United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

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No. 10-2820

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United States of America, *

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the 

* Western District of Arkansas. 

Bobby Lynn Springston, *

*

Appellant. * 

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Submitted: May 9, 2011

 Filed: August 18, 2011

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Before MURPHY, BEAM, and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges.

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COLLOTON, Circuit Judge.

Bobby Lynn Springston entered a conditional guilty plea to one count of failing

to register as a sex offender, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2250. The district court

sentenced him to 36 months’ imprisonment and 10 years’ supervised release.

Springston appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment,

and three special conditions of supervised release imposed by the district court. We

affirm Springston’s conviction, vacate the challenged special conditions of supervised

release, and remand for further proceedings.
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Springston was convicted of sexual assault in 1986 in a Texas state court. As

a result of the conviction, he was required under Texas law to register as a sex

offender for the rest of his life, and he signed a notification form to that effect on

February 11, 2008. But in February 2009, Arkansas law enforcement officers learned

that Springston was living in Arkansas, and that he was subject to arrest for failure to

register as a sex offender based on outstanding warrants from Texas. Following

Springston’s arrest on the Texas warrants, an official with the Arkansas sex offender

registry determined that Springston had not registered as required as a sex offender

in Arkansas.

A federal grand jury returned a one-count indictment charging Springston with

knowingly failing to register as a sex offender in Arkansas, as required under the Sex

Offender Registration and Notification Act (“SORNA”), after traveling in interstate

commerce. The district court denied Springston’s motion to dismiss the indictment,

and he entered a conditional plea of guilty. The district court sentenced Springston

to 36 months’ imprisonment, to be served consecutively to two undischarged Texas

state-court sentences, and 10 years’ supervised release with special conditions.

Springston objected at the sentencing hearing to four of the special conditions of

supervised release, but the district court overruled Springston’s objections.

On appeal, Springston challenges the denial of his motion to dismiss the

indictment. He argues that Congress exceeded its power under the Commerce Clause

in enacting 42 U.S.C. § 16913, which requires that a sex offender register in the

jurisdiction in which he resides, and 18 U.S.C. § 2250, which makes failure to register

a federal offense. He also contends that, as a matter of law, he could not have

knowingly failed to register under SORNA, because he was not notified of SORNA’s

registration requirement. And he argues that because he was not so notified,

application of SORNA to his conduct violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth

Amendment. Finally, he asserts that SORNA violates the non-delegation doctrine by

authorizing the Attorney General to determine its scope. Springston concedes,
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however, that the foregoing arguments are foreclosed by our precedent. See United

States v Zuniga, 579 F.3d 845, 850-51 (8th Cir. 2009) (per curiam), cert. denied, 130

S. Ct. 3384 (2010) (defendant in Springston’s position lacks standing to challenge

SORNA under the non-delegation doctrine); United States v. Baccam, 562 F.3d 1197,

1198-1200 (8th Cir. 2009) (notice of state registration requirements satisfies the

“knowingly” element); United States v. Howell, 552 F.3d 709, 717 (8th Cir. 2009)

(§ 16913 is constitutional under the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper

Clause); United States v. May, 535 F.3d 912, 921 (8th Cir. 2008) (notice of state

registration requirements satisfies due process); id. at 921-22 (§ 2250 is constitutional

under the Commerce Clause). Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s denial of the

motion to dismiss the indictment.

Springston also renews challenges to three of the special conditions of his

supervised release: special condition 2, which prohibits him from having

unsupervised contact with minors; special condition 3, which provides that he may not

access the Internet without prior approval from the probation office and may not have

Internet access at his residence; and special condition 6, which requires that he submit

to mental health testing or treatment with an emphasis on sex offender treatment, as

deemed necessary and directed by a probation officer. We review the special

conditions for abuse of discretion. United States v. Durham, 618 F.3d 921, 933 (8th

Cir. 2010).

