United States v. Collins , 461 F. App'x 807 ( 2012 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
April 5, 2012
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
TENTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
No. 10-2275
v. (D.C. No. 1:02-CR-00663-WJ-1)
(D. N.M.)
MELVIN CLYDE COLLINS, II,
Defendant - Appellant.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before GORSUCH, HOLLOWAY, and MATHESON, Circuit Judges.
After Melvin Collins was convicted of sexually abusing his young
daughter, the district court sentenced him to 66 months in prison and a term of
supervised release. Mr. Collins served his time but had difficulty complying with
the conditions imposed on his release. He violated those conditions not once but
many times before the court finally revoked his conditional release and ordered
him to serve 41 additional months in prison.
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata and collateral estoppel. It may be cited,
however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th
Cir. R. 32.1.
Now challenging his new prison sentence on appeal, Mr. Collins argues that
the district court failed to give him adequate notice of the conditions imposed on
his release. Specifically, he says the district court didn’t tell him clearly enough
that he needed to obtain sex offender treatment or risk being returned to prison.
In aid of his argument, he emphasizes that 18 U.S.C. § 3583(f) requires probation
officers to provide supervised release conditions that are “sufficiently clear and
specific to serve as a guide for the defendant’s conduct,” and that due process
requires much the same. See United States v. Kennedy, 106 F. App’x 688, 691
(10th Cir. 2004) (unpublished); United States v. Spencer, 640 F.3d 513, 520 (2d
Cir. 2011); United States v. Stanfield, 360 F.3d 1346, 1353-54 (D.C. Cir. 2004).
Whatever other problems confront this line of argument, a factual one
plainly does: Mr. Collins received clear and repeated notice of his need to obtain
sex offender treatment. The district court’s original judgment included “Standard
Condition of Supervision No. 18.” That provision expressly required Mr. Collins
to submit to sex offender treatment. See Appellant’s Opening Br. Att. B at 4.
After each of his many supervised release violations, the district court issued new
judgments that incorporated by reference all previously ordered release
conditions. See Appellant’s Opening Br. Att. C at 4 (“All previously imposed
conditions remain in full force and effect.”); Att. D at 3 (“All of the special
conditions previously imposed remain in effect.”). And shortly before his
revocation, the district court issued yet another order instructing that all
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previously imposed conditions remained in effect. See Appellant’s App. Vol. I at
29. At no point did the court intimate that Mr. Collins was free to consider
Condition 18 no longer operative.
Neither can we say that incorporating a prior condition of release by
reference — instead of repeating it word for word in each new order occasioned
by Mr. Collins’s repeated supervised release violations — failed to provide him
with statutorily or constitutionally sufficient notice. To be sure, the district court
had a duty to supply notice clear enough to “‘give the person of ordinary
intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited’” and conform
his actions accordingly. Kennedy, 106 F. App’x at 691 (quoting Grayned v. City
of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108 (1972)). But we see no reason to think a person
of ordinary intelligence would have failed to understand the necessity of seeking
sex offender treatment when the requirement was clearly stated initially and then
repeatedly incorporated by reference. Indeed, we have held incorporation by
reference can provide fair warning in criminal statutes. See Hines v. Baker, 422
F.2d 1002, 1005 (10th Cir. 1970) (“Such incorporation by reference to other
defined offenses is not impermissibly vague.”); see also United States v. Lanier,
520 U.S. 259, 264-67 (1997) (statute prohibiting deprivation of “rights . . .
secured or protected by the Constitution” could give fair warning so long as the
right incorporated by reference was itself sufficiently clear). And we see no basis
for a different result here, in the sentencing context with a defendant well familiar
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with the process. See Kennedy, 106 F. App’x. at 691 (“Conditions of probation
may afford fair warning even if they are not precise to the point of pedantry.”)
(quotation marks omitted).
