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Parties Involved:
John Alan Lewis
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 14‐3635

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff‐Appellee,

v.

JOHN ALAN LEWIS,

Defendant‐Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division.

No. 1:13‐CR‐00079‐001 — Jane E. Magnus‐Stinson, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED JUNE 10, 2015 — DECIDED MAY 24, 2016

____________________

Before MANION, WILLIAMS, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. A jury found appellant John A.

Lewis guilty of five federal sex offenses. The district court sen‐

tenced Lewis, who is 66 years old and in poor health, to the

statutory mandatory minimum sentence of 35 years in prison.

Lewis has appealed, but he does not challenge either his con‐

victions or the prison term. The district judge, while recogniz‐

ing that the chances Lewis will survive his prison sentence are

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2 No. 14‐3635

low, also included in his sentence a life term of supervised re‐

lease. The only issues before us concern the supervised release

portion of his sentence. (Lewis also raised a minor forfeiture

issue, but that has been resolved by agreement; we do not ad‐

dress it.)

Lewis raised no objections in the district court to any as‐

pect of the supervised release term and conditions. Repre‐

sented by new counsel on appeal, however, Lewis argues that

the court’s findings and explanations were not sufficient and

that we must vacate the sentence and remand for resentenc‐

ing, or at least for further consideration of supervised release.

See generally, e.g., United States v. Kappes, 782 F.3d 828 (7th Cir.

2015); United States v. Thompson, 777 F.3d 368 (7th Cir. 2015);

United States v. Siegel, 753 F.3d 705 (7th Cir. 2014).

We affirm the judgment of the district court. Sound appli‐

cation of principles of waiver and forfeiture convinces us

there is no need to send this case back to the district court. The

defense had ample advance notice of the terms of proposed

release that were contemplated and ultimately imposed. Be‐

fore sentence was actually imposed, the court expressly in‐

vited objections and requests for further findings or elabora‐

tion. The defense expressly declined the invitation. That was

waiver. Even if it were deemed only forfeiture, there was no

plain error requiring remand.

I. The Crimes

Because the issues on appeal are narrow, a brief summary

of Lewis’s crimes will suffice. In 2012 police in Indianapolis

arrested another man who had first obtained sexually explicit

photographs of a real girl and then pretended on‐line to be a

fourteen‐year‐old prostitute named Becky. “Becky” had on‐

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No. 14‐3635 3

line chats with Lewis and sent him the sexually explicit im‐

ages of the real girl. During the chats, Lewis told “Becky” he

wanted to record a video of her engaging in what federal law

calls sexually explicit conduct.  

After police arrested the other man, they took over Becky’s

identity and continued communicating with Lewis. He of‐

fered repeatedly to travel to Indiana to meet Becky, telling her

that he wanted to have sex with her in a hotel and then take

her to live with him in Ohio. He said he would bring cameras

with him to take videos and photographs of their sex.

In September 2012, Lewis drove to Indiana to meet

“Becky.” Police arrested him as he drove past the apartment

where he believed she lived. A search of his car turned up a

list of motels in the area, a digital camera, a tripod, and digital

storage media containing more than 100 sexually explicit im‐

ages of “Becky” and instructions for photographing sex

scenes.

Lewis was charged with attempted sexual exploitation of

a minor (18 U.S.C. § 2251(a)); traveling interstate for the pur‐

pose of having sex with a minor(§ 2243(b)); transporting child

pornography (§ 2252(a)(1)); possessing child pornography

(§ 2252(a)(4)(B)); and committing a felony sex offense involv‐

ing a minor while a registered sex offender (§ 2260A). He had

prior state court convictions for attempted sexual conduct

with a minor and possession of child pornography. He was a

registered sex offender. At the time of his arrest, he was also

on probation for having failed to update his sex‐offender reg‐

istration. A jury convicted Lewis on all charges.

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II. The Sentencing

Lewis faced a mandatory statutory minimum sentence of

35 years in prison, and that was his sentence. The judge rec‐

ognized this was likely a de facto life sentence. Even with the

maximum available good‐time credit, Lewis will be 94 years

old when he first becomes eligible for release, well beyond the

average life expectancy for men his age. Lewis himself is al‐

ready in poor health. He is quite obese, has been diagnosed

with a number of coronary diseases including congestive

heart failure, and had triple‐bypass heart surgery several

years ago.

Lewis also faced a statutory minimum term of five years

supervised release. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(k). The judge sentenced

Lewis to a life term of supervised release. The judge imposed

the thirteen standard conditions of supervised release spelled

out in the presentence report, plus nine conditions the proba‐

tion officer had also recommended in the presentence report.

