Opinion
No. 07-4686.
Submitted: February 13, 2008.
Decided: March 17, 2008.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, at Durham. James A. Beaty, Jr., Chief District Judge. (1:06-cr-00444-JAB).
Louis C. Allen, Federal Public Defender, William C. Ingram, First Assistant Federal Public Defender, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellant. Anna Mills Wagoner, United States Attorney, David P. Folmar, Jr., Assistant United States Attorney, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellee.
Before TRAXLER, SHEDD, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.
Vacated and remanded by unpublished PER CURIAM opinion.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
Lenardo Rodrikus McGee appealed from his 117-month sentence, contending that the district court erred in declining to vary from the advisory Sentencing Guidelines range on the basis of the harshness of the Guidelines' 100:1 crack-to-powder cocaine ratio. In a prior opinion, we concluded that McGee's claim was barred by our decision in United States v. Eura, 440 F.3d 625, 634 (4th Cir. 2006) (holding that 100:1 ratio cannot be the basis of a variance), vacated, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 853, ___ L.Ed.2d ___ (2008). However, subsequent to our decision, the Supreme Court issued Kimbrough v. United, States, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 558, 575, 169 L.Ed.2d 481 (2007), which abrogated Eura and held that "it would not be an abuse of discretion for a district court to conclude when sentencing a particular defendant that the crack/powder disparity yields a sentence `greater than necessary' to achieve [ 18 U.S.C.A. § 3553(a) (West 1999 Supp. 2007)]'s purposes, even in a minerun case."
McGee has filed a petition for rehearing, raising Kimbrough. We grant the petition and dispense with further briefing and argument. To give the district court an opportunity to reconsider McGee's sentence in light of Kimbrough, we vacate McGee's sentence and remand for resentencing. The parties' joint motion to remand is denied as moot. We express no opinion on the appropriateness of a variance sentence.
VACATED AND REMANDED.