United States v. William Collins ( 2021 )

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
File Name: 21a0317n.06
No. 20-3830
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
FILED
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) Jul 06, 2021
DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk
)
Plaintiff-Appellee, )
) ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
v. ) STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR
) THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF
WILLIAM ROBERT COLLINS, ) OHIO
)
Defendant-Appellant. )
BEFORE: COLE, ROGERS, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.
MURPHY, Circuit Judge. William Collins pleaded guilty to, among other things, creating
illegal images of his sexual abuse of two young toddlers. When sentencing Collins to 35 years’
imprisonment, the district court suggested that if a defendant had inflicted this type of abuse on a
relative, the court “would want just five minutes alone in a closed room with a baseball bat.” Tr.,
R.43, PageID 673–74. It also noted that “95 percent” of defendants have a “background” like
Collins’s, which included severe childhood sexual abuse. Id., PageID 669. When read in isolation
(as Collins asks us to do), these statements might raise a judicial eyebrow. Yet when read in their
proper context (as we must), the statements offer no basis to reverse his sentence. The court was
only trying to sympathize with a victim’s mother when it made the baseball-bat comment; the
comment did not, as Collins argues, affect his sentence. And the court’s 95% figure was only
trying to convey that many defendants have troubled backgrounds; it was not, as Collins also
No. 20-3830, United States v. Collins
argues, making a finding of “fact” about the number of defendants who have suffered from sexual
abuse. Because Collins’s sentence was otherwise reasonable, we affirm.
I
Users of the mobile app “LiveMe” can create groups in order to message and exchange
videos with individuals who share the same interests. Some of these users create LiveMe groups
to distribute child pornography. In February 2019, an undercover FBI agent was monitoring the
app for illegal content. The agent identified the user “biggdikkdaddy” as a member of several
LiveMe groups that had been disseminating thousands of child-pornography images. This
unknown user had posted many of these images himself, including some showing that he had a
unique tattoo on his hand. By comparing the tattoo in the images to those in Facebook photos, the
FBI came to suspect that the unknown LiveMe user was William Collins, a tattoo artist living in
Toledo, Ohio.
FBI agents searched Collins’s home and seized two of his phones. During a
contemporaneous interview, Collins confirmed that he was the sought-after LiveMe user and
confessed that he had viewed and distributed child pornography. His two phones contained 7,637
images and 2,707 videos of illegal content.
The phones also revealed that Collins’s criminal activities extended well beyond viewing
child pornography. He had created and stored images of his sexual abuse of two children: his
former tattoo customer’s three-year-old daughter and his girlfriend’s two-year-old daughter. The
former customer told investigators that Collins had previously offered her free tattoos if he could
sexually abuse her daughter. Although she allegedly declined his offer, she admitted that she once
found Collins and her daughter naked and asleep in his bed.
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Collins’s girlfriend moved out of his home a few months after the search. During the move,
she discovered a third phone behind a dresser. She gave it to the FBI. This phone stored another
3,600 images and 207 videos of child pornography. It also contained more images of Collins’s
sexual abuse of his girlfriend’s daughter.
The government charged Collins with two counts of producing child pornography in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) and one count of distributing child pornography in violation of
18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(2). Collins pleaded guilty to all three counts without a plea agreement.
Before sentencing, a probation officer’s presentence report calculated Collins’s
recommended sentence under the guidelines alone (without considering any statutory sentencing
ranges) as life imprisonment. Yet the statutory maximum sentence for Collins’s first two counts
was only 30 years and the statutory maximum sentence for his third count was only 20 years. 18
U.S.C. §§ 2251(e), 2252(b)(1). The presentence report thus identified Collins’s guidelines
sentence as the total of the three statutory maximums: 960 months. Collins asked the district court
to vary substantially downward from this sentence by imposing a 210-month term of
imprisonment. He supported his request with a psychologist’s report describing his difficult
childhood, including his father’s severe sexual abuse.
