UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

________________ _________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee,

v. BRIAN JOSEPH NIELSEN, Defendant - Appellant. No. 21-8087 (D.C. No. 1:10-CR -00193-SWS-1) (D. Wyo.)

________________ _________________ ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

________________ _________________ Before HARTZ , BACHARACH , and EID , Circuit Judges.

________________ _________________ Defendant Brian Joseph Nielsen plead ed guilty in 2010 to one count of interstate shipment of child pornography. One of the conditions of his supervised release prohibited him from accessing “porno graphic, sexually oriented, or sexually stimulating” materials. R., Vol. 1 at 20. After this court in United States v. Koch , 978 F.3d 719, 722–23 n.1 (10th Cir. 2020), raised concerns about the potential overbreadth of this language, the district court issued a genera l order in November 2020 stating that it amended the conditions of release of all defendants throughout the district who had the same supervis ed-release condition as Defendant. The only

* This order and judgment is not bi nding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judica ta, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consiste nt with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. FILED United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit 

### August 10, 2022 Christopher M. Wolpert Clerk of Court Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 12 change relevant to this case is that the new language narrowed the condition to encompass only depictions of sexually exp licit material, as defined by 18 U.S.C. § 2256(2)(A). 1 Defendant’s supervised release was revoked in November 2021 after the district court found that he had committed four violations of the conditions of his supervised release. Two of his alleged violations were of the modified sexualmaterial condition. On appeal from the di strict court’s revoca tion order, he argues that those violations should have been dismissed be cause the court failed to make certain necessary findings before modify ing his sexual-material condition in the general order, rendering the condition unl awful. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affi rm. A defendant cannot ch allenge a revocation of supervised release on the ground that a condition of supervised release was not supported by adequate findings at the time it was imposed.
I. BACKGROUND In 2010 Defendant was indicted in the United States Distri ct Court for the District of Wyoming on three counts of interstate shipme nt of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(1) and (b)(1 ), and one count of possession of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B ) and (b)(2). The alleged

1 The revised condition also prohibite d accessing child pornography, as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 22 56(8), and material containing the obscene visual representation of the sexual abuse of childre n, as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 1466A. But these provisions are not at issue on appeal. Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 23 conduct was that on three sepa rate occasions he sent im ages and videos of child pornography to an undercover police officer from New Ha mpshire (posing online as an 18-year-old male from Massachusetts ) who was investigating child abuse and online exploitation of children. When the officer received the emails, he captured the sender’s IP address and was able to determ ine that it was assi gned to Brian Nielsen of Mills, Wyoming. Law-enforcement of ficers in Wyoming obtained a warrant to search Defendant’s residence in Mills. They seized Defe ndant’s computer and three USB flash drives, which cont ained hundreds of videos and thousands of images, including photographs of an adolescent boy who appeared to be an inmate at the detention facility where Defendant had worked. During questioning at the police department, Defendant admitted to se nding and possessing ch ild pornography and said that he had been working as an activiti es director for the Boys and Girls Club of America for the past year. Defendant reached an agreement to plead guilty to one count of interstate shipment in exchange for dismissal of the other counts. The district court 2 sentenced Defendant to 135 months’ imprisonment and a life term of supervised release, noting the “chilling” nature of the crimes perpetra ted on the victims depicted in the images. R., Vol. 3 at 63. One of the conditions of supervised release prohibited Defendant from possessing any “pornographic, sexually oriented, or sexually stimulating”

2 Then-Chief Judge William F. Downes was assigned to Defendant’s case at the time of sentencing. He retired from judicial service on July 24, 2011. On February 4, 2020, the case was reassigned to Chief Judge Scott W. Skavdahl. Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 34 material. R., Vol. 1 at 20. 3 Defense counsel did not object to either the condition or the adequacy of the district court’s justification for it . Defendant did not appeal. In January 2020, one month after Defe ndant was released on supervision, a probation officer filed a Petition for Wa rrant or Summons for Offender Under Supervision alleging that Defendant committe d four violations of his conditions of supervised release, including one violation of his sexual- material condition. At the hearing on the charges the government ag reed to dismiss Defendant’s alleged violation of his sexual-mate rial condition and he admitte d the other violations. He was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment and 15 years of supervised release. The district court also ordered that Defendant “comply with all conditions of supervision previously imposed.” Id. at 31. In October 2020 this court decided Koch , 978 F.3d 719, in which we held that a district court plainly erred by imposi ng at sentencing a special condition of supervised release limiting access to “sexual materials that fall within the ambit of

