United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit 

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No. 21-1386

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United States of America

 Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

William Soward, Jr.

 Defendant - Appellant

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Southern District of Iowa - Central 

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Submitted: January 10, 2022

Filed: April 15, 2022

[Unpublished]

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Before COLLOTON, KELLY, and KOBES, Circuit Judges. 

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PER CURIAM.
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William Soward, Jr. violated the terms of his supervised release by failing to 

register as a sex offender. The district court1 revoked his supervised release and 

imposed a below-Guidelines sentence of 9 months in prison, plus 48 months of 

supervised release. Soward appeals that sentence, arguing that it is substantively 

unreasonable. We affirm. 

“When we review the imposition of sentences, whether inside or outside the 

Guidelines range, we apply a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.” United 

States v. Feemster, 572 F.3d 455, 461 (8th Cir. 2009) (en banc) (quotation omitted). 

“A sentence may be unreasonable if the district court fails to consider a relevant 

factor which should have received significant weight; gives significant weight to an 

improper or irrelevant factor; or considers the appropriate factors but commits a clear

error of judgment.” United States v. Davis, 859 F.3d 572, 574 (8th Cir. 2017)

(quotation omitted). “[I]t is nearly inconceivable that a sentence is so high as to be 

substantively unreasonable and constitute an abuse of discretion when the district 

court imposed a below-Guidelines sentence.” United States v. Bevins, 848 F.3d 835, 

841 (8th Cir. 2017) (quotation omitted). 

 

After careful review of the record and the parties’ arguments on appeal, we 

find no basis for reversal. The transcript of the sentencing hearing demonstrates that 

the district court thoughtfully considered Soward’s mitigating factors, such as his 

negative drug tests, employment history, and drug addiction. But the court 

concluded that those mitigating factors were outweighed by his aggravating factors, 

such as not telling the Probation Office where he was living, skipping drug tests, and 

his lengthy criminal history. That is not an abuse of discretion. See United States 

v. Brown, 992 F.3d 665, 673 (8th Cir. 2021) (“[Defendant]’s assertion of substantive 

unreasonableness amounts to nothing more than a disagreement with how the district 

1

The Honorable Stephanie M. Rose, Chief Judge, United States District Court 

for the Southern District of Iowa.
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court chose to weigh the § 3553(a) factors in fashioning his sentence.”). We 

accordingly affirm the judgment of the district court.2

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2

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website, Soward was released 

from federal custody on October 18, 2021. See Find an Inmate, Fed. Bureau of 

Prisons, https://www.bop.gov/inmateloc/. Typically, this would moot his appeal. 

See United States v. Hill, 889 F.3d 953, 954 (8th Cir. 2018) (holding defendant’s 

appeal of sentence was rendered moot by his release from federal custody). 

However, Soward’s appeal challenges both his term of imprisonment and his term 

of supervised release. Accordingly, Soward’s appeal is not moot. See United States 

v. Maken, 510 F.3d 654, 656 n.3 (6th Cir. 2007) (“Even when an appellant has been 

released from custody, his case is not moot so long as the appeal potentially 

implicates the length of the appellant’s supervised release term.”) (quotation 

omitted).