Alternatively, Mr. Collins claims that the district court erred when it stated
that a new prison term would allow him the chance to benefit from resident prison
sex offender treatment programs. Mr. Collins says that this was error because
Tapia v. United States, --- U.S. ----, 131 S. Ct. 2382 (2011), and 18 U.S.C.
§ 3582(a), don’t permit a court to issue a post-revocation term of incarceration
based on its rehabilitative promise. Mr. Collins, however, failed to object on this
basis during sentencing and so concedes he is left to proceed only under the plain
error standard of review. See, e.g., United States v. Gonzalez-Huerta, 403 F.3d
727, 732 (10th Cir. 2005) (en banc). To establish plain error, Mr. Collins must
demonstrate the district court (1) committed error, (2) the error was plain, and (3)
the plain error affected his substantial rights. If these factors are met, we may
exercise discretion to correct the error if (4) it seriously affects the fairness,
integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Id.For purposes of our analysis we assume (without deciding) that 18 U.S.C.
§ 3582(a) plainly applies to the post-revocation context and that the district court
rested its decision at least partially on rehabilitation, thus satisfying Mr. Collins’s
burden under prongs one and two of our plain error test. But even spotting all
this to Mr. Collins, we still do not see how the putative error affected his
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substantial rights and thus how he might satisfy the third prong of plain error
review.
At plain error’s third step, “we ask only whether there is a reasonable
probability that, but for the error claimed, the result of the proceeding would have
been different.” United States v. Hasan, 526 F.3d 653, 665 (10th Cir. 2008)
(internal quotation marks omitted). In this context, it is Mr. Collins’s burden to
show that, had the district court refrained from considering rehabilitation, it is
reasonably probable it would have issued a lower sentence than it did. See United
States. v. Cordery, 656 F.3d 1103, 1108 (10th Cir. 2011).
Mr. Collins, however, gives us no reason to reach that essential conclusion
— no reason to think that the district court would have sentenced him under any
circumstances to less than 41 months. To the contrary, the 41 month term the
district court issued represents the maximum sentence available and does not
correspond to the length necessary to participate in any treatment program. (The
only treatment program mentioned by the court requires a 30 month minimum
term, much less time than the district court prescribed in prison for Mr. Collins.)
Neither did the district court even cite the treatment program or its duration as a
reason for its sentence. See Appellant’s App. Vol. III at 112-15. Instead, the
court indicated that it chose the maximum available term because Mr. Collins was
unable to remain on supervised release without violating his conditions and
because evidence presented to the court suggested Mr. Collins was not amenable
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to sex offender treatment and, as a result, posed a continuing danger to the
community. Id. at 112-14.
To be sure, the district court mentioned rehabilitation in the course of
listing all the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors. Id. at 112. But we recently found that
such a formulaic recitation of the statutorily enumerated sentencing factors
supplies little indication that a court lengthened a sentence for rehabilitative
purposes. See United States v. Lewis, No. 11-1054, 2012 WL 503859, at *2 (10th
Cir. Feb. 16, 2012) (unpublished). And that must be particularly true here, where
the district court followed its recitation of all § 3553(a) factors with the explicit
disclaimer that “[s]ome of these factors don’t really apply to Mr. Collins, but
some of them definitely do,” Appellant’s App. Vol. III at 112, and then proceeded
to explain its particular reasons for imposing the maximum prison term for Mr.
Collins (his failure to abide prior release terms and the evidence of his continuing
danger to the community) without mentioning rehabilitation. Unlike the courts in
both Cordery and Tapia, then, the district court in this case never once intimated
it was imposing a sentence long enough to allow Mr. Collins to receive a
particular treatment program. See Tapia, 131 S. Ct. at 2385 (district court stated
that the sentence had to be a certain length to allow participation in drug
treatment); Cordery, 656 F.3d at 1108 (same). And given all this we simply can’t
conclude that Mr. Collins has borne his burden of showing that it is reasonably
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probable that the district court, fully advised rehabilitation is a forbidden
consideration, would give him a shorter sentence than the one it did.
