Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-14-01715/USCOURTS-ca8-14-01715-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Anate Jackson
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 14-1715

___________________________

United States of America

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Anate Jackson, also known as Anate Dave Jackson

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Little Rock

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 Submitted: December 8, 2014

 Filed: January 23, 2015

[Unpublished]

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Before WOLLMAN, COLLOTON, and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

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PER CURIAM.

Anate Jackson pleaded guilty to failure to register as a sex offender, in violation

of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 18 U.S.C. § 2250. 

Jackson appeals the district court’s imposition of Special Condition 2, which prohibits

him from possessing pornography while on supervised release. We vacate Special

Condition 2 and remand the case for resentencing.

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In 2002, Jackson was convicted in California of forcible rape and robbery. 

After spending three and a half years in prison, he was released on parole. His parole

was revoked numerous times, including once for possessing a video depicting sexual

activity. While still on parole, Jackson moved to Arkansas without updating his sexoffender registration. He was arrested and pleaded guilty to violating SORNA.

At Jackson’s sentencing hearing, the district court imposed a special condition

of supervised release that prohibited the possession of pornography. The district court

explained the imposition of this condition by stating:

[T]his is general. And probation can come back later, and if you don’t

need all of this, probation can come back and ask me to remove this

requirement. I’m going to order, because you’re a sex offender, that you

not purchase, possess, or subscribe to media forms dealing with

pornographic images. . . . Normally that is a requirement . . . that we give

people in child pornography types of cases. But this is a case where,

with this underlying conviction, I think he needs to have some work

done on that.

Jackson objected to the lack of individualized findings for this condition, so we review

for abuse of discretion. United States v. Wiedower, 634 F.3d 490, 493 (8th Cir.

2011).

A district court may impose special conditions of supervised release as long as

the conditions (1) are “‘reasonably related’ to . . . the nature and circumstances of the

offense, the defendant’s history and characteristics, the deterrence of criminal conduct,

the protection of the public from further crimes of the defendant, and the defendant’s

educational, vocational, medical or other correctional needs”; (2) “‘involve[] no

greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary’ to advance deterrence, the

protection of the public from future crimes of the defendant, and the defendant’s

correctional needs”; and (3) are “consistent with any pertinent policy statements

issued by the sentencing commission.” United States v. Crume, 422 F.3d 728, 733

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(8th Cir. 2005) (alteration in original) (quoting 18 U.S.C. §§ 3583(d), 3553(a)). The

district court must craft special conditions of supervised release “on an individualized

basis; a court may not impose a special condition on all those found guilty of a

particular offense.” United States v. Davis, 452 F.3d 991, 995 (8th Cir. 2006). 

Here, the district court did not make the individualized findings necessary to

impose the special condition prohibiting Jackson from accessing pornography. 

Instead, the district court imposed the condition “because [Jackson is] a sex offender”

and because “with this underlying conviction, . . . he needs to have some work done.” 

The district court abused its discretion when it considered Jackson as part of a class

of sex offenders and imposed the special condition based on Jackson’s underlying

conviction. See United States v. Kelly, 625 F.3d 516, 520 (8th Cir. 2010) (holding

that the district court abused its discretion by imposing a condition “based solely on

the character of [the defendant’s] previous convictions”); United States v. Bender, 566

F.3d 748, 752 (8th Cir. 2009) (holding that the district court abused its discretion by

imposing a special condition prohibiting the defendant from accessing “sexually

stimulating” materials when the district court made no individualized findings and

instead made general statements regarding sex offenders).

The government argues that the sentence should be affirmed because any error

was harmless. We have stated that “reversal is not required by a lack of

individualized findings if the basis for the imposed condition can be discerned from

the record,” and we have held harmless the district court’s failure to make

individualized findings before imposing a condition banning pornography when the

record demonstrated that the defendant had downloaded and viewed child

pornography for years before being convicted of a child-pornography offense. United

States v. Thompson, 653 F.3d 688, 693-94 (8th Cir. 2011). In contrast to Thompson,

however, the district court here not only failed to make individualized findings, but

indicated that it was imposing the condition based on Jackson’s status as a sex

offender. Furthermore, in Thompson, the defendant had a history of accessing child

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pornography, and the ban on all pornography was recommended by the presentence

investigation report (PSR). Here, the only mention of pornography in the PSR is that

Jackson’s parole was once revoked for possessing a video depicting sexual activity. 

Finally, in contrast to Thompson, Jackson was convicted of a registration offense. 

Although “[c]ourts can impose special conditions of supervised release not directly

related to the offense for which the defendant is being sentenced where ‘the special

conditions are related to another offense that the defendant previously committed,’”

Kelly, 625 F.3d at 519 (quoting United States v. Smart, 472 F.3d 556, 559 (8th Cir.

2006)), we have held that when the defendant is convicted of a registration offense

and the PSR does not discuss pornography or recommend a special condition of

supervised release banning pornography, “there is at least a ‘reasonable probability’

. . . that the court may have omitted the special condition if the court had followed the

requirement . . . to provide an individualized explanation for the restriction,” United

States v. Curry, 627 F.3d 312, 315 (8th Cir. 2010) (per curiam), vacated on other

grounds, 132 S. Ct. 1533 (2012). Here, the district court’s reasons for imposing the

special condition prohibiting pornography are not clear from the record, and it is

possible that the court would have omitted the special condition if it had felt required

to provide an individualized explanation. 

Accordingly, we vacate Special Condition 2 and remand the case for

resentencing.

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