3 The condition provided: The defendant shall not possess, se nd or receive any pornographic, sexually oriented, or sexually stimula ting visual, auditory, telephonic or electronic signs, signals or sounds from any source, unless part of a treatment regimen. He shall not visit bulletin boards, chat rooms or other Internet sites where any pornographic, sexually oriented or sexually stimulating images or messages are disc ussed. He shall not send or receive e-mail or other documents discussing any pornographic, sexually oriented, or sexually stimulating images or messages. R., Vol. 1 at 20. Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 45 the First Amendment” without first fi nding that the condition was supported by compelling and particular ized justifications. Id. at 729; see id. at 724–28. The condition at issue in Koch (which also originated in the District of Wyoming) was virtually identical to Defenda nt’s sexual-material conditi on. Although the challenge
in Koch was directed at the ade quacy of the procedures em ployed by the district court in imposing the condition—and not at “any substantive aspects of the condition,” id. at 722 n.1—this court noted the “exceedi ngly broad nature” of the condition in rejecting the government’s implied request to view the condition as “a restriction on pornography alone,” id. at 722–23 n.1. The United States District Court for the District of Wyoming responded promptly to our decision in Koch . On November 3, 2020, Chief Judge Scott W. Skavdahl sua sponte issued a “General Order Ame nding Sexual Material Prohibition Special Condition of Supervised Release, ” which sought to address “concerns regarding the breadth of material potentially encompassed by the [ Koch ] special condition.” General Order 2020-13 at 1 (the General Order). 4 The order purported to “amend[] all Special Conditions of Supervised Release” that were identical to Defendant’s sexual-material c ondition to read as follows: The defendant shall not access, posse ss, send or receive any material that depicts sexually explicit conduct as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 2256(2)(A) in any format, including but not limited to images, books, writings, drawings, video games, or visual depi ction of such conduct as defined in