Affirmed.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Neil M. Gorsuch
Circuit Judge
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No. 10-2275, United States v. Collins
HOLLOWAY, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I join the majority’s holding that Mr. Collins violated the terms of his
supervised release and had adequate notice of those terms.
As to the second issue appealed, consideration of rehabilitation during
sentencing, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s decision. I would hold that
the district court plainly erred by seeking to promote Mr. Collins’s rehabilitation
when sentencing him to an above-Guidelines prison term of 41 months.
1. Error
In light of Tapia v. United States, 564 U.S. —, 131 S. Ct. 2382 (June 16,
2011), I believe that we must reconsider and treat United States v. Tsosie, 376
F.3d 1210 (10th Cir. 2004), as effectively invalidated. Our authority to disregard
earlier circuit precedent is not boundless; we may reconsider an earlier panel’s
decision in light of an intervening Supreme Court decision only “to the extent the
new case law invalidates our previous analysis.” Hurd v. Pittsburg State
University, 109 F.3d 1540, 1542 (10th Cir. 1997). Tapia invalidated the analysis
engaged by the Tsosie panel in distinguishing between 18 U.S.C. §§ 3582 and
3583, and thus I would revisit Tsosie’s holding.
The debate in Tsosie bearing on this case is the extent to which a sentence
of imprisonment upon revocation of supervised release is governed by the rules
that apply to a sentence of imprisonment upon conviction. The panel in Tsosie
concluded, contrary to a vigorous dissent, that a district judge issuing a sentence
pursuant to § 3583(e), even if he imposes a term of imprisonment, is not subject
to the prohibition on considering rehabilitative goals inherent in § 3582(a). In
Tapia, the Supreme Court confirmed the Tsosie panel’s understanding of § 3582
as applied to initial sentences of imprisonment without expressly evaluating §
3583.
But as the First Circuit has persuasively reasoned, the Supreme Court
nevertheless addressed and “relied heavily” on a crucial consideration that does
apply to § 3583: “the absence of any authority to the sentencing court either to
assign a prisoner to a prison where the desired treatment or training is available . .
. , or to require the prison to enroll a particular prisoner in the rehabilitation
scheme, or to order the prisoner to take part in [the rehabilitation scheme].”
United States v. Molignaro, 649 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 2011) (citing Tapia, 131 S. Ct.
at 2390) (Souter, J., sitting by designation); see also United States v. Grant, 664
F.3d 276 (9th Cir. 2011) (agreeing with Molignaro’s conclusion that Tapia’s
teachings bear on § 3583 just as much as § 3582).
In Tsosie, we distinguished a term of imprisonment resulting from
revocation of supervised release as a conversion of an existing sentence rather
than an imposition of a new prison term. Tsosie, 376 F.3d at 1216 (characterizing
imprisonment upon revocation of supervised release as “merely altering the
location of the defendant’s supervised release from outside prison to inside
prison”). Tsosie’s characterization of § 3583(e) revocation’s as a relocation of
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the defendant says nothing of the sentencing court’s abdication of control over
rehabilitation that accompanies the supposed relocation.
The Supreme Court’s reliance on Congress’s declination to grant judicial
authority to control a prisoner’s rehabilitation extinguishes any such distinction
between § 3582 and § 3583 as reasoned in Tsosie. “[W]hen Congress wanted
sentencing courts to take account of rehabilitative needs, it gave courts the
authority to direct appropriate treatment for offenders.” Tapia, 131 S. Ct. at
2390. Tapia, in emphasizing the importance of lost control over rehabilitative
activities when a defendant is sentenced to prison, rejected the notion that a §
3583(e) prison sentence is a mere location change. Tsosie said nothing of this
collateral effect of a switch from supervised release to a prison term, which was
of extraordinary importance to the Supreme Court in Tapia.
