United States v. Ballard

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The Eighth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence of 121 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. The court held that defendant's sentence was substantively reasonable where the district court considered the mitigating factors, but gave them little weight relative to the other 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors. Furthermore, the district court also did not commit a clear error of judgment in weighing the section 3553(a) factors. In this case, the district court did not clearly err by giving great weight to defendant's extensive history of criminal conduct, or by giving little weight to her history of drug addiction and the fact that her previous offenses were all misdemeanors. View "United States v. Ballard" on Justia Law