4 General Order 2020-13 is publicly availabl e on the district court’s website at https://www.wyd.uscourts.gov/sites/wyd/ files/General%20Order%202020-13.pdf (last accessed July 11, 2022). Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 56 18 U.S.C. § 2256(5); any material constituting or containing child pornography as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 2256(8), or any material constituting or containing the obscene visual re presentation of the sexual abuse of children as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 1 466A. The defendant shall not visit bulletin boards, chat rooms, or othe r Internet sites where any material referenced above is discussed. Id. at 1–2. The General Order was not entered on Defendant’s docket, but it directed the probation office to “advise all Defendant s to whom this am endment applies or will apply upon being place[d] on Supervised Release.” Id. at 2. Defendant does not contend that he lacked no tice of the General Order. In June 2021 a probation officer reported that Defendant “accessed pornography in March 2021” and then “acces sed pornographic, se xually oriented and sexually stimulating material through a variety of applicat ions between May 1, 2021, [and] May 31, 2021.” R., Vol. 1 at 33. Defe ndant consented to a modification of his supervised-release conditions that prohib ited him from accessing the internet on any device for 90 days. He acknowledged in his c onsent form that he would be required to “abide by all the conditions previously imposed during the period of Supervised Release.” Id. at 34. The record does not reflect any mention of the General Order. In August 2021 the present proceedi ngs to revoke Defendant’s term of supervised release were in itiated. A probation officer reported that Defendant committed six violations of his superv ised-release conditions, including several violations of the sexual-ma terial condition as it appear s modified in the General Order. As relevant here, Violation 1 charged that De fendant “view[ed] movies depicting sexual acts that showed full a dult male nudity, mast urbation, and sex.” Id. Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 67 at 40. Violation 5 charged that Defendant was in possession of a diary containing a handwritten story that described a dream of a sexually explicit interaction between him and another adult man. And Violation 6 stemmed from Defendant’s admission that he viewed adult pornography on his cell phone. The initial revocation hearing was held on October 15, 2021. At the beginning of the hearing, defense counsel informed th e court that the government had agreed to dismiss Defendant’s violations of his sexual-material c ondition in exchange for his admitting two other violations . As the district court qu estioned Defendant about the factual basis for one viola tion—contact with a minor outside the presence of an approved adult—Defendant denied the allega tion that he was alone with the minor and would admit only that he made contact in the presen ce of an unapproved adult. The district court decided to continue the revocation hearing, stating, “[G]iven the nature of the allegations in this matter and given the circ umstances and the history of this Defendant, I am not willing to accept a dismissal of the ot her charges and the violations[.]” R., Vol. 3 at 89. On October 27, before the next heari ng, the government and Defendant filed a joint motion to dismiss the three charges of violations of the sexual-material condition (Violations 1, 5, and 6). The basi s for the motion was that “there [were] no particularized findings justifying the im position of the underlying sexual materials special condition on [Defendant ]”—referring to the cond ition as modified by the General Order. R., Vol. 1 at 43. The parties stated, “Based on Koch and the availability of an as-applied challenge to the sexual materials special condition, the Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 78 parties believe that this court must make the findings required by Koch before it enforces the sexual materials spec ial condition against [Defendant].” Id. at 46. A second revocation hearing was held on November 2. Defense counsel reiterated his Koch -based argument that it was unlawful to modify the sexualmaterial condition without individualized fi ndings. He also argued that the General Order unlawfully modified the condition w ithout a hearing. At issue was Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32.1(c), whic h provides that “the court must hold a hearing” before modifying conditions of supervised release, Fed. R. Crim. P. 32.1(c)(1), unless, as releva nt here, “(B) the relief sought is favorable to the person and does not extend the term of probation or of supervised release; and (C) an attorney for the government has received notice of the relief sought, has had a reasonable opportunity to object, and has not done so,” id. 32.1(c)(2). Defendant argued that this exception to the hearing requirement was inapplicable because (1) “no relief was sought” and (2) “this was not a modification that was favorable to [Defendant] as it continued to curtail cons titutionally protected materials that he has a right to and not be limited by this Cour t without specific findi ngs supporting such curtailing of his fundamental rights.” R., Vol. 3 at 105. Finally, defense counsel argued that the modified condition was unlaw ful as applied to th e conduct underlying two of Defendant’s violations: [I]f that modified condition is app lied [to Violation Number 1], it’s improper because the definition of “sexually explicit” would preclude [Defendant] from accessing movies th at have artistic value that the average person, applying a contem porary community standard, would not find that it appeals to a prurie nt interest and that nothing in the Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 89 movies that he was viewing that ar e the basis for Violation Number 1— there’s nothing in them that is pate ntly offensive. And in fact, when taken on the whole, they have serious artistic value. So as applied, . . . we’d ask th e Court to dismiss Violation 1 on that basis . . . ; and we’d also ask the Court to dismiss Number 5 based on the fact that it is—keeping a di ary is a protected First Amendment activity and that this—application of any modified condition like this would go well beyond the scope of what would be reasonable or necessary in regards to the sentencing factors. Id. at 106–07. The district court denied the motion to dismiss Violations 1 and 6. With respect to the Koch -based challenge, the court found that “additional information and findings were not required to preclude the scope of information and materials that were limited by the special condition.” Id. at 112. The court also rejected the notion that a hearing was required under Rule 32.1( c) before modifying the sexual-material condition through the General Order, ruli ng that Defendant received a favorable modification that “narro w[ed] the restriction.” Id. at 109. This ruling is not challenged on appeal. 5 With respect to the as-applied challenges, the district court dismissed Violation 5 concerning the diary entry as it presented a “colorable issue” but let the remaining vi olations go forward. Id. at 112. Two of Defendant’s probati on officers testified at the November 2 hearing. Officer Aundrea Hines supervised Defendant from the beginning of his most recent