Lewis raised no objections to the sentence in the district

court, but on appeal, he argues that the judge did not explain

why she thought a life term of supervised release was appro‐

priate, that she failed to explain her reasons for imposing

many conditions of supervised release, and that several of the

conditions have various substantive flaws.

III. Recent Case Law on Supervised Release

Before 2014, our court applied standards of waiver and

forfeiture to issues concerning supervised release. See, e.g.,

United States v. Silvious, 512 F.3d 364, 371 (7th Cir. 2008) (over‐

broad conditions of supervised release were not plain errors

requiring correction despite lack of objection); United States v.

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McKissic, 428 F.3d 719, 726 (7th Cir. 2005) (finding no plain er‐

ror where supervised release condition was imposed without

sufficient notice); United States v. Tejada, 476 F.3d 471, 475–76

(7th Cir. 2007) (finding no plain error in supervised release

condition for drug testing).

In a series of opinions beginning in 2014, our court has

taken supervised release out of the shadows and focused

spotlights upon its substance and procedures. See Kappes, 782

F.3d at 835 n.1 (collecting cases); Thompson, 777 F.3d 368;

Siegel, 753 F.3d 705. In that line of cases, we have required

more from district judges by way of explanations of super‐

vised release terms and conditions than had been customary.

We have also offered district judges a great deal of advice in

the form of suggested best practices. In that same line of cases,

we have not always followed our earlier precedents regarding

waiver and plain error. Before addressing Lewis’s claims on

appeal and the waiver and forfeiture issues, we lay out the

relevant landscape as shaped by our recent cases.

First, supervised release is an important part of a federal

criminal sentence. It is mandated in many sentences and is

imposed in the vast majority of sentences for more than one

year in prison. Kappes, 782 F.3d at 837 (supervised release im‐

posed in 99% of cases where it is not mandatory but prison

sentence exceeds one year). When it is managed well, super‐

vised release can serve the complementary goals of protecting

the public and rehabilitating an offender who is returning to

free society. Supervised release should not be an afterthought;

it deserves careful and thoughtful attention from the sentenc‐

ing judge. Thompson, 777 F.3d at 373–75.

Second, supervised release needs to be a flexible tool, and

the governing statute treats it that way. The statute provides

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for a few mandatory conditions of supervised release, and it

authorizes courts to impose additional standard and special

conditions tailored to a particular case. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d).

Conditions of supervised release announced at the begin‐

ning of a prison sentence will not take effect until the end of

the prison sentence, often many years later. In addition, a de‐

fendant’s supervised release may take place in a district other

than the sentencing court. Unlike other sentence terms, there‐

fore, the duration and conditions of supervised release may

be modified by a court “at any time prior to the expiration or

termination of the term.” § 3583(e).

This special flexibility is a key feature of supervised re‐

lease that shapes our approach to challenges to conditions of

supervised release. For example, we held in United States v.

Neal, 810 F.3d 512, 514 (7th Cir. 2016), that a defendant could

challenge conditions of release on substantive (not proce‐

dural) grounds during the term of supervised release itself.

At the same time, we also declined to take up, forthe first time

on appeal, challenges to conditions of supervised release that

the defendant had chosen not to challenge in the district court.

Id. at 521. Those were matters that needed to be raised in the

district court in the first instance.

Next, as with any terms of a sentence, the sentencing judge

must be able to explain the legal basis for a condition and how

it will serve the statutory purposes of supervised release.

Kappes, 782 F.3d at 837; Thompson, 777 F.3d at 373. The re‐

quired extent of those findings and explanations can be a sub‐

ject of endless debate, however. That problem is at the core of

Lewis’s arguments on the merits in this appeal.

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No. 14‐3635 7

In considering this and other supervised release appeals,

we remember that our criminal justice system is based on ad‐

versarial principles. The people who work in it—judges, de‐

fense lawyers, prosecutors, probation officers, and others—

are busy. They do not need to waste time treating matters that

are not disputed as if they were. To be sure, judges have duties

to oversee even matters where the adversaries agree, see

Thompson, 777 F.3d at 374, but we shape our appellate deci‐

sions to avoid forcing busy actors to waste their time on mat‐

ters that are not disputed, and not disputed for good reasons.