When a sentencing court orders imprisonment, it relinquishes its ability to
dictate the defendant’s rehabilitation. Under the Supreme Court’s reasoning in
Tapia, the loss of control over rehabilitation that accompanies a sentence of
imprisonment after revocation of supervised release is antagonistic to the notion
that the sentencing court might then, having passed on the opportunity to wield its
power to require rehabilitation as part of a non-prison sentence, consider the
availability of rehabilitation in deciding the length of time for which the
defendant will sit in prison. Cf. Tapia, 131 S. Ct. at 2390 (“Equally illuminating .
. . is a statutory silence — the absence of any provision granting courts the power
to ensure that offenders participate in prison rehabilitation programs.”). The great
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importance placed on this consideration by the Supreme Court necessarily
supersedes consideration of the more semantic distinctions drawn in Tsosie.
Turning to the facts of Mr. Collins’s case, the sentencing court violated this
precept, which prohibits promotion of rehabilitative goals when imposing a prison
sentence under § 3583. The prosecution repeatedly and emphatically described
the sex offender treatment available at the Devens facility in the hearings that
comprised the sentencing process. Appellant’s App. Vol. III at 37-38, 43, 99-
100. Most notably, the prosecution’s request for a 41-month upward variance was
based on making available the Devens sex offender treatment program. Id. at 38
(“[The government is] recommending that [Mr. Collins] get designated to Devens,
and with that, he has to have at least 30 months . . . in custody to receive that
sexual offender program . . . .”). The government even urged the district court to
imprison Mr. Collins for 11 months longer than needed to make him eligible for
the treatment program in order to “make him realize that he does need [the
Devens sex offender] treatment.” Id. To facilitate proper consideration of the
prosecution’s request, the district court ordered a further hearing as to the
defendant’s amenability to sex offender treatment. Id. at 111. At the conclusion
of that additional hearing, the judge granted the prosecution’s request for an
upward variance to a 41-month prison sentence. Id. at 114.
To be sure, the sentencing judge made some other statements prior to
imposing the 41-month sentence that indicate consideration of proper § 3553
factors. For example, the judge remarked that he felt any future supervised
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release would be counterproductive and that danger to the community could be of
concern given the testimony of one of Mr. Collins’s psychologists. Appellant’s
App. Vol. III at 112-14.
However, given the posture of the case, the sentence ultimately issued was
inextricably tied to ensuring availability of the Devens program. The record does
not reflect that the district court might have considered the possibility of a 41-
month sentence in the absence of the prosecution’s request for an upward
variance, which was specifically premised on making the Devens program
available to Mr. Collins. And in explaining the basis for the sentence, the judge
specifically referred to “corrective treatment.” Appellant’s App. Vol. III at 112.
But Tapia made clear that when sentencing to imprisonment, the defendant’s
rehabilitation is not to be considered despite § 3553(a)(2)’s listing of
“correctional treatment” as a sentencing factor. Tapia, 131 S. Ct. at 2392. As
expressed supra, I believe Tapia applies with equal force to prison sentences
issued upon revocation of supervised release pursuant to § 3583 as it does to
initial prison sentences under § 3582. Thus, I am convinced that promotion of
Mr. Collins’s rehabilitation was impermissibly considered as a factor in the
judge’s sentencing decision.
2. Plain error
Under plain error review, Mr. Collins must, of course, do more than show
that the court below erred; he needs to show that the error was clear or obvious.
In the Tenth Circuit, the plainness of error is measured based on the state of the
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law at the time of appeal. See, e.g., United States v. Cordery, 656 F.3d 1103,
1107 (10th Cir. 2011). For the same reasons that I would disregard our earlier
precedent of Tsosie in light of Tapia, I believe that Tapia has made the law on
this issue clear and compels us to rule that the sentencing court may not impose
or lengthen a sentence of imprisonment in order to promote rehabilitation whether
sentencing a defendant to a term of imprisonment under § 3582 or § 3583. In
other words, “[a] subsequent Supreme Court decision has made the error plain.” 1
United States v. Grant, 664 F.3d 276, 279 (9th Cir. 2011) (emphasis added).
