Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-15-03932/USCOURTS-ca8-15-03932-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Jarod Lee White
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 15-3932

___________________________

United States of America

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Jarod Lee White

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant

____________

Appeal from United States District Court 

for the District of Minnesota - St. Paul

____________

 Submitted: October 17, 2016

Filed: October 27, 2016 

[Published]

____________

Before MURPHY, BEAM, and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.

____________

PER CURIAM.

Appellate Case: 15-3932 Page: 1 Date Filed: 10/27/2016 Entry ID: 4463400 
Jarod Lee White appeals the district court's1

 revocation of his term of

supervised release and imposition of two years' imprisonment. For the following

reasons, we now affirm.

White assaulted two police officers in 2010; pleaded guilty to Assault Resulting

in Serious Injury in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 113(a)(6), 1151, and 1153(a), a Class

C felony; and was sentenced to forty-one months' imprisonment to be followed by

three years of supervised release. His term of supervised release began February

2013. In September 2013, White was charged in state court with third-degree felony

assault and his term of supervised release was revoked. He was sentenced to a year

and a day of imprisonment, and his term of supervised release recommenced when he

was released in August 2014. In March 2015, White tested positive for marijuana and

the conditions of his supervised release were modified to include eight hours of

community service. In July 2015, he failed to complete inpatient treatment for alcohol

abuse and his conditions of supervised release were further modified to include thirty

days of remote alcohol testing. After further violations of the conditions of his

supervised release–missing drug and alcohol tests, failing to maintain employment,

and failing to maintain contact with his probation officer–the district court changed

those conditions a third time in September 2015. It required White to reside in a

halfway house until the expiration of his term on January 31, 2016. White entered the

halfway house on October 2, 2015, but he left the next day and was subsequently

arrested.

At the final revocation hearing, White explained that he left the halfway house

because he was upset that he was being roomed with sex offenders. He was frightened

at the prospect of getting into a fight with one of them and being put in prison again,

where he would be forced into violent situations. The district court observed that it

1

The Honorable Michael J. Davis, United States District Judge for the District

of Minnesota.

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Appellate Case: 15-3932 Page: 2 Date Filed: 10/27/2016 Entry ID: 4463400 
had been "patient with" and had "tried to work with" White, giving him many

opportunities to remain on supervised release. It read aloud through White's lengthy

criminal history and concluded that White was a violent person. Although the United

States Sentencing Guidelines Manual (U.S.S.G. or Guidelines) § 7B1.4 Policy

Statement recommended, upon revocation, three to nine months' imprisonment, the

district court stated:

The Court has taken a full look at the history of this defendant and

all of the programs the Court has tried to use to help this defendant, and

the Court finds that he's a violent person and cannot follow the rules and

regulations for being on the streets and I will sentence you to two years

in prison with no supervision to follow.

White now appeals the district court's sentence on procedural and substantive grounds.

"On appeal, we review a revocation sentence under the same 'deferential abuseof-discretion' standard that applies to initial sentencing proceedings, considering both

the 'procedural soundness of the district court's decision and the substantive

reasonableness of the sentence imposed.'" United States v. Young, 640 F.3d 846, 848

(8th Cir. 2011) (per curiam) (quoting United States v. Thunder, 553 F.3d 605, 607

(8th Cir. 2009)). White first argues that the district court procedurally erred because

it relied in part on his past arrests for which related charges were later dismissed. The

district court, in forming the conclusion that White is a violent person, read through

his litany of past offenses listed in the presentence investigation report (PSIR) from

the 2010 conviction for which he was on supervised release. White pointed out to the

district court that many of those incidents resulted in dismissed charges, and the

district court responded that it was "going down all of your violent arrests and

convictions." White argues that it was improper for the district court to rely on

allegations of past behavior that were not proven in a criminal proceeding. He relies

on our decision in United States v. Richey, 758 F.3d 999 (8th Cir. 2014), for this

proposition, in which we said that it is procedural error for a district court to "bas[e]

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Appellate Case: 15-3932 Page: 3 Date Filed: 10/27/2016 Entry ID: 4463400 
a sentence on unproven, disputed allegations rather than facts." Id. at 1002 (citing

Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 50 (2007)).

White misreads Richey. That case made the uncontroversial observation that

"when a defendant specifically disputes facts contained in a report prepared by the

probation office 'and the relevant responsive evidence has not already been produced

at trial, the government must present evidence at the sentencing hearing to prove the

existence of the disputed facts,'" id. (first emphasis added) (quoting United States v.

Davis, 583 F.3d 1081, 1095 (8th Cir. 2009)), and applied it to a revocation hearing. 

We held that "a revocation sentence may not be based on disputed, unproven

allegations in the probation officer's reports." Id. at 1003. But the record here does

not present any indication that White disputed either the occurrence of the arrests or

the underlying conduct for which he was arrested,2

 either at his revocation hearing or

the 2010 sentencing hearing.3

 Further, the fact that some of those arrests resulted in

dismissed charges was noted in the PSIR and acknowledged by the district court. 

