United States v. Dobosu ( 2022 )

Appellate Case: 21-1236 Document: 010110710062 Date Filed: 07/13/2022 Page: 1
FILED
United States Court of Appeals
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT July 13, 2022
_________________________________
Christopher M. Wolpert
Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v. No. 21-1236
(D.C. No. 1:15-CR-00345-PAB-1)
KAYODE DOBOSU, (D. Colo.)
Defendant - Appellant.
_________________________________
ORDER AND JUDGMENT*
_________________________________
Before HARTZ, BACHARACH, and EID, Circuit Judges.
_________________________________
In 2012, Kayode Dobosu pleaded guilty in federal court to failing to properly
register as a sex offender. A special condition of his supervised release required him
to participate in a treatment program for sex offenders. After Dobosu broke his
program’s rules, he was dismissed. That violated Dobosu’s supervised release, so the
district court revoked it and imposed five more years of supervised release. Having
sought only two years of supervised release, Dobosu appeals the sentence imposed as
substantively unreasonable. We affirm because, considering the totality of the
circumstances, the district court’s sentence was not an abuse of discretion.
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines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.
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I.
Earl Sylvester Banks, Jr. was born in Ohio in 1973 and removed from his
biological parents when he was around five years old. Along with his siblings, he
entered foster care. A few years later, Kodzo Dobosu1 adopted Banks, legally
changed Banks’s name to Kayode Adio Bem Dobosu, and brought him to the Harlem
brownstone where Kodzo made his home. Kodzo adopted dozens more children over
the years and was named “Father of the Year” by a private group in 1983.
In 1991, most of the children were removed from Kodzo’s home following
allegations of sexual molestation and physical abuse. Dobosu had been sexually
abused by several adoptive older brothers from the time Kodzo adopted him until
leaving the home in his early twenties. After Kodzo was indicted, Dobosu and a few
of the other older boys remained in the house under child-welfare workers’
supervision. Today, Dobosu is forty-nine years old and has post-traumatic stress
disorder, bipolar disorder, and cognitive impairments that render him adolescent-like.
In 1997, when he was twenty-four, Dobosu forcibly penetrated the vagina and
anus of a nine-year-old girl who lived in his apartment building and was convicted in
New York state court of attempted sexual abuse in the first degree. While
recognizing the severity of his conduct, Dobosu notes that as of 2022 this remains his
“only charge or conviction for a hands-on sexual offense.” Aplt. Br. at 4. For it, he
received three years in prison and a lifetime sex offender registration requirement.
1
In the record, Dobosu’s adoptive father’s name is sometimes spelled
“Kodzo,” and sometimes spelled “Kodozo.” We use the former spelling in this order.
2
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In 2003, Dobosu moved from New York to Colorado, where he registered as a
sex offender and provided authorities with a Denver address. In 2005, he pleaded
guilty in Colorado state court to failing to properly register as a sex offender.
Dobosu was sentenced to five years of intensive supervision but had his probation
revoked several times until completing the sentence in 2010. Dobosu’s state
nonregistration conviction is not directly implicated in this appeal.
In mid-2011, Dobosu’s sex offender registration placed him in Littleton,
Colorado. However, police officers checking whether his registered address was
accurate learned from the landlord that he had been gone for over a year. A Colorado
state court issued a warrant and law enforcement tracked Dobosu to New York City,
where he had been receiving welfare benefits through a Bronx address. Indicted in
the Southern District of New York shortly thereafter, Dobosu pleaded guilty to a
violation of the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) in
2012. See 18 U.S.C. § 2250. The court sentenced Dobosu to a year and a day in
prison and five years of supervised release. One of the special conditions of
supervised release—the sex-offender-treatment condition—required Dobosu to
participate in an approved sex-offender-treatment-program, and “abide by all [its]
rules, requirements, and conditions.” Supp. R. Vol. I at 14. Dobosu’s federal
nonregistration conviction forms the basis for the revocation sentence we review.
