Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-04-03377/USCOURTS-ca8-04-03377-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Darrell Coleman
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

1

The Honorable Susan Webber Wright, Chief Judge, United States District

Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 04-3377

___________

United States of America, *

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the Eastern 

* District of Arkansas.

Darrell Coleman, *

* [PUBLISHED]

Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: March 14, 2005

Filed: April 25, 2005

___________

Before MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, BOWMAN, and GRUENDER, Circuit

Judges.

___________

PER CURIAM.

Darrell Coleman appeals the revocation by the district court1

 of his term of

supervised release and the sentence of nine months that the court imposed upon him

for violating the conditions of his release. We affirm.

Mr. Coleman challenges the district court's order only on constitutional

grounds, arguing that the logic of Blakely v. Washington, 124 S. Ct. 2531 (2004),

Appellate Case: 04-3377 Page: 1 Date Filed: 04/25/2005 Entry ID: 1895009
-2-

renders the United States Sentencing Guidelines unconstitutional as well as his ninemonth sentence. Although the Supreme Court did hold the Sentencing Reform Act

unconstitutional after the appellant filed his brief, United States v. Booker, 125 S. Ct.

738, 758, 764-65 (2005), the Court did not discard the guidelines wholesale. Instead,

it excised from the Sentencing Reform Act only those provisions that made

application of the sentencing guidelines mandatory and thus were contrary to the sixth

amendment. Id. at 764. Among the remaining provisions of the Sentencing Reform

Act that the Court recognized as constitutionally valid was the supervised release

statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3583. Id.

Indeed, the advisory sentencing guidelines scheme that Booker creates, id. at

750, 764-66, is precisely what prevailed before Booker with respect to fixing

penalties for violating the kind of release conditions that Mr. Coleman violated by not

obtaining employment. In such circumstances, § 3583 leaves to the discretion of the

district judge the decision to revoke a term of supervised release and impose

imprisonment, provided the judge takes into account the relevant considerations set

out in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3); see also U.S.S.G. ch. 7,

pt. A(1), A(2)(b), A(3)(a). Therefore Mr. Coleman's constitutional challenge fails.

Affirmed.

______________________________

Appellate Case: 04-3377 Page: 2 Date Filed: 04/25/2005 Entry ID: 1895009