At sentencing, the district court stated that the guidelines range was 360 to 960 months’
imprisonment. It opted for a total sentence of 420 months (or 35 years). It picked this amount by
adding up the statutory minimums for each of the three counts (15 years on the first two counts and
5 years on the third) and ordering the sentences to run consecutively. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 2251(e),
2252(b)(1). When balancing the sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), the court recognized
Collins’s difficult upbringing. Yet it weighed his tragic childhood against the high culpability
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inherent in sexually abusing two toddlers and seeking out child pornography from the dark corners
of the internet. It also found the sentence necessary to protect the public.
II
Collins raises three challenges to his 420-month sentence. He claims that the district court
considered an impermissible factor, made a clearly erroneous finding of fact, and chose an
excessive sentence when measured against the § 3553(a) factors. We review the sentence for both
procedural and substantive reasonableness. See United States v. Parrish, 915 F.3d 1043, 1047 (6th
Cir. 2019). The parties have debated whether Collins’s first two challenges qualify as “procedural”
or “substantive” claims—an issue on which our cases have been inconsistent. See United States
v. Hunter, 842 F. App’x 999, 1004 n.7 (6th Cir. 2021); United States v. Frost, 770 F. App’x 744,
744–45 (6th Cir. 2019). This definitional debate typically matters because abuse-of-discretion
review applies to a substantive challenge whether or not a defendant has preserved it, whereas
plain-error review applies to an unpreserved procedural challenge. Compare Holguin-Hernandez
v. United States, 140 S. Ct. 762, 766–67 (2020), with United States v. Hatcher, 947 F.3d 383, 389
(6th Cir. 2020). But the debate does not matter for this case. Even assuming Collins preserved all
three of his claims, the claims still fail.
1. Impermissible Factor. Federal law identifies the factors that a district court should
consider when determining the length of a sentence, including things like the need to “provide just
punishment,” “protect the public,” and ensure “adequate deterrence” of the crime. See 18 U.S.C.
§ 3553(a)(2). The law, by contrast, places other factors (such as the need for rehabilitation) off
limits to a district court when choosing a sentence’s length. See Frost, 770 F. App’x at 745.
Collins argues that the district court based its sentence on some of these off-limits grounds.
At sentencing, the mother of one of Collins’s toddler victims spoke in support of the maximum
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possible sentence, asking the district court “to give this monster every minute that you can in
prison.” Tr., R.43, PageID 654. Although the court denied this request to sentence Collins to the
highest possible amount (960 months), it told the victim’s mother that her plea for “retribution”
was “understandable.” Id., PageID 673. The court then discussed what it might want to do if
someone had inflicted similar abuse on a family member:
I cannot imagine how I would feel if somebody had done that to one of our four
daughters, to one of our eight granddaughters or two grandsons. I know what I
would want. I would want just five minutes alone in a closed room with a baseball
bat. That’s what I would want. And that’s a human compassion, that’s totally
understandable. It is not irrational, it is rational[].
Id., PageID 673–74. Collins argues that this statement invoked impermissible factors because a
court should not increase a sentence based on how it would feel if a relative were the victim or
based on the belief that the defendant’s crime warrants a violent response.
Yet a district court commits error only if it relies on an impermissible factor to determine
the length of the defendant’s sentence—meaning that the impermissible factor must have affected
the sentence. See United States v. Albaadani, 863 F.3d 496, 504 (6th Cir. 2017); United States v.
Cabrera, 811 F.3d 801, 809 (6th Cir. 2016); United States v. Malone, 503 F.3d 481, 485–86 (6th
Cir. 2007). If the record shows that the challenged statements did not change the sentence’s length,
those statements provide no basis for overturning the sentence. See Albaadani, 863 F.3d at 504–
05; United States v. Musgrave, 647 F. App’x 529, 534–36 (6th Cir. 2016).
