Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-16-02493/USCOURTS-ca7-16-02493-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Michael Peterson
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

Nos. 16‐2493, ‐2494

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff‐Appellee,

v.

MICHAEL PETERSON,

Defendant‐Appellant.

____________________

Appeals from the United States District Court for the

Western District of Wisconsin.

Nos. 3:06‐cr‐00139‐bbc‐1 & 3:15‐cr‐00142‐bbc‐1

Barbara B. Crabb, Judge.

____________________

SUBMITTED FEBRUARY 2, 2017 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 14, 2017

____________________

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and POSNER and KANNE, Cir‐

cuit Judges.

POSNER, Circuit Judge. In 2006 Michael Peterson was con‐

victed of distributing crack cocaine, see 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1),

for which he served eight years in prison. In January 2014,

fewer than two weeks after his release and the start of his

term of supervised release, Peterson was arrested for drunk

Case: 16-2493 Document: 25 Filed: 02/14/2017 Pages: 3
2 Nos. 16‐2493, ‐2494

driving while outside the judicial district without permis‐

sion. His probation officer did not seek revocation at that

time, and for nearly two years afterward Peterson took posi‐

tive steps toward reestablishing his life: He started a busi‐

ness, got married, and began caring for his new stepson.

But in November 2015 Peterson encountered a long‐term

adversary at a bar. According to Peterson the two men en‐

gaged in a verbal altercation (who started it or what it was

about remains undetermined), but a surveillance video

shows Peterson pursuing his adversary as he left the bar

armed with a pistol lent him by a friend “as a means of de‐

fense.” (Why Peterson pursued him is another undeter‐

mined feature of the case.) Out on the street the other man

attacked Peterson with a knife, seriously wounding him.

Though his borrowed gun was in his waistband, Peterson

didn’t attempt to use it but instead hid it under a garbage

can after fleeing two police officers who had observed the

attack.

Arrested and later charged with being a felon in posses‐

sion of a gun in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), Peterson

pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 48 months’ imprison‐

ment, 9 months below the guidelines imprisonment range

calculated by the district judge. The judge revoked Peter‐

son’s supervised release, the terms of which he’d violated by

having been armed, and replaced it with a 6‐month term of

imprisonment to run consecutively to the 48‐month term for

the illegal possession. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3).

Peterson filed notices of appeal from both the revocation

of supervised release and his new conviction, but his ap‐

pointed counsel advises us that both appeals are frivolous,

and therefore seeks to withdraw from representing his cli‐

Case: 16-2493 Document: 25 Filed: 02/14/2017 Pages: 3
Nos. 16‐2493, ‐2494 3

ent, citing Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967). We invited

Peterson to respond to counsel’s motion, but he has not done

so. Counsel represents that he consulted Peterson and con‐

firmed that he neither wants his guilty plea set aside nor

wishes to contest the revocation of supervised release. Left

to consider only whether a nonfrivolous argument could be

made against the procedural or substantive reasonableness

of his client’s prison terms, counsel concluded that any chal‐

lenge to the length of those terms would be futile because

the district judge had correctly calculated both the guide‐

lines range and the policy‐statement range applicable to the

revocation of supervised release, see U.S.S.G. §§ 7B1.1(a)(2),

7B1.4, had treated the ranges as advisory, had evaluated Pe‐

terson’s arguments in mitigation and applied the sentencing

factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), and finally had im‐

posed a prison sentence below the applicable guidelines and

policy‐statement ranges. See United States v. Jones, 774 F.3d

399, 404–05 (7th Cir. 2014); United States v. Neal, 512 F.3d 427,

438 (7th Cir. 2008).

Counsel further notes that challenging the judge’s deci‐

sion to run Peterson’s two prison terms consecutively—

which counsel considers to be Peterson’s major complaint

about the sentence—would conflict with the Sentencing

Commission’s advice that consecutive terms be imposed

when revocation of supervised release is the result of a new

prison sentence. See U.S.S.G. § 7B1.3(f) and Application Note

4; United States v. Taylor, 628 F.3d 420, 423–24 (7th Cir. 2010).

Moreover, both sentences that the judge imposed on Peter‐

son were below their guideline ranges.

Counsel’s motion to withdraw is granted and the appeals

are dismissed.

Case: 16-2493 Document: 25 Filed: 02/14/2017 Pages: 3