E. NORRIS, Circuit Judge. Defendant Kane Malone appeals the seventy-month sentence he received after pleading guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Defendant argues that the district court improperly applied a sentencing guidelines enhancement and that his sentence was procedurally unreasonable. We affirm. I. Police officers were called to a Chattanooga, Tennessee, hotel to investigate an alleged aggravated assault. The victim stated that defendant fired a handgun at her second-floor hotel room from the parking lot below. Officers recovered a spent nine-millimeter shell casing near where the defendant was said to have fired, and the officers observed bullet holes in the side of the hotel near her room. Case No. 19-6109, United States v. Malone The officers located defendant less than a half-mile away from the hotel at a gas station where he was removing his clothing. On the ground, officers located pants, socks, and a High Point nine-millimeter handgun with three rounds remaining in the magazine. Its serial number had been obliterated. Defendant waived his Miranda rights and told law enforcement that the recovered handgun was his. He first stated that the gun should be in his name but corrected himself to say that it could not be in his name because he was a felon. Prior to this incident, defendant had been convicted of at least the following felony charges: aggravated burglary, attempting aggravated burglary, and criminal simulation. Defendant was initially charged for aggravated assault based on shooting at the hotel and, after being booked on that charge, another unrelated arrest warrant was issued for aggravated robbery. Both of these state charges were dismissed, and defendant was charged federally with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The probation officer calculated the guidelines sentence this way: a base offense level of fourteen under USSG § 2K2.1(a)(6); an additional four levels under USSG § 2K2.1(b)(4)(B) because the firearm’s serial number was obliterated; an additional four levels under USSG § 2K2.1(b)(6)(B) because defendant possessed the firearm in connection with another felony offense; and minus three levels under USSG § 3E1.1(a) & (b) for acceptance of responsibility. This yielded a total offense level of nineteen. Defendant’s criminal history score was eighteen, resulting in a criminal history category of VI, and a guideline range of sixty-three to seventy-eight months’ imprisonment. At sentencing, counsel for defendant agreed that the guidelines were calculated correctly. 2 Case No. 19-6109, United States v. Malone Defendant filed a motion for downward variance, seeking a sentence of sixty ...
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