Here, Collins takes the district court’s statements out of their proper context when he argues
that they show that impermissible considerations increased his sentence. The court made these
statements not when describing the reasons for the 420-month term. Rather, it made them when
addressing the victim’s mother and opining that her request for significant retribution (in the form
of a 960-month sentence) was “understandable” and “rational.” Nothing in the sentencing
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transcript suggests that the court’s expression of empathy toward the victim’s mother produced
even a single additional day in prison. See Albaadani, 863 F.3d at 504. Indeed, the court ultimately
denied the mother’s plea by sentencing Collins to well under half of her requested time.
In the cases on which Collins relies, by contrast, the record left no doubt that the district
court had relied on an impermissible factor to increase or decrease the sentence. Consider Malone.
There, the district court gave the defendant a downward variance because the defendant’s drug-
related sentence would have been much lower if he had been convicted in state court. 503 F.3d at
483. We found that the court wrongly considered the defendant’s hypothetical state-court
sentence, which made it obvious that the court had reduced the sentence based on an impermissible
factor. Id. at 484–86. Or consider United States v. Romanini, 502 F. App’x 503 (6th Cir. 2012).
We reversed in that case because the district court had wrongly relied on the defendant’s
socioeconomic status. Id. at 507–09. There, too, the record made it obvious that the defendant’s
socioeconomic status had produced an uptick in his sentence; the court noted that the sentence was
“deserved” because of the defendant’s “great success” and “great wealth.” Id. at 509; see also
United States v. Van, 541 F. App’x 592, 597–98 (6th Cir. 2013). Unlike the statements in these
other cases, the district court’s “isolated statement[s]” to the victim’s mother here in no way
affected Collins’s sentence. Musgrave, 647 F. App’x at 536 (citation omitted).
2. Clearly Erroneous Fact. Collins next argues that the district court justified its 420-
month sentence with a mistaken factual finding. When rejecting Collins’s claim that the sexual
abuse he suffered as a child justified a significant downward variance, the court noted: “[O]n the
whole, 95 percent of the people that come before me have the background that you do.” Tr., R.43,
PageID 669. Collins argues that most defendants have not suffered his severe childhood sexual
abuse and thus that the court’s “95 percent” figure was flat wrong. Collins is correct that a district
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court cannot rely on a clearly erroneous finding of fact to choose a sentence. See Parrish, 915
F.3d at 1047. But he is incorrect that the district court did so here.
To begin with, the district court was not making a “factual” finding with its 95% statement.
Collins takes the comment far too literally. We do not read sentencing colloquies like statutes.
See United States v. Orozco-Vasquez, 469 F.3d 1101, 1107 (7th Cir. 2006). And nothing in the
sentencing transcript suggests that the court meant to resolve a “fact” dispute—as if the parties had
introduced statistical evidence on the backgrounds of the “average” defendant and asked the court
to “find” where Collins fit within this picture. Rather, the court was making a more general point—
that, in its experience, most defendants have struggled through difficult childhoods. Tr., R.43,
PageID 668–69. Its observation was analogous to the statement that the court had heard “coded
‘drug talk’ like this many times before,” Orozco-Vasquez, 469 F.3d at 1108, or that the defendant
had received a “good deal,” United States v. Heard, 559 F. App’x 849, 853 (11th Cir. 2014) (per
curiam); see also, e.g., United States v. Young, 726 F. App’x 94, 96 (2d Cir. 2018) (order).
Regardless, the district court did not base its sentence on any such “finding” that 95% of
defendants have suffered childhood sexual abuse. Our cases indicate that a court cannot be said
to have relied on an erroneous factual finding unless the relevant fact appears to have been an
“important factor” in the court’s sentence. See United States v. Cunningham, 669 F.3d 723, 730
(6th Cir. 2012) (quoting United States v. Wilson, 614 F.3d 219, 224 n.3 (6th Cir. 2010)); see also
United States v. Pendygraft, 782 F. App’x 424, 428 (6th Cir. 2019). The district court’s stray 95%
statistic was not even a factor—let alone an important one—in its sentence. The court stated that
percentage only once and only in passing. To the extent Collins argues more generally that the
district court did not give sufficient weight to his tragic childhood when balancing the § 3553(a)
factors, that sort of challenge belongs with his third and final claim.