5 Nowhere in Defendant’s briefs does he argue that a hearing was required under Rule 32.1(c). He characterizes th e original sexual-material condition as “stricter” than the modified c ondition. Aplt. Reply Br. at 6. Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 910 term of supervised release until June 2021. According to Officer Hines, Defendant reported that “if he starts viewing pornogr aphy, it can oftentimes lead him down to viewing child pornography, specifica lly involving, usually, young boys.” Id. at 173. Officer Shelby Heatherly, who supervised Defendant from June until August 2021, similarly recalled that Defendant “talked about the consequences of continuing to look at porn or sexually oriented material , which included his st ance that it was a progression, and it got worse the more he kind of fed into his addiction.” Id. at 133–
34. At a final revocation hearing on November 19, the district court found that Defendant had committed Violations 1 a nd 6 of the modified sexual-material condition (in addition to the two other vi olations Defendant admitted). The court prefaced its findings with a discussion of Defendant’s history and characteristics, including (i) the conduct underl ying his 2011 sentence; (ii) a clinical interview from June 2012 in which “Defenda nt described . . . that, quote, I got on my computer, looked at legal porn and then child porn. I sought it out, and it was not accidental,” id. at 221; and (iii) the testimony of the probation officers from the November 2 hearing. The court reiterated its rejection of Defendant’s Koch argument, adding that “at least since revocation in February of 2020,” the reco rd in this case “supported imposing the [sexual-material] Special Condition.” Id. at 227. Also, the district court rejected Defendant’s as-applie d challenge to Violation 1, noting the graphic nature of the material accessed by Defendant. Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 1011 The district court imposed a 14-month sentence, followed by 15 years of supervised release. It comme nted that a sentence of 12 months and one day would be appropriate if it erred with respect to the two violati ons of the sexual-material condition. Defendant filed a not ice of appeal of the revoca tion order that same day.
II. ANALYSIS Defendant’s sole argument on appeal is that the two remaining violations of his sexual-material conditi on—Violations 1 a nd 6—“should have been dismissed because the district court fa iled to make particulariz ed findings, at the time it imposed the applicable special condition, as to whether the intrusion on [his] fundamental First Amendmen t right was justified by co mpelling circumstances.” Aplt. Br. at 1–2. As we understand his point, he is co mplaining that the district court purported to modify his sexual-material condition by th e General Order, and that the modification was procedur ally inadequate. Defendant’s argument relies prim arily on our recent decisions in Koch and United States v. Englehart , 22 F.4th 1197 (10th Cir. 2022) . But there is a dispositive difference between those case s and the case at hand. In Koch the defendant directly appealed from the district court’s impos ition at sentencing of a sexual-material condition. See 978 F.3d at 722–23. In Englehart the government petitioned to modify the conditions of a defendant who was al ready on supervised release and had committed several violations; th e defendant directly appealed from the district court’s order modifying his sexual-material condition and imposing new burdensome Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 1112 conditions. See 22 F.4th at 1201–02. In this case, by contrast, Defendant appeals from an order revoking his supervised release. This distinction controls the outcome. As we declared in United States v. LeCompte , 800 F.3d 1209, 1214 n.6 (10th Cir. 2015), “Courts ha ve consistently said that a defendant cannot challenge the conditi on [of supervised rele ase] on its face at a revocation hearing.” Accord United States v. Helton , 612 F. App’x 906, 909 (10th Cir. 2015) (“We are in alignment with other circuits in holding that a supervisee cannot challenge a condition itself when respondi ng to a petition to revoke supervised release.”). The typical way to challenge an improper condition of supervised release is by an appeal. See United States v. Wayne , 591 F.3d 1326, 1334 (10th Cir. 2010) (The superv isee “should have challenged the legal and factual basis of the initial supervised release cond ition on direct appeal from the sentencing court’s judgment.”); United States v. Preacely , 702 F.3d 373, 376 (7th Cir. 2012) (“The primary problem with [the defendant’s ] argument is that he raises it too late. The time for [him] to challenge the conditi on was at sentencing or on direct appeal, not at his revocation hearing.”). 6

6 We do not foreclose the possibi lity of seeking relief through a collateral attack under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, or by a mo tion to modify conditions under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(2), cf. United States v. Begay , 631 F.3d 1168, 1169–71 (10th Cir. 2011). We note that this court has yet to squarely rule on the proper scope of a § 3583(e)(2) motion in a precedential opinion. But cf. United States v. Grigsby , 737 F. App’x 375, 378 & n.5 (10th Ci r. 2018) (citing United States v. Lussier , 104 F.3d 32, 35 (2d Cir. 1997), for the proposition that the “legality of condition[s] of supe rvised release may only be challenged on direct appeal or as collatera l attack under § 2255”). Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 1213 The rule barring a challenge to a conditi on of release at th e revocation hearing is a specific application of a more general proposition that court orders are to be obeyed. “The orderly and expe ditious administration of justice by the courts requires that an order issued by a court with ju risdiction over the subj ect matter and person must be obeyed by the parties until it is reversed by orderly a nd proper proceedings.” Maness v. Meyers , 419 U.S. 449, 459 (1975) (interna l quotation marks omitted). It follows from this rule that ev en if a condition of supervis ed release is appealed, it must be obeyed while appeal is pe nding unless a stay is granted. See id. at 458 (“If a person to whom a court directs an order belie ves that order is in correct the remedy is to appeal, but, absent a st ay, he must comply prompt ly with the order pending appeal.”). It is important to note, however, that the supervisee may, of course, still dispute the factual basis for an asserted vