United States of America, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. Nathan Adam Smith, Defendant - Appellant. (2017)

In this direct criminal appeal, Nathan Smith challenges the district court's ¹ below-Guidelines-range sentence imposed following his guilty plea to bank fraud. His counsel has moved to withdraw, and has filed a brief under Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), arguing that Smith's sentence is substantively unreasonable because there is undue disparity between Smith's sentence and the sentences imposed on his co-defendants. In a supplemental brief, Smith joins counsel in challenging the substantive reasonableness of his sentence based on the more favorable sentences that his co-defendants received.

Having carefully reviewed the district court's careful articulation at sentencing of the multiple factors that guided the court in fashioning an appropriate sentence, we conclude that the sentence is not substantively unreasonable. See United States v. Miller, 57 F.3d 910, 917 (8th Cir. 2009). Further, we have reviewed the record as required by Penson v. Ohio, 488 U.S. 75 (1988), and find no nonfrivolous issues for appeal. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment, and we grant counsel's motion to withdraw.

FOOTNOTES

1.   The Honorable John A. Jarvey, Chief Judge, United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.

PER CURIAM.