A district court has broad discretion to impose special conditions of supervised

release, so long as each condition complies with the requirements set forth in 18

U.S.C. § 3583(d). United States v. Davis, 452 F.3d 991, 994 (8th Cir. 2006). Section

3583(d) first requires that a special condition must be reasonably related to the nature

and circumstances of the offense of conviction, the defendant’s history and

characteristics, the deterrence of criminal conduct, the protection of the public from

further crimes of the defendant, and the defendant’s educational, vocational, medical,

or other correctional needs. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)(1); see id. § 3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(B)-
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(D). A special condition need not be related to all the factors; the factors are to be

weighed independently. United States v. Camp, 410 F.3d 1042, 1046 (8th Cir. 2005).

Second, a special condition also must involve no greater deprivation of liberty than

is reasonably necessary to deter criminal conduct, to protect the public from further

crimes of the defendant, and to provide for the defendant’s educational, vocational,

medical, and other correctional needs. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)(2); see id.

§ 3553(a)(2)(B)-(D). Finally, a special condition must be consistent with any

pertinent policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission. Id. § 3583(d)(3).

In fashioning a special condition of supervised release, a court “must make an

individualized inquiry into the facts and circumstances underlying a case and make

sufficient findings on the record so as ‘to ensure that the special condition satisfies the

statutory requirements.’” United States v. Wiedower, 634 F.3d 490, 493 (8th Cir.

2011) (quoting United States v. Curry, 627 F.3d 312, 315 (8th Cir. 2010) (per

curiam)).

Springston argues that the district court abused its discretion by imposing

special conditions 2, 3, and 6, because they do not comply with any of the

requirements in § 3583 and are not supported by particularized findings. The

government concedes that the district court erred by imposing special condition 3, and

we agree. The record, as the government describes it, is “devoid of evidence that

[Springston] has ever used a computer for any purpose.” We therefore vacate special

condition 3.

We likewise conclude that the district court abused its discretion by imposing

special conditions 2 and 6 without adequate explanation. The court’s only statement

regarding the need for those special conditions came in response to Springston’s

objections at the sentencing hearing. At that point, the court said that “Mr.

Springston’s history as a sex offender justifies all of those conditions.” 
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Our cases say that a court may impose a special condition on the ground that

it is related to a defendant’s prior offense, see United States v. Smart, 472 F.3d 556,

559 (8th Cir. 2006), but that a court “may not impose a special condition on all those

found guilty of a particular offense.” Davis, 452 F.3d at 995. The court must

“conduct an inquiry ‘on an individualized basis,’ looking at the specific facts of the

defendant’s criminal history and his particular offenses,” and make “a particularized

showing of the need for the condition in each case.” United States v. Kelly, 625 F.3d

516, 520 (8th Cir. 2010) (quoting Davis, 452 F.3d at 995). We applied this

proposition in United States v. Bender, 566 F.3d 748 (8th Cir. 2009), where the

district court explained that it imposed a special condition barring the defendant from

possessing sexually stimulating material because “sex offenders need to have a very

tight rein,” and because “a sex offender doesn’t have any business looking at Playboy

magazine.” Id. at 752. This court held that because the district court considered the

defendant as “part of a class” of persons convicted of sex offenses, its findings in

support of the special condition were “not sufficiently particularized to the defendant.”

Id.

At some point, there must be a limit to the need for an individualized inquiry,

because certain characteristics may justify corresponding conditions for virtually all

offenders with such characteristics, but the court’s discussion here was insufficient.

The court said during the sentencing hearing that there was “no indication” that

Springston will “get into any further sex-related offenses,” and then made no findings

particular to Springston regarding the need for the conditions. Springston’s prior

offense did not involve a minor, and there was nothing in the record suggesting that

Springston was a risk to reoffend against adults. The court simply did not explain

why it believed that Springston’s twenty-five-year-old conviction justified the

conditions. See United States v. Scott, 270 F.3d 632, 634, 636 (8th Cir. 2001). It may

be that similar special conditions could be justified in a case involving failure to

register as a sex offender, such as when there is reason to believe that the failure to

register evidences recalcitrance and an ongoing proclivity to commit sexual crimes,
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but the district court expressly stated that this is not such a case. We therefore vacate

special conditions 2 and 6.

* * *

We affirm the judgment of conviction, vacate special conditions 2, 3, and 6, and

remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

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