Richey, therefore, is inapplicable.

White appears to be arguing that the district court procedurally erred when it

relied, for sentencing purposes, on his arrests as set forth in the PSIR. Although we

have stated that "a prior arrest record standing alone cannot be considered" for the

2

At the revocation hearing, White did dispute a 2008 arrest for third-degree

assault and criminal contempt, contending, "I wasn't there at that time. I pull up and

the cops arrest me for criminal contempt automatically. Since I was there at an

assault, they automatically think it's me because I'm there." Given the overwhelming

amount of undisputed evidence of violent conduct, any error by the district court in

failing to have the government prove the conduct underlying this particular arrest was

harmless because "we are convinced that the error did not affect the district court's

sentencing conclusion." United States v. Tabor, 531 F.3d 688, 692 (8th Cir. 2008).

3

The PSIR notes, "In a letter dated August 30, 2010, the defense counsel noted

several objections or proposed amendments to the presentence investigation report. 

Those objections have been resolved." 

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Appellate Case: 15-3932 Page: 4 Date Filed: 10/27/2016 Entry ID: 4463400 
purpose of an upward departure for an underrepresented criminal history, United

States v. Hawk Wing, 433 F.3d 622, 628 (8th Cir. 2006) (citing U.S.S.G.

§ 4A1.3(a)(3)), abrogated on other grounds by Tapia v. United States, 564 U.S. 319

(2011), district courts are not limited in the kinds of information they may consider

when assessing a defendant's character for the purpose of a variance post-Booker. See

18 U.S.C. §§ 3553(a)(1), 3661. On the other hand, § 3553(a)(5)(A) requires a district

court to consider "any pertinent policy statement" issued by the Sentencing

Commission, and an argument could be made that the prohibition on considering

arrests in the Guidelines § 4A1.3(a)(3) policy statement is pertinent here. To the

extent, however, that § 4A1.3(a)(3) may be relevant to an upward variance in the

context of a revocation sentencing, it is worth noting that "specific facts underlying

the arrests" may be considered for an upward departure, Hawk Wing, 433 F.3d at 628

& n.4 (citing cases), and so should be fair game for a variance as well. It is clear from

the transcript that the district court was relying on the violent facts, set out in the

PSIR, underlying White's prior arrests. We therefore detect no procedural error.4

 

White next argues that the district court's two-year sentence, 167% above the

top end of the advisory Guidelines range, was substantively unreasonable. If, as is the

case here, a sentence imposed upon revocation of supervised release is permitted by

18 U.S.C. § 3583(e), we review for an abuse of discretion.5

 United States v. Walker,

513 F.3d 891, 893 (8th Cir. 2008). The district court abuses its discretion when it

does not consider a factor that should have received significant weight, gives

4

Furthermore, the list of twenty-one previous incidents in White's PSIR and

discussed by the district court consisted of thirteen convictions replete with violent

offenses. Therefore, any alleged procedural error, even if "significant," Gall, 552 U.S.

at 51, was harmless because, again, "we are convinced that the error did not affect the

district court's sentencing conclusion." Tabor, 531 F.3d at 692.

5

Where the offense for which the term of supervised release was imposed is a

Class C felony, as was White's, § 3583(e)(3) permits a maximum sentence of two

years' imprisonment.

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Appellate Case: 15-3932 Page: 5 Date Filed: 10/27/2016 Entry ID: 4463400 
significant weight to an improper or irrelevant factor, or makes a clear error of

judgment. United States v. Goodon, 742 F.3d 373, 376 (8th Cir. 2014). When

determining whether to revoke a defendant's term of supervised release, a district court

must consider certain § 3553(a) factors, see 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e), but need not discuss

each of them by rote. United States v. Perkins, 526 F.3d 1107, 1110-11 (8th Cir.

2008).

Here, the district court described its efforts to impose alternate forms of

punishment, the inefficacy of those forms, White's history, and his characteristic as

a violent individual. We are satisfied that the district court gave proper consideration

to the relevant § 3553(a) factors, and the record does not disclose any consideration

of an improper or irrelevant factor. We are further satisfied that the district court did

not commit a clear error of judgment in reaching the sentence it did. White had a long

history of violent criminal offenses and he had violated the terms of his supervised

release on at least four previous occasions. Further, the extent of the variance is

exaggerated here because the Guidelines range was based on an underrepresented

criminal history. White's past offenses had taken place in tribal court and therefore

were not counted in calculating his criminal-history category. U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2(i). 

We find no abuse of discretion in the district court's sentence.

Accordingly, we affirm.

______________________________

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Appellate Case: 15-3932 Page: 6 Date Filed: 10/27/2016 Entry ID: 4463400