United States of America v. Michael Weitzel

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 23-3100
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United States of America
Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
Michael Weitzel
Defendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the Northern District of Iowa - Central
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Submitted: April 8, 2024
Filed: May 21, 2024
[Unpublished]
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Before BENTON, ARNOLD, and STRAS, Circuit Judges.
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PER CURIAM.
After violating the conditions of supervised release, Michael Weitzel received
a one-year prison sentence. He challenges the adequacy of the district court’s1
explanation and the substantive reasonableness of the sentence. We affirm.
1 The Honorable Linda R. Reade, United States District Judge for the Northern
District of Iowa.

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First, the district court explained why it settled on one year. See United States
v. Vaughn, 519 F.3d 802, 804 (8th Cir. 2008) (reviewing unobjected-to procedural
sentencing errors for plain error). In its view, Weitzel’s “criminal history points [did
not] even capture all of his criminal behavior,” and past treatment had not made him
“clean and sober.” It did not need to specifically address Weitzel’s request for one
day more, even if a slightly longer sentence would have given him an opportunity to
earn good-time credits. See United States v. Torres-Ojeda, 829 F.3d 1027, 1029 (8th
Cir. 2016) (“[A] sentencing court need not specifically respond to every argument
presented at sentencing.”); see also 18 U.S.C. § 3624(b)(1) (authorizing credit for
“prisoner[s] . . . serving a term of imprisonment of more than 1 year”).
Second, the sentence is substantively reasonable. See United States v. Clark,
998 F.3d 363, 367 (8th Cir. 2021) (reviewing a revocation sentence for an abuse of
discretion). The record shows that the district court sufficiently considered the
statutory sentencing factors, 18 U.S.C. §§ 3553(a), 3583(e)(3), and did not rely on
an improper factor or commit a clear error of judgment. See Clark, 998 F.3d at 369–
70. If a 366-day sentence would have been reasonable, one day shorter is too. We
accordingly affirm the judgment of the district court.
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