3. Effect of the error on Mr. Collins’s substantial rights
The majority affirms the district court, reasoning that regardless of how the
first two prongs of plain error analysis are decided, Mr. Collins cannot show that
his substantial rights were affected. Contrary to the majority, I would conclude
that the district court’s error affected Mr. Collins’s substantial rights. To satisfy
this component of plain error review, a defendant must show there is a
“reasonable probability that, but for the error claimed, the result of the proceeding
1
Reconsideration of an earlier precedential decision of this Court is no
small matter, and surely is not one to be taken lightly. But here, such
reconsideration is not only allowed, but also compelled by the Supreme Court’s
decision in Tapia. Tsosie’s error is no less plain simply because the analysis’s
flaw only became apparent upon issuance of a later Supreme Court decision.
What is important is the obviousness of the analytical error in light of the new
binding authority. And on this count, the Supreme Court’s teaching is, in my
view, quite transparent: Rehabilitation may not be considered when sentencing a
defendant to a term of imprisonment under either § 3582 or § 3583. An error is
plain even where proper application of subsequent Supreme Court directives
requires taking on the unenviable and exceptional task of scrutinizing and
rejecting the analysis of a studied, reasoned, and thoughtful earlier decision by a
Tenth Circuit panel.
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would have been different.” United States v. Hasan, 526 F.3d 653, 665 (10th Cir.
2008) (quotations omitted). “A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient
to undermine confidence in the outcome,” and is not “a requirement that a
defendant prove by a preponderance of the evidence that but for error things
would have been different.” United States v. Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S. 74, 83
n.9 (2009).
The government’s request for an upward variance in sentencing was
premised on making the Devens sex offender treatment program available to Mr.
Collins. Pursuant to this request, the district court ordered a further hearing on
the question whether to vary upward above the Guidelines range. Given this
background, the 41-month sentence was inescapably tied to promotion of Mr.
Collins’s rehabilitation. Moreover, the 41-month sentence represented no small
change from the Guidelines recommendation — it was more than four times
longer than the top of the Guidelines range.
To be sure, and as the majority points out, we cannot be certain that
permissible factors alone, such as danger to the community, could not justify the
41-month sentence in the sentencing court’s mind. In particular, the majority is
persuaded by the fact that merely a 30-month sentence would have made the
Devens treatment program a possibility. However, this ignores the government’s
suggestion that an extra 11 months in prison (beyond the required 30 months)
would make Mr. Collins even more likely to participate in the treatment program
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than the bare-minimum 30-month sentence. Specifically, the probation office
told the court:
“We’re recommending that [Mr. Collins] get designated to Devens,
and with that, he has to have at least 30 months. It’s preferably 30
months remaining in custody to receive that sexual offender program
in Devens, Massachusetts. Unfortunately, he does have to go
voluntarily. I know Mr. Collins made remarks in the past that he
doesn’t want any treatment. . . . I’m hoping that another 11 months
would make him realize that he does need this treatment and he does
need it to function so, when he is done, he could come out and be a
productive citizen.”
Appellant’s App. Vol. III at 38.
As the majority notes, the district court explicitly stated that part of the
reason for imposing the above-Guidelines sentence was Mr. Collins’s lack of
amenability to sex offender treatment. The majority goes on to say that Mr.
Collins’s aversion to treatment resulted in posing a continuing danger to the
community. Maj. op. at 5-6. However, in my view, the threat to the community
posed by Mr. Collins was a factor considered in addition to the need for sex
offender treatment in prison. Specifically, the court said:
“I do have some concerns in terms of the refusal . . . to further
participate in sex offender treatment and with the result of a finding
by Dr. Barneclo that Mr. Collins is not amenable to treatment. You
take that finding and then you factor in other noncompliance issues,
potential violent ideations, that there is a potential threat to the safety
of the community. . . . Based on these findings, I [sentence Mr.
