Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-18-01870/USCOURTS-ca7-18-01870-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Mitrel Y. Anderson
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

Nos. 18-1870 & 18-3096 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v.

MITREL Y. ANDERSON and RAYSHAUN ROACH, 

Defendants-Appellants. 

____________________ 

Appeals from the United States District Court for the 

Western District of Wisconsin. 

No. 3:17-cr-92 — James D. Peterson, Chief Judge. 

No. 3:17-cr-103 — William M. Conley, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED DECEMBER 18, 2019 — DECIDED JANUARY 30, 2020 

____________________ 

Before HAMILTON, BRENNAN, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges. 

SCUDDER, Circuit Judge. We have before us criminal defendants contending for the first time on appeal that a condition of their terms of supervised release is unconstitutionally 

vague. We have seen scores of similar appeals in the last six 

years. And in a series of recent opinions, we have held—in no 

uncertain terms—that a defendant who receives an opportunity to object to a proposed condition of supervised release 

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2 Nos. 18-1870 & 18-3096 

at sentencing but fails to do so waives his objection. That binding precedent is the law of the Circuit. It resolves these appeals, so we affirm. 

Mitrel Anderson and Rayshaun Roach each pleaded guilty 

to federal drug crimes and were sentenced to terms of imprisonment and supervised release. Before their sentencings, both 

defendants received Presentence Investigation Reports (or 

PSRs) that proposed, among others, a supervised release condition providing that they “not patronize any taverns, bars, 

liquor stores, nightclubs or other establishments where the 

primary item of sale is alcohol.” While Anderson and Roach 

both objected in writing to certain supervised release conditions, with Anderson also contending that an alcohol condition was unnecessary, neither defendant raised a concern that 

the alcohol condition was unconstitutionally vague. 

At their sentencings, both defendants confirmed that they 

had read their PSRs, reviewed the reports with their counsel, 

and waived an oral reading of the proposed supervised release conditions. But at no point during sentencing did either 

defendant say anything about the alcohol condition being 

vague. 

So this makes us the first court to hear Anderson and 

Roach’s argument that the alcohol condition is vague and 

overbroad. And this is so despite both defendants having had 

ample opportunity to present this argument to the district 

court. But neither did. Our law is unambiguous that under 

these circumstances, the argument is waived. 

In United States v. Flores, 929 F.3d 443, 450 (7th Cir. 2019), 

we held that a defendant waives an objection to a condition of 

supervised release “when the defendant has notice of the 

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Nos. 18-1870 & 18-3096 3

proposed conditions, a meaningful opportunity to object, and 

she asserts (through counsel or directly) that she does not object to the proposed conditions, waives reading of those conditions and their justifications, challenges certain conditions 

but not the one(s) challenged on appeal, or otherwise evidences an intentional or strategic decision not to object.” Before the court decided Flores, the panel invoked Circuit Rule 

40(e) and circulated the opinion to all judges in active service, 

and no judge voted to hear the case en banc. See id. at 450 n.1. 

The defendants seek to sidestep Flores by arguing that it is 

inconsistent with our prior precedent. In a series of decisions 

beginning in 2014, we often excused or overlooked defendants’ failures to raise vagueness and other supervised release 

challenges in the district court, particularly if the defendants 

had not had clear advance notice of the proposed conditions 

and the reasons for them. See, e.g., United States v. Thompson, 

777 F.3d 368, 377–78 (7th Cir. 2015); United States v. Siegel, 753 

F.3d 705, 714 (7th Cir. 2014). Before those decisions, however, 

we had most often applied ordinary standards of appellate 

review, waiver, and forfeiture to issues concerning supervised release. See, e.g., United States v. Silvious, 512 F.3d 364, 

370–71 (7th Cir. 2008); United States v. Blinn, 490 F.3d 586, 588–

89 (7th Cir. 2007); United States v. Tejeda, 476 F.3d 471, 475–76 

(7th Cir. 2007). To reconcile the tension in our approaches, we 

began to refine waiver rules, and that effort culminated in Flores. The Rule 40(e) circulation in Flores reinforces that our decision reflects the law of the Circuit. See United States v. Ray, 

831 F.3d 431, 435–36 (7th Cir. 2016) (stating that precedents 

inconsistent with the outcome of a Rule 40(e) decision, used 

to address inconsistencies in circuit law, “have no continuing 

force”). 

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4 Nos. 18-1870 & 18-3096 

Flores, in short, clarified and made plain that a defendant 

who waives a challenge to a supervised release condition will 

be stuck with the waiver. We have reinforced and adhered to 

this holding many times in Flores’s wake. See, e.g., United 

States v. Dodds, No. 19-1135, 2020 WL 132749, at *3 (7th Cir. 

Jan. 13, 2020) (applying waiver where the defendant selectively objected to supervised release conditions); United States 

v. Fisher, 943 F.3d 809, 815 (7th Cir. 2019) (following the same 

path where defendant objected to none of the conditions challenged on appeal); see also United States v. Tjader, 927 F.3d 483, 

485–86 (7th Cir. 2019) (pre-dating Flores but applying waiver 

where defendant challenged conditions on new grounds); 

United States v. St. Clair, 926 F.3d 386, 388–89 (7th Cir. 2019) 

(finding a clear waiver where defendant objected to none of 

the conditions). Put most simply, Flores was not a mistaken 

fluke—it is controlling law. 

Anderson and Roach waived their argument that the alcohol condition was unconstitutionally vague in nearly every 

way that Flores identifies: 

 Both defendants received advance notice of 

the proposed condition in their PSRs, but 

then both failed to raise the vagueness argument in their written objections, despite presenting other challenges; and 

 Both defendants likewise confirmed at sentencing that they had read their PSRs and 

waived a formal reading of the supervised 

release conditions and from there raised no 

argument concerning vagueness when 

asked if they had any objections. 

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Nos. 18-1870 & 18-3096 5

Having allowed the opportunities to make their argument 

pass them by, the defendants waived it. Nor is this the “rare 

and limited instance” when we may choose to overlook a 

waiver because the challenged condition concerns activity 

protected by the First Amendment. See Flores, 929 F.3d at 450 

(citing United States v. Adkins, 743 F.3d 176, 192–94 (7th Cir. 

2014)). 

In reinforcing that Flores reflects the law of the Circuit, in 

no way are we questioning whether unconstitutional vagueness is a proper ground on which to challenge a supervised 

release condition. It surely is. Today’s decision reinforces the 

more limited but important point that such challenges must 

first be raised in the district court. Because that did not happen here, we AFFIRM. 

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