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3. Excessive Sentence. Collins lastly argues that his 420-month sentence was too long
when assessed under the § 3553(a) factors. For this type of challenge to a sentence’s length, we
ask only whether the district court abused its discretion. See United States v. Lynde, 926 F.3d 275,
279 (6th Cir. 2019). We also start with a presumption of reasonableness when, as here, the parties
agree that the court sentenced the defendant within the relevant guidelines range. See id.There was no abuse of discretion. The district court identified the guidelines range and
considered the relevant § 3553(a) factors. While it recognized Collins’s difficult background, 18
U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1), it found that this mitigating factor was offset by the seriousness of the crimes
(the knowing exploitation of toddlers) and the need to provide for a “just punishment,” id.§ 3553(a)(1), (2)(A). It also concluded that a steep sentence was necessary to achieve “adequate
deterrence” and “protect the public” from Collins, especially considering the likelihood that he
might reoffend and the high recidivism rates for individuals who commit this type of crime. Id.
§ 3553(a)(2)(B)–(C). In short, the district court reasonably evaluated the relevant factors. See
Lynde, 926 F.3d at 282–83.
Collins counters that the court did not give enough weight to the severe abuse that he
suffered as a child and the way it likely affected him as an adult. To the contrary, the court gave
significant weight to this factor, recognizing that Collins had been repeatedly abused over a five-
year span and telling him that it did not “discount the consequences that your upbringing brought
upon you.” Tr., R.43, PageID 669. It thus sentenced Collins to a term well below the 960-month
sentence identified in his presentence report. Although Collins thinks the court should have been
even more lenient, we lack appellate authority to simply reweigh the factors. Our authority extends
only to ensuring that the district court reasonably weighed them. See United States v. Goode, 834
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F. App’x 218, 221 (6th Cir. 2020). The court’s sentence reasonably accounted for Collins’s
upbringing.
Collins also argues that the sentence was substantively unreasonable because the district
court pondered whether it was too long. Admittedly, the court expressed doubt about the propriety
of its “breath taking” sentence: “I do question myself whether it’s too much time. At this point I
just don’t know.” Tr., R.43, PageID 670, 674–75. But the court’s honest assessment does not
make for a substantively unreasonable sentence. If anything, the statement exemplifies the district
court’s recognition of the serious duty placed upon it and its careful consideration of the § 3553(a)
factors. District courts need not act with cavalier certitude when sending a person to prison for 35
years in order to insulate their sentences from appellate second-guessing. In any event, the court
later confirmed its belief that the sentence was “sufficient but not greater than necessary to
accomplish the objectives of sentenc[ing]” under the relevant factors. Id., PageID 675; 18 U.S.C.
§ 3553(a).
One last point. The district court seemed to suggest, without any analysis, that Collins’s
guidelines range fell between 360 and 960 months. Yet this calculation may well have benefited
Collins because his 420-month sentence might have been a significant downward variance. The
presentence report initially identified his guidelines sentence as life imprisonment, but Collins’s
three counts had statutory maximums of 30 years, 30 years, and 20 years. The report thus
calculated the guidelines sentence as 960 months by adding up the maximum sentences on all three
counts and having them run consecutively. See U.S.S.G. § 5G1.2(d); United States v. Aguilar-
Andres, 780 F. App’x 231, 233–34 (6th Cir. 2019); Jenkins v. United States, 394 F.3d 407, 412
(6th Cir. 2005); see also, e.g., United States v. Brown, 843 F.3d 74, 82 (2d Cir. 2016); United
States v. Sarras, 575 F.3d 1191, 1208–09 (11th Cir. 2009). In the atypical case in which a
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defendant challenges a below-guidelines sentence, the defendant must make an even more
demanding showing to prove its substantive unreasonableness. See Lynde, 926 F.3d at 279, 282.
Yet the parties did not contest this guidelines-calculation issue, so we merely flag it for future
cases. Even if Collins’s sentence fell within the guidelines range, it was eminently reasonable.
We affirm.
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