Collins to prison] for a term of 41 months.”
Appellant’s App. Vol. III at 114 (emphasis added). In my view, this statement
demonstrates that potential danger was an independent consideration, with the
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primary factor in sentence length being Mr. Collins’s need for a treatment
program.
Unlike United States v. Lewis, an unpublished case whose reasoning is
relied upon by the majority for its persuasive value, the defendant has shown
much more than formulaic recitation of an impermissible sentencing factor. No.
11-1054, 2012 WL 503859 (10th Cir. Feb. 16, 2012) (unpublished). Instead, Mr.
Collins has shown that the entire debate about an above-Guidelines sentence was
premised on the fact that such a sentence would make the Devens program
available. And unlike Lewis, the district court’s specific discussion of Mr.
Collins’s refusal to take part in sex offender treatment outside of prison prefaced
a generic discussion of statutorily enumerated sentencing factors. One can infer
from this that the district court thought it particularly important to find a way to
rectify Mr. Collins’s lack of treatment, and that having treatment available in
prison was the best way to do so.
To be sure, nothing the district court said on the record makes its
justifications for the above-Guidelines sentence crystal clear. But such a
demanding showing is not required, and here the availability of the Devens
program unmistakably played a prominent role in the proceedings where the
length of the prison term was decided. In my view, that is enough to undermine
confidence in the outcome of those proceedings.
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Thus, I would hold that the posture of the final sentencing hearing (which
was premised on the government’s unmistakable urging for the court to do
whatever it takes to get Mr. Collins into the Devens treatment program), when
considered alongside the sentencing judge’s statement of reasons for the 41-
month sentence, demonstrates a reasonable probability that Mr. Collins’s sentence
would have been different if the availability of rehabilitation was not taken under
consideration. 2
4. Exercise of discretion
Lastly, I would exercise the discretion afforded to us when reviewing for
plain error under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b). Even where the first
three prongs of plain error review are satisfied, we should only exercise the
remedial discretion granted by Rule 52(b) if the error “seriously affects the
fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” See United States
v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732 (1993) (quotations omitted). In the sentencing
context, the defendant must “demonstrate a strong possibility of receiving a
significantly lower sentence.” United States v. Meacham, 567 F.3d 1184, 1190
(10th Cir. 2009) (quotations omitted).
2
Of course, I do not fault the district court for making this error. The
Supreme Court had not even granted certiorari in Tapia when the district court
imposed its sentence in Mr. Collins’s case. But we evaluate the plainness of an
error as of the time of appeal, not the time of the district court’s decision — see
United States v. Gonzalez-Huerta, 403 F.3d 727, 732 (10th Cir. 2005) (en banc)
— so remand is required despite the district court’s entirely proper application of
Tenth Circuit precedent when it handed down this sentence.
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Even though there was no error in the calculation of the Guidelines range in
Mr. Collins’s case, the record strongly suggests that the 41-month statutory
maximum sentence, over four times longer than the top of the Guidelines range,
would not have been in play if the Devens treatment program was not considered.
Properly implementing legislative directives when considering appropriate factors
in sentencing is undoubtedly a critical element of the fairness, integrity, and
public reputation of judicial proceedings. If there was plain error in imposing a
dramatically lengthened sentence premised on promotion of a defendant’s
rehabilitation, allowing that sentence to stand would suggest that courts may
usurp Congress’s authority to lay down the foundations of the sentencing process.
It is difficult to imagine an act that would do more to undermine the judiciary’s
public reputation.
* * *
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully but emphatically dissent from the
majority’s holding as to the propriety of the term of imprisonment imposed upon
Mr. Collins, and would remand the matter to the district court for resentencing
consistent with the conclusions and views I have stated.
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