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Parties Involved:
Jerome Hart
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 19-4460

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

JEROME HART,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Rock 

Hill. Margaret B. Seymour, Senior District Judge. (0:10-cr-01074-MBS-1)

Submitted: February 26, 2020 Decided: March 9, 2020 

Before DIAZ, THACKER, and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

James P. Rogers, Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL 

PUBLIC DEFENDER, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellant. Sherri A. Lydon, United 

States Attorney, Winston D. Holliday, Jr., Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF 

THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

While Jerome Hart was on supervised release following his conviction and 78-

month sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, the probation 

officer issued a petition for warrant or summons alleging that Hart violated his supervised 

release terms by committing new criminal conduct. Hart did not contest the alleged 

violations and admitted that he had been convicted in South Carolina on various charges. 

The district court revoked Hart’s supervision and sentenced him to 24 months of 

imprisonment to be followed by 1 year of supervised release. Hart challenges his sentence, 

contending that the district court erred in its application of the Sentencing Guidelines and 

should have adjusted his revocation sentence to account for the time he served on the state 

court charges that comprised his violations. We affirm.

In determining whether the district court properly applied the Guidelines, “we 

review the court’s factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo.” United 

States v. Allen, 446 F.3d 522, 527 (4th Cir. 2006). In the context of supervised release 

revocation, the Guidelines provide that a revocation sentence “shall be ordered to be served 

consecutively to any other sentence of imprisonment that the defendant is serving.” U.S. 

Sentencing Guidelines Manual (USSG) § 7B1.3(f), p.s. (2018). Hart argues, however, that 

because he was not serving a state sentence at the time of his revocation hearing—he had 

completed his sentence—this provision does not apply, and a consecutive sentence was in 

error. Rather, Hart argues that the court should have applied USSG § 5G1.3(b)(1), which 

directs the district court to adjust a term of imprisonment on the instant offense when a 

defendant is sentenced to a term of imprisonment for an offense that is relevant conduct 

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for the instant offense. Hart contends that, applying this Guideline, the court should have 

adjusted his revocation sentence to account for the 24 months he served on the state charges 

that formed the offense conduct for his supervised release violations. 

Section 5G1.3(b) applies to an initial sentencing when relevant conduct is made part 

of the analysis in determining the Guidelines sentence for the offense. Guideline 

§ 5G1.3(d), p.s., provides, however, that a sentence “may be imposed to run concurrently, 

partially concurrently, or consecutively to [a] prior undischarged term of imprisonment to 

achieve reasonable punishment.” This subsection “applies in cases in which the defendant 

was on federal . . . supervised release at the time of the . . . offense and has had such . . . 

supervised release revoked.” USSG § 5G1.3 cmt. n.4(C). Section 5G1.3’s commentary 

recommends “that the sentence for the . . . offense be imposed consecutively to the sentence 

imposed for the revocation.” USSG § 5G1.3 cmt. n.4(A), (C). Similarly, USSG § 7B1.3(f), 

p.s., states that a “term of imprisonment imposed upon the revocation of . . . supervised 

release shall be ordered to be served consecutively to any sentence of imprisonment that 

the defendant is serving, whether or not the sentence of imprisonment being served resulted 

from the conduct that is the basis of the revocation.” 

The Chapter Seven policy statements are advisory. United States v. Davis, 53 F.3d 

638, 640-41 & n.6 (4th Cir. 1995). And, district courts have the “discretion to select 

whether the sentences they impose will run concurrently or consecutively with respect to 

other sentences that they impose, or that have been imposed in other proceedings.” 

Setser v. United States, 566 U.S. 231, 236 (2012). Here, the district court noted that Hart’s 

violations “constitute very serious violations [of] his supervised release,” and emphasized 

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the need for Hart “to serve his time on the state charge and also serve his time on the 

revocation.” 

Sentences for breaches of supervised release are meant to sanction the abuse of the 

court’s trust inherent in those violations, and not to punish the underlying offense conduct. 

United States v. Woodrup, 86 F.3d 359, 361 (4th Cir. 1996) (explaining that sentence 

imposed upon revocation punishes the defendant for failing to abide by the conditions of 

the court-ordered supervision and is separate from the sentence imposed for the new 

criminal conduct that led to the revocation). Therefore, sentences for the violation of 

supervised release are intended to run consecutively to sentences imposed for the 

underlying conduct. See USSG § 7B1.3(f), p.s. Accordingly, we find no error in the district 

court’s decision to decline to adjust Hart’s revocation sentence to account for time served 

for the criminal conduct which formed the basis for the violation. See United States v. 

Coombs, 857 F.3d 439, 451 (1st Cir. 2017) (noting that where “conduct committed by a 

person while on supervised release transgresses the criminal law as well as the conditions 

of supervision, there is no legal impediment in sentencing the defendant both as a criminal 

and as a supervised release violator” and no legal impediment to imposing a consecutive 

sentence; otherwise, “a defendant would effectively escape meaningful punishment for 

violating his supervised release conditions”).

We discern no abuse of discretion by the district court in imposing a 24-month term 

of imprisonment upon revocation of Hart’s supervised release. We therefore conclude that 

Hart’s sentence was not unreasonable, much less “plainly unreasonable.” See United 

States v. Webb, 738 F.3d 638, 640 (4th Cir. 2013) (providing standard); United States v. 

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Crudup, 461 F.3d 433, 437 (4th Cir 2006). Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s 

judgment. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are 

adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the 

decisional process.

AFFIRMED

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