In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 19-2254 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v.

TRAVIS J. BARRETT, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Indiana, Hammond Division. 

No. 2:17-cr-00001 — Joseph S. Van Bokkelen, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED OCTOBER 6, 2020 — DECIDED NOVEMBER 30, 2020 

____________________ 

Before WOOD, BRENNAN, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges. 

SCUDDER, Circuit Judge. In United States v. Flores, we addressed ambiguity in our case law by announcing a clear and 

precise rule for resolving the all-too-common circumstance of 

a criminal defendant contending for the first time on appeal 

that a condition of supervised release is unconstitutionally 

vague, despite having received notice of all proposed conditions before sentencing and then availing himself of the opportunity to object to other conditions. We held such a course 
2 No. 19-2254 

of action constitutes waiver, rendering the challenge unreviewable on appeal. This principle requires us to affirm Travis 

Barrett’s sentence here. 

I 

In 2016 federal authorities found Barrett with nearly 

15,000 images and 2,450 videos of child pornography. A 

search of his computer also turned up a “Pedophile’s Handbook.” Barrett responded to the ensuing federal charges by 

pleading guilty to possessing child pornography. He did so 

pursuant to a plea agreement with a provision waiving any 

appellate challenge “on any ground” to “all components” of 

his sentence. Barrett confirmed that he understood the waiver 

during his plea colloquy. The district court sentenced Barrett

to 97 months’ imprisonment followed by 10 years of supervised release. 

Barrett now contends that the district court violated his 

First Amendment rights by imposing a condition of supervised release that will prevent him from viewing any material 

depicting “sexually explicit conduct,” defined in 18 U.S.C. 

§ 2256(2) to include adult pornography. But Barrett never 

raised this challenge at sentencing, despite having a full and 

fair chance to do so. How this happened is worth explaining, 

for we have seen this exact course of conduct many times in 

recent years and have sought to bring its recurrence to an end. 

Barrett confirmed at sentencing that he had not only received advance notice of all 34 proposed conditions of supervised release, but also discussed them with his counsel. He 

waived a public reading of each condition. From there the district court invited any objections, and Barrett responded with 

several. The objections resulted in a colloquy with the district 
No. 19-2254 3

court and ended with rulings on each challenged condition. 

The process, in short, worked as designed: Barrett raised objections and explained his positions, the government responded with its views, and the district court ruled on the 

challenges one at a time. The district judge even took care to 

invite further challenges to prevent Barrett from waiving any 

lingering objection. 

At no point during or in advance of sentencing, however, 

did Barrett or his counsel utter a word about Condition 31. 

Perhaps foregoing an objection was an oversight by Barrett

and his counsel. Mistakes happen. Or perhaps passing on the 

objection reflected sound strategy, for it is easy to see why a 

defendant standing before a district court for sentencing on a 

sexual offense against children would find it unwise to express future interest in viewing adult pornography. Whatever 

the explanation, the record is clear: Barrett expressed no reservation with, and asked no questions about, Condition 31. 

In these circumstances, and separate and apart from the 

broad appellate waiver he agreed to in his plea agreement, 

Barrett runs headlong into the rule we announced in United 

States v. Flores: a waiver of an objection to a condition of supervised release occurs “when the defendant has notice of the 

proposed conditions, a meaningful opportunity to object, and 

she asserts (through counsel or directly) that she does not object to the proposed conditions, waives reading of those conditions and their justifications, challenges certain conditions 

but not the one(s) challenged on appeal, or otherwise evidences an intentional or strategic decision not to object.” 

929 F.3d 443, 450 (7th Cir. 2019). Every condition identified in 

Flores is present here, and that reality forecloses our review of 

Barrett’s belated challenge to Condition 31. 
4 No. 19-2254 

That Barrett contests Condition 31 in the name of the First 

Amendment is of no moment. Pointing to United States v. Adkins, 743 F.3d 176 (7th Cir. 2014), he argues that we have permitted challenges to conditions that touch on First Amendment rights, even where those challenges would be otherwise 

waived. Barrett misunderstands our holding. We do not read 

Adkins as creating a general, open-ended First Amendment 

exception to our waiver doctrine, and certainly not after our 

clarifying decision in Flores. We have since underscored that 

Flores “was not a mistaken fluke—it is controlling law.” United 

States v. Anderson, 948 F.3d 910, 912 (7th Cir. 2020). 

Whatever remains of any First Amendment exception posited by Adkins is a question we save for another day. What is 

plain beyond debate here is that Barrett waived his challenge 

to Condition 31 by not presenting it to the district court. 

Make no mistake about our holding. In no way are we saying that criminal defendants cannot challenge conditions of 

supervised release as unconstitutionally vague. They surely 

can (and do), and our doors remain open to considering such 

challenges if defendants take care to present the issue to the 

district court in the first instance. 

II 

We close by responding to Barrett’s assignment of fault to 

his counsel for failing to challenge Condition 31 before or during sentencing. Barrett notes that at one point his counsel 

could not answer a question from the court because he was 

“still in shock” at the 97-month sentence. This claim sounds 

in ineffective assistance of counsel—a claim Barrett’s plea 

agreement authorizes him to pursue under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 

should he wish to do so. See United States v. Cates, 950 F.3d 
No. 19-2254 5

453, 457 (7th Cir. 2020). We have repeatedly reminded criminal defendants that collateral review, not direct appeal, is far 

and away the proper and best channel for raising an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. See, e.g., id. at 456–57 (collecting cases emphasizing the same point). 

For these reasons, we AFFIRM.