We also keep in mind the respective roles of the district

courts and the court of appeals with regard to sentencing in

general and supervised release in particular. Sentencing hap‐

pens in the district courts, and conditions of supervised re‐

lease require the exercise of the district court’s judgment and

discretion. The appellate court’s role is to review parties’

claims that district courts have made legal or factual errors,

and to provide a remedy where such errors have harmed the

interests of a party. Appellate review is ordinarily limited to

matters raised in the district court. There are exceptions, of

course, such as matters involving subject matter jurisdiction,

or “plain errors,” which are limited to those that are plain,

were not intentionally waived, affect substantial rights, and

seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of

judicial proceedings. Molina‐Martinez v. United States, 578 U.S.

—, 136 S. Ct. 1338, 1343 (2016); United States v. Olano, 507 U.S.

725, 732 (1993). But that is a high standard, and as we pointed

out in Silvious and Neal, a district court can fix a problem with

supervised release conditions at any time, which should make

it harder to show plain error in such conditions that must be

corrected immediately, despite the absence of objection. See

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Silvious, 512 F.3d at 371, and Neal, 810 F.3d at 514, both citing

18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(2).

We also keep in mind the costs of remands for resentenc‐

ing, especially the human costs imposed on victims. In cases

like this, where children have been victims of terrible abuse

and where even one sentencing hearing can be traumatic, that

concern is important. Where a significant and prejudicial er‐

ror requires remand and resentencing, the trauma and other

costs of resentencing may be necessary. But we should keep

those costs in mind in any quest for better findings or im‐

proved procedures, especially where the defense had ample

opportunity to address the issues at the time of sentencing

and raised no objection.

The foundation for these limits on appellate review is that

a district judge needs to ensure that parties have a fair and

genuine opportunity to raise objections in the district court.

In the context of supervised release, that means giving the

parties advance notice of contemplated terms of supervised

release or a fair opportunity to respond to unexpected devel‐

opments. E.g., Kappes, 782 F.3d at 842–43. In addition, it is im‐

portant for the district court to ensure that a sentence is not

finally imposed until the parties have been fully heard. Fed‐

eral Rule of Criminal Procedure 51(a) makes clear there is no

need for a party to state an “exception” to a court ruling that

has already been made. See, e.g., United States v. Shannon, 743

F.3d 496, 499–500 (7th Cir. 2014) (no waiver or forfeiture

where defendant failed to object to condition first raised by

district judge at hearing).

An essential consideration in virtually any appeal is

whether the alleged error by the district court caused some

sort of harm or prejudice to the appellant. See Fed. R. Crim. P.

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No. 14‐3635 9

52. Appellate judges are in the business of second‐guessing

district judges, and with careful scrutiny of most district court

records, we are capable of finding room for improvement.

Our central job, however, is to respond to the parties’ claims

of harmful error, not to go looking for errors or to invite par‐

ties to raise for the first time alleged errors that could have

been presented to the district court and corrected there. If we

forget our role, we will invite numerous avoidable and often

pointless appeals and remands by trying to fix what is not ac‐

tually broken. There are signs that our recent decisions on su‐

pervised release have invited just such appeals.

Conditions of supervised release, especially written years

earlier, will inevitably have some degree of ambiguity and

room for interpretation. Consider, for example, the difficulty

a district judge would have had in 1990 crafting appropriate

terms for restrictions on an offender’s use of a computer, to

take effect in the world of 2015 with mobile devices and much

more widespread use of the internet in a wide array of jobs.

Now consider the challenge a district judge faces today craft‐

ing such a condition likely to take effect in 2040. If we try to

remove all ambiguity on the front end of the process, we set

ourselves and our colleagues in the district courts an endless

task.

IV. The Waiver and Forfeiture Here

With these considerations in mind, we turn to the issues

raised by Lewis in this appeal. He contends first that the court

simply failed to make findings justifying the lifetime term of

supervised release and showing appropriate consideration of

the factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d) and § 3553(a). He

also objects that some of the standard and special conditions

of supervised release are too vague or otherwise burdensome

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and that the district court did not sufficiently explain its rea‐

sons for imposing them. For example, he objects to terms re‐

quiring disclosure of financial information, submitting to

searches, restricting use of computer devices, complying with

terms of sex offendertreatment programs, submitting to poly‐

graphs, banning possession of adult pornography and erot‐

ica, prohibiting unsupervised contract with children without

advance approval, and requiring employment and support of

dependents.

There were no surprises in the sentencing hearing related

to supervised release. That fact distinguishes this case from

cases in which we have declined to find waiver of objections

to unexpected conditions of supervised release. See, e.g.,

United States v. Hinds, 770 F.3d 658, 665 (7th Cir. 2014); United

States v. Farmer, 755 F.3d 849, 853 (7th Cir. 2014). In this case,

the presentence report was provided to Mr. Lewis and his

counsel weeks before sentencing. It included all the terms of

supervised release that were actually imposed. At the sen‐

tencing hearing, the court gave both sides ample opportunity

to be heard on all aspects of the decision. The defendant’s

principal concern was whetherthe prison term of the sentence

would be greater than the statutory mandatory minimum.

