General Procedural-Reasonableness Objection Does Not Preserve a Specific § 3553(a)(6) Comparator-Scope Challenge; No Plain Error for Limiting Comparators to the Sentencing District Absent Controlling Authority

Precedents Cited

Framework for procedural/substantive review

• United States v. Touray, 151 F.4th 1317 (11th Cir. 2025): Supplied the Eleventh Circuit’s overarching “abuse of discretion” framework for reviewing both procedural and substantive reasonableness. The panel uses it as the entry point for the two-step Gall approach.
• Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38 (2007): Provided (1) the catalog of common procedural errors and (2) the deferential lens for substantive review. Critically, the panel relied on Gall twice: first, to define procedural error; second, to support the proposition that correctly calculating and reviewing the Guidelines “necessarily” accounts for disparity concerns and limits unwarranted geographic differences.

Issue preservation and plain-error doctrine (procedural claim)

• United States v. Vandergrift, 754 F.3d 1303 (11th Cir. 2014): Did two jobs. First, it supplied the rule that unpreserved procedural-reasonableness challenges are reviewed for plain error. Second, it furnished the four-part plain-error test and the “substantial rights” (outcome) requirement.
• United States v. Parks, 823 F.3d 990 (11th Cir. 2016), overruled in part on other grounds by United States v. Steiger, 99 F.4th 1316 (11th Cir. 2024) (en banc): Quoted for the principle that an objection must apprise the trial court of the “particular grounds” later raised on appeal. The panel’s use is narrow and procedural: preservation, not the overruled portion.
• United States v. Carpenter, 803 F.3d 1224 (11th Cir. 2015): Key to the holding that a “sweeping, general objection” (here, objecting to “procedural reasonableness” without specificity) does not preserve a discrete sentencing issue—such as the geographic scope of comparator cases.
• United States v. Lejarde-Rada, 319 F.3d 1288 (11th Cir. 2003): Anchored the “plainness” inquiry. The panel invoked the rule that where neither text nor binding precedent squarely resolves the issue, there can be no plain error. This was decisive because § 3553(a)(6) does not expressly specify geographic comparator boundaries, and the Eleventh Circuit had not mandated a national comparator set.

Sentencing disparity analysis under § 3553(a)(6)

• United States v. Hill, 643 F.3d 807 (11th Cir. 2011): Heavily influenced the outcome on “plainness” and on the court’s skepticism of a nationwide “grade curve.” The panel used Hill to underscore that cross-national comparisons are “difficult to gauge” and to rebut any assumption that a sentence in the Eleventh Circuit must track national sentencing patterns.
• United States v. Duperval, 777 F.3d 1324 (11th Cir. 2015) and United States v. Docampo, 573 F.3d 1091 (11th Cir. 2009): Supplied the “similarly situated” requirement (“apples to apples”). These cases framed disparity as a comparability problem: without detailed similarity, disparity claims collapse.
• United States v. Azmat, 805 F.3d 1018 (11th Cir. 2015): Reinforced that disparity analysis demands more than offense label and sentence length; facts and individual characteristics matter. This supports the panel’s view that Campbell’s failure to identify any out-of-district comparators (with meaningful similarity) undermined both procedural prejudice and substantive disparity arguments.
• United States v. McGarity, 669 F.3d 1218 (11th Cir. 2012), abrogated on other grounds by Paroline v. United States, 572 U.S. 434 (2014): Cited for the principle, consistent with Gall, that correct guideline use “necessarily limits” unwarranted disparities across locales. The abrogation note signals McGarity remains reliable on this disparity/Guidelines point.

Substantive reasonableness, deference, and explanation burdens

• United States v. Tome, 611 F.3d 1371 (11th Cir. 2010): Allocated the burden—Campbell had to show unreasonableness under the facts and § 3553(a).
• Holguin-Hernandez v. United States, 589 U.S. 169 (2020): Used to confirm Campbell preserved his substantive-reasonableness challenge by arguing a lower sentence was sufficient and a higher sentence “greater than necessary.”
• United States v. Irey, 612 F.3d 1160 (11th Cir. 2010) (en banc) and United States v. Shabazz, 887 F.3d 1204 (11th Cir. 2018): Provided the abuse-of-discretion taxonomy (failure to weigh relevant factors, weighing improper factors, or clear error of judgment) and reinforced “due deference” to district courts’ weighting of § 3553(a) factors.
• United States v. Kuhlman, 711 F.3d 1321 (11th Cir. 2013) and United States v. Turner, 474 F.3d 1265 (11th Cir. 2007): Supported the proposition that district courts need not mechanically recite or discuss each § 3553(a) factor; acknowledging consideration is generally enough.
• United States v. Amedeo, 487 F.3d 823 (11th Cir. 2007): Used to blunt any inference that the sentencing court “ignored” mitigation merely because it did not discuss every piece of it.
• United States v. Dougherty, 754 F.3d 1353 (11th Cir. 2014) and United States v. Dixon, 901 F.3d 1322 (11th Cir. 2018): Offered two “reasonableness indicators”: a sentence well below the statutory maximum tends to look reasonable, and within-Guidelines sentences are ordinarily expected to be reasonable (though not presumed).
• United States v. Tinker, 14 F.4th 1234 (11th Cir. 2021): Reinforced broad district-court discretion to weigh factors—useful here because Campbell’s argument effectively asked the appellate court to reweigh § 3553(a)(6) relative to other considerations.

