United States of America v. Darnell Eugene Duckett, a/k/a Duck, a/k/a Charlie, a/k/a Donald Duck, a/k/a D

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 22-6062
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
DARNELL EUGENE DUCKETT, a/k/a Duck, a/k/a Charlie, a/k/a Donald Duck, a/k/a D,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Greenbelt.
Deborah K. Chasanow, Senior District Judge. (8:11-cr-00147-DKC-3)
Submitted: March 16, 2023 Decided: March 20, 2023
Before WILKINSON, AGEE, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ON BRIEF: Justin Eisele, SEDDIQ LAW FIRM, Rockville, Maryland, for Appellant.
Erek L. Barron, United States Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, David I. Salem, Assistant
United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Greenbelt,
Maryland, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Darnell Eugene Duckett appeals the district court’s order denying his pro se and
counseled motions for compassionate release. We review the denial of a motion for
compassionate release for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Kibble, 992 F.3d 326,
329 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 383 (2021).
On appeal, Duckett assigns error to the district court’s failure to expressly
acknowledge the propriety of Duckett’s assertion that he no longer qualified for sentencing
as a career offender. Our review of the record shows that the district court essentially
accepted this to be accurate—albeit without resolving the matter conclusively—but found
that neither this contention, nor the other bases for relief advanced by Duckett, were
sufficient to override its analysis of the relevant 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) sentencing factors. It
is well established that a district court need not “acknowledge and address each of the
defendant’s arguments on the record.” United States v. High, 997 F.3d 181, 189
(4th Cir. 2021). Instead, “the touchstone must be whether the district court set forth enough
to satisfy our court that it has considered the parties’ arguments and has a reasoned basis
for exercising its own legal decisionmaking authority, so as to allow for meaningful
appellate review.” Id. at 190 (cleaned up). The district court conformed to this mandate
here, analyzing Duckett’s motion as supplemented and explaining why a reduced sentence
would not be consistent with the § 3553(a) factors it deemed most relevant. Thus, we
discern no abuse of discretion in the court’s analysis.
Accordingly, we affirm the court’s order. United States v. Duckett, No. 8:11-cr-
00147-DKC-3 (D. Md. Jan. 4, 2022). We dispense with oral argument because the facts

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and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and
argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED

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