(On that issue, he succeeded.)

The district court did not say much about its reasons for

ordering a life term of supervised release as opposed to the

mandatory minimum five years or some other term of years.

It was clear from the entirety of the sentencing hearing,

though, that Mr. Lewis is a repeat offender who has been very

resistant to court supervision in the past. The court provided

some explanation for the terms of supervised release that are

challenged on appeal, all driven quite obviously by the nature

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No. 14‐3635 11

of the defendant’s crimes and the desire to protect the public

from further offenses.

After providing those explanations, the court asked:

“Counsel, do you have any legal objection to the sentence I

have proposed or request any further elaboration of my rea‐

sons under Section 3553(a) both as to the term of imprison‐

ment or the conditions of supervised release?” Both the pros‐

ecutor and the defense lawyer said “no.” The court then said

it would order sentence imposed as stated. App. 25.

We assume for purposes of this appeal that if the defend‐

ant had objected to some or all of these conditions or to the

adequacy of the court’s findings, the district court should

have modified the conditions or at least provided further ex‐

planations. But our focus here is on the issues of waiver and

forfeiture.

The sentencing in the district court is the main event. The

parties prepare and identify the issues they wish to address.

As we were told at oral argument, if the defense had raised

objections to the proposed terms of supervised release or to

the adequacy of the court’s findings, the government was pre‐

pared to offer substantial evidence justifying those proposed

terms and arguments to explain why they were appropriate.

When the defense did not raise those objections, the govern‐

ment saw no need to waste everyone’s time by offering evi‐

dence and arguments on matters that were not in dispute. If

we were to remand to fill in those gaps two years afterthe fact,

the lawyers, government agents, and other witnesses would

need to be reassembled and their memories refreshed. None

of that is necessary or even appropriate in light of the waiver

at the time of the original sentencing.

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The judge’s inquiry here was not a vague “anything else?”

Cf. United States v. Speed, 811 F.3d 854, 857–58 (7th Cir. 2016)

(finding no waiver where judge asked defendants whether

there was “anything unclear or confusing” and they said no).

The judge asked specifically about the extent of her explana‐

tions of the sentence in general and supervised release in par‐

ticular. Counsel raised no objections. We find that was suffi‐

cient to establish a waiver of the objections being raised for

the first time in this appeal.

The district court followed here a procedure that tracks

one we recommended to ensure that district courts address

sufficiently a defendant’s principal arguments in mitigation.

After seeing many appeals arguing that district judges did not

address mitigation arguments sufficiently, we encouraged

district judges to ask defense counsel at sentencing whether

they were satisfied that the court had addressed their argu‐

ments sufficiently. United States v. Garcia‐Segura, 717 F.3d 566,

569 (7th Cir. 2013). When a district judge asks that question

and is told that the defense is satisfied, the defense has waived

a later appellate argument that the court failed to address the

mitigation arguments sufficiently. E.g., United States v. Donelli,

747 F.3d 936, 941 (7th Cir. 2014). The same logic applies here.

Further, even if the judge’s question and lawyers’ re‐

sponses were not enough to establish an intentional relin‐

quishment of a known right needed for true waiver, the fail‐

ure to object in response to the invitation would still amount

to forfeiture of the arguments Lewis makes on appeal. Where

the issue is the sufficiency of an explanation or findings, a

meager explanation of an otherwise permissible decision does

not call into question the fairness, integrity, or public reputa‐

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No. 14‐3635 13

tion of the proceeding. Where the issue is the substantive con‐

tent or clarity or ambiguity of a supervised release term that

will not take effect for many years and that can be revised at

any time, we also see no threat to the fairness, integrity, or

public reputation of the proceedings. See 18 U.S.C.

§ 3583(e)(2); United States v. Neal, 810 F.3d at 514.

Finally, Lewis argues that there was no waiver because the

court had already made its decision, so that under Rule 51(a)

no “exception” was necessary. We disagree. The court set

forth the sentence it planned to impose and its reasons for do‐

ing so. The court then asked counsel whether they had objec‐

tions “to the sentence I have proposed” or whether they

sought further explanations. Only after both lawyers said

“no” did the court say it would order the sentence imposed

as stated. The defense had a fair opportunity to raise in the

district court all of the issues that have been raised on appeal,

and chose not to do so.

The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

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