Legal Reasoning

1) The procedural claim failed primarily on preservation—and then on “plainness” and prejudice

The district court expressly instructed that “similarly situated” meant cases “here in the Middle District of Florida,” not in a distant district. Campbell did not object to that instruction at the time. When the court later imposed sentence, Campbell lodged only a generalized objection to “procedural reasonableness,” without specifying the comparator-scope issue. Applying United States v. Carpenter, the Eleventh Circuit treated this as insufficient to preserve a specific claim and moved to plain-error review under United States v. Vandergrift.

On the “plainness” prong, the panel applied United States v. Lejarde-Rada: because neither § 3553(a)(6) nor binding precedent specifically required a nationwide comparator set, any error could not be “plain.” The court reinforced that conclusion with United States v. Hill, which expressed skepticism toward the idea that sentences are graded on a national curve and noted the practical difficulty of assessing nationwide disparity claims.

Independently, the panel found no showing of prejudice: Campbell did not proffer out-of-district comparator data at sentencing, and on appeal he still could not identify any such comparators or explain how a broader comparator pool would likely have changed the sentence. Under Vandergrift, this defeated the “substantial rights” requirement.

2) The substantive claim failed because the district court did what § 3553(a) requires—within the discretion it is afforded

Substantive review focused on whether the district court abused its discretion in weighing the § 3553(a) factors. The record showed the court: (i) correctly calculated the Guidelines; (ii) continued the hearing specifically to obtain comparator information; (iii) reviewed “each and every one” of Campbell’s submitted comparators; (iv) identified at least one comparator it found “fairly similarly situated”; and (v) granted a substantial downward variance (44 months below the low end) based on individualized mitigation (childhood trauma and perceived guideline overrepresentation).

The panel relied on Gall v. United States and United States v. McGarity for the proposition that correct guideline calculation itself serves the anti-disparity purpose, and it used United States v. Kuhlman and United States v. Turner to reject any requirement that the district court exhaustively discuss each comparator or factor on the record. With the sentence also far below the statutory maxima (20 and 40 years), United States v. Dougherty supported the inference of reasonableness.

Impact

• Preservation practice at sentencing: The decision underscores that defendants must object with specificity to preserve procedural sentencing issues. A generic “procedural reasonableness” objection will not preserve a discrete argument about how a court defined “similarly situated” comparators. Practically, defense counsel should object immediately when the court announces a limitation on comparator geography and should state that § 3553(a)(6) requires (or at least permits) consideration of a broader pool.
• Comparator evidence must be proffered, not hypothesized: Even if a defendant believes the comparator pool is wrongly restricted, this case illustrates that appellate courts will ask: “What evidence was actually presented, and how would different evidence have changed the outcome?” Without out-of-district examples and meaningful similarity showings, prejudice is difficult to establish.
• Geography and § 3553(a)(6) remain flexible in practice: The opinion does not hold that district-only comparators are always proper, but it signals that, at minimum, Eleventh Circuit law does not clearly forbid that approach—especially under plain-error review. Sentencing courts may feel emboldened to treat localized comparator review as administratively workable, absent a developed record demonstrating why national comparison is necessary in a given case.
• Guidelines as the baseline anti-disparity tool: By leaning on Gall and McGarity, the panel reinforces a recurring principle: correctly calculated Guidelines are a principal mechanism for reducing unwarranted disparities, and a judge’s adherence to (or reasoned variance from) that framework is often enough to withstand disparity-based substantive challenges.

Note on precedential force: The opinion is designated “NOT FOR PUBLICATION,” so it generally does not function as binding precedent. Still, it reflects how the Eleventh Circuit is likely to analyze (i) preservation failures, (ii) the “plainness” of comparator-scope claims, and (iii) the interplay between Guidelines calculation and § 3553(a)(6).