# United States Court of Appeals **For the Eighth Circuit**

___________________________ No. 15-2213

___________________________ United States of America lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee

v. Karina Carrasco lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant

____________ Appeal from United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri - Kansas City

____________ Submitted: February 11, 2016 Filed: March 4, 2016 [Unpublished]

____________ Before LOKEN, ARNOLD, and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

____________ PER CURIAM. Karina Carrasco appeals the district court's 1 revocation of her supervised release and her resulting sentence. We affirm.

1 The Honorable Greg Kays, Chief Judge, United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri.Carrasco pleaded guilty to importing marijuana, see 21 U.S.C. §§ 952(a) and 960(b)(4), and began serving a term of supervised releas e following her imprisonment. Carrasco's supervised release was conditioned on her refraining from unlawfully using controlled substances, and Carrasco was required to wear sweat patches that could detect her use of them. After several of her patches tested ne gative for controlled substances, no fewer than nine subs equent patches tested positive for methamphetamine. Carrasco, who denied any drug use, then paid to ha ve hair and nail samples collected and tested. The reco rd shows that a hair test could detect illegal substances between 14 and 90 days after their use, but we have found nothing in the record that reveals the corresponding detection range for a nail test. Both samples tested negative for illegal substances, including methamphetami ne. But five more sweat patches tested positive for methamphetamine in the followi ng months, and the district court revoked Carrasco's supervised release based on the methamphetamine-positive tests. The district court may revoke supervis ed release "if the government proves by a preponderance of the evidence that the de fendant violated a condition of supervised release." United States v. Boyd , 792 F.3d 916, 919 (8th Cir. 2015). We review the district court's findings of fact for clear error. Id. Carrasco maintains that the district c ourt clearly erred by giving more weight to the fourteen methamphetamine-positive sweat patches than to the methamphetamine-negative hair and nail samp les. She argues, essentially, that since the evidence is in equipoise, the district court erred in finding that it preponderated in the government's favor. But the evidence is not in equipoise: We have explained that sweat patches are generally re liable in detecting drug use and that hair tests are not, United States v. Meyer , 483 F.3d 865, 869–70 (8th Cir. 2007), and evidence of the general accuracy and reliability of hair and nail tests is w holly absent from the present record. Although "[t]here may well be certain instances where offenders offer -2-compelling reasons to believe that positiv e test results from sweat patches are erroneous," id. at 869, Carrasco offers no convi ncing explanation for these positive results. She provides nothing beyond her uns upported denials of drug use and the results of her hair and nail te sts. We also note that the hair and nail samples were not taken on the same days as any of the patch tests, so there is no necessary conflict between the tests so far as the record goes. And Carrasco does not argue that there is. Even if we assumed that the hair a nd nail tests cast some doubt on the validity of the positive sweat-patch test s that preceded them, those te sts could have little if any similar effect on the results of sweat patche s tested later or outsi de the hair and nail tests' detection ranges. "One time, at least in the context of probation, is one time too many." Id. at 871. We therefore cannot say th at "we have a definite and firm conviction that the District Court was mist aken" in finding that the government proved by a preponderance of the evidence that Carrasco violated a condition of her supervised release. See Boyd , 792 F.3d at 919. Carrasco also maintains that the distri ct court's sentence of twelve months' imprisonment followed by five additional years of supervised release is substantively unreasonable. Carrasco's Guidelines senten cing range was three to nine months' imprisonment and up to life of supervised release, and sh e faced a statutory maximum sentence of 24 months' imprisonment. We review the substantive reasonablene ss of a revocation sentence for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Goodon , 742 F.3d 373, 376 (8th Cir. 2014). Carrasco does not explain how the district court abus ed its discretion: She contends only that the punishment is excessive and unreasonable. But the sentence is well within statutory limits, and the district court reviewed and applied the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) sentencing factors, giving particular atten tion to protecting the public and Carrasco's refusal to acknowledge her drug problem. Th e sentence is therefore well within the

-3-district court's discretion. See United States v. Larison , 432 F.3d 921, 922–24 (8th Cir. 2006). Affirmed.

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