Dobosu’s federal supervised release was revoked twice before the revocation
at issue here. First, in June 2015, after Dobosu failed to report to probation, the
district court sentenced him to a revocation term of thirty days’ imprisonment
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followed by five years’ supervised release. The district court reimposed the sex-
offender-treatment condition. Then, in August 2015, Dobosu’s case was transferred
to the District of Colorado. Dobosu’s supervised release was next revoked in July
2016 for falsifying written reports, failing to report an address change, and violating
the sex-offender-treatment condition. The district court sentenced Dobosu to a
revocation term of five months’ imprisonment and five years’ supervised release.
Again, Dobosu’s supervised release included the sex-offender-treatment condition.2
In August 2020, the United States Probation officers assigned to Dobosu
submitted a petition before the district court alleging that Dobosu violated his
supervised release by breaking the rules of his sex-offender-treatment program and
improperly accessing the internet. A few months later, Probation submitted a
superseding petition limited to Dobosu’s violation of the policies set by his sex-
offender-treatment provider, RSA, Inc. Probation recounted how Dobosu had been
“unsuccessfully discharged” from RSA in August 2020, a Grade C supervised-release
violation. R. Vol. I at 15.
According to the superseding petition, Dobosu entered RSA’s treatment
program in January 2017, agreeing to all of RSA’s treatment terms. Probation
informed the district court that Dobosu had committed several violations of those
2
This condition technically used different language, but we continue to call it
the sex-offender-treatment condition because, like the Southern District of New York
condition, it required Dobosu to “participate in and successfully complete an
approved program of sex offender evaluation and treatment,” and “comply with the
rules and restrictions specified by the treatment agency.” Supp. R. Vol. I at 6.
4
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terms, including: (1) visiting, with his non-RSA day group, locations that were off-
limits under RSA’s rules because they are frequented by children;3 (2) sending,
receiving, and concealing sexually explicit text messages, including sexually explicit
photographs; (3) using unapproved internet-capable devices; (4) “having a pattern of
secret keeping and dishonesty with his Community Supervision Team”; and
(5) “plann[ing] to meet with unknown men at unapproved locations.” Id. at 15–16.
By violating RSA’s terms and getting dismissed from RSA’s treatment program,
Dobosu in turn violated the sex-offender-treatment condition of his supervised
release. Probation recommended that Dobosu’s supervised release be revoked for a
third time and that Dobosu receive another five years of supervised release. In
Probation’s view, the additional supervised release would have a deterrent effect and
help Dobosu complete the treatment. Probation noted that treatment was imperative
because recent testing suggested that Dobosu remained sexually attracted to children.
The district court held a revocation hearing in June 2021, where Dobosu
admitted to the violation alleged in the superseding petition. Dobosu and the
government agreed that incarceration was not warranted—even though the
Guidelines range was between five and eleven months’ imprisonment. But the
3
These “unapproved locations” included the Boondocks Fun Center, the
Denver Zoo, and the Downtown Aquarium. R. Vol. I at 16. In response, RSA placed
Dobosu on a Low Therapeutic Intervention Contract, a remedial program he
completed in June 2020. R. Vol. I at 17. Dobosu describes the visits as unintentional
oversights caused by miscommunication between his care providers, day group, and
RSA. See Aplt. Br. at 19–20. In the government’s view, RSA’s expectations were
made clear to Dobosu. See Aple. Br. at 16.
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parties disagreed about how much supervised release should be imposed. Dobosu
sought two years. The government asked for five years. The district court revoked
Dobosu’s supervised release and imposed a custodial sentence of time served, plus
the government’s requested five years of supervised release. The court reasoned:
If you look over the defendant’s history, one thing that seems to
be quite clear is that—and perhaps this is a product of some of the
limitations in cognition that the defendant may have, but he’s had many
different allegations that he has failed to register as a sex offender.
Moreover, just based upon the violation that he has admitted to today,
that demonstrates also to me at least that he is going to continue to need
close supervision in order to make sure that he does not pose a risk to
the community.
And while we all hope and expect that he will be able to
successfully complete the RSA program, even if he does, I think that
supervision is going to be necessary. And I believe that the
circumstances of this particular offense combined with his past history
of failing to register and, of course, taking into account his underlying
New York state offense, that it is appropriate that the Court impose a
period of five years of supervision.
R. Vol. IV at 35. Dobosu appealed.
II.
“In considering whether a defendant’s sentence is substantively reasonable, we
examine ‘whether the length of the sentence is reasonable given all the circumstances
of the case in light of the factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).’” United States v.
Chavez, 723 F.3d 1226, 1233 (10th Cir. 2013) (quoting United States v. Reyes-
Alfonso, 653 F.3d 1137, 1145 (10th Cir. 2011)). “As a general matter, ‘it is not the
role of an appellate court to substitute its judgment for that of the sentencing court as
to the appropriateness of a particular sentence.’” Concepcion v. United States,
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No. 20-1650, 2022 WL 2295029, at *12 (U.S. June 27, 2022) (quoting Solem v.
Helm, 463 U.S. 277, 290 n.16 (1983)).
“We review a district court’s sentencing decision for substantive
reasonableness under an abuse-of-discretion standard, looking at the ‘totality of the
circumstances.’” United States v. Cookson, 922 F.3d 1079, 1090 (10th Cir. 2019)
(quoting United States v. Balbin-Mesa, 643 F.3d 783, 787 (10th Cir. 2011)). “Under
this standard, we will not reverse unless the trial court has made an arbitrary,
capricious, whimsical, or manifestly unreasonable judgment.” Burke v. Regalado,
935 F.3d 960, 1052 (10th Cir. 2019) (quoting United States v. Wells, 873 F.3d 1241,
1250 (10th Cir. 2017)). That we might have sentenced Dobosu differently in the first
instance is not enough to support reversal. See United States v. Friedman, 554 F.3d
1301, 1307–08 (10th Cir. 2009). The question is, instead, whether the district court’s
sentencing decision “exceed[ed] the bounds of permissible choice.” Chavez,
723 F.3d at 1233 (quoting United States v. McComb, 519 F.3d 1049, 1053 (10th Cir.
2007)).
III.
On appeal, Dobosu makes several arguments that his five-year term of
supervised release was excessive. However, none is sufficient to overcome our
deferential standard of review, which is grounded in the “established tradition of
district courts’ sentencing discretion.” Concepcion, 2022 WL 2295029, at *9.
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a.
Dobosu points out that his violation conduct—dismissal from RSA for the
reasons summarized above—posed no risk to minors, and he emphasizes that he has
not engaged in any sexual misconduct since his release from custody on the New
York state offense over twenty years ago. Even if he still has a sexual interest in
minors, he argues that he has not acted on any such interest and the treatment
required by his supervised release is designed to address it. Dobosu contends that
finishing RSA’s treatment program would only take two years, he is better positioned
to complete it than before, and the district court took the position that Dobosu would
complete it. Dobosu adds that his failure to register as a sex offender in the past does
not support the district court’s sentence, as he has not had a nonregistration problem
in several years. Dobosu suggests that, considering these mitigating circumstances,
five more years of supervised release (bringing the total up to thirteen years) is
substantively unreasonable when compared to the identical five years of supervised
release he received for the original SORNA offense.
The government responds that the district court considered all of Dobosu’s
points but “found them to be outweighed by the nature and circumstances of
Dobosu’s original child sex offense, his history of failing to register as a sex
offender, and the dangers to the community posed by his continued failures to
complete the sex offender treatment required by his release conditions.” Aple. Br.
at 12. The government observes that the district court expressed concerns about
Dobosu’s recidivism risk, notwithstanding the treatment program. What matters, in
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the government’s view, is that the five-year term was a reasonable determination
under the sentencing factors, within the bounds set by law, so it was not an abuse of
discretion.
In reply, Dobosu stresses that the underlying offense conduct is remote in time
and that, whatever concerns the district court had about community risk, it should
have given greater weight to the fact that Dobosu has a full-time caretaker. Dobosu
suggests that the government twisted the district court’s words to make the sentence
look more reasonable than it is. He sums up his argument as follows: “[t]he length of
the term of supervised release is manifestly unreasonable on the facts here, where
there is no indication Mr. Dobosu has engaged in any sexual miscondu[c]t since
1997, the district court believed he would complete sex-offender treatment and he has
a full-time, live-in caregiver.” Reply Br. at 10.
b.
On this record, the standard of review essentially decides the case. Dobosu
provides several reasons that a shorter sentence might be appropriate under the
sentencing factors, but, as the government points out, the district court found his
arguments outweighed under the circumstances. That was a reasoned exercise of
discretion that we cannot disturb on appeal without far more than what Dobosu
provides.
It is true that Dobosu’s only sexual misconduct offense ended decades ago and
that his supervised-release violation was not alleged to involve nonconsensual or
illicit sexual behavior that threatened children. It is also true that Dobosu has not had
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a nonregistration conviction or related issue in several years. But—equally true and
dispositively—the district court took all that into account. It also took into account
its view of Dobosu’s history and treatment trajectory, as well as his living situation
and potential community risk. In short, it applied the sentencing factors to Dobosu’s
circumstances and explained why it thought five years of supervised release was
appropriate. The totality of the circumstances do not suggest that decision was
substantively unreasonable. See Cookson, 922 F.3d at 1090.
On appeal, we have no solid basis for finding Dobosu’s five-year term of
supervised release substantively unreasonable, nor, critically, does Dobosu provide
us with any cases striking down similar sentences. After all, Dobosu’s sentence was
itself the product of a sizable downward departure from the Guidelines range of five
to eleven months in custody. Instead of additional imprisonment, the district court
imposed a sentence consisting of solely time served and supervised release. See Gall
v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007) (on substantive reasonableness review, an
“appellate court may, but is not required to, apply a presumption of reasonableness”
to sentences within the Guidelines range). Also relevant is that Dobosu’s argument is
not that supervised release is a categorically unreasonable sentence for a minor
violation. Rather, Dobosu’s position is that the district court should have imposed
only two years, as opposed to five years, of supervised release. While there were
certainly reasons to impose a two-year sentence—reasons that could convince a
reasonable sentencing judge—there was a reasonable alternative path to the sentence
the court below imposed. Affirmance is therefore required on our deferential review
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because there is simply not a right answer when it comes to this corner of the
discretionary sentencing context: getting the law and facts correct as inputs and
coming up with a reasonable sentence as an output. Finding an abuse of discretion
here would treat sentencing as the very “exact science” it is not. See United States v.
Mejia-Orosco, 868 F.2d 807, 808 (5th Cir. 1989) (per curiam). The court below
arrived at a reasoned conclusion that five more years of supervised release was
appropriate in Dobosu’s case, and that decision fell within the bounds of permissible
choice. See Chavez, 723 F.3d at 1233.
It is not our role to disagree with a district court’s reasoned sentencing
determination, and nothing in this case suggests the court’s reasoning was arbitrary,
capricious, whimsical, or manifestly unreasonable. See Burke, 935 F.3d at 1052. Far
from it, the district court’s sentence was rooted in the record. The difference
between the two years of supervised release Dobosu requested and the five years of
supervised release imposed does not amount to an abuse of discretion. It is clear that
the district court’s significant downward departure to a five-year term of supervised
release, which was based upon the court’s thorough consideration of Dobosu’s
circumstances, was not a substantively unreasonable sentence.
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IV.
We AFFIRM Dobosu’s sentence.
Entered for the Court
Allison H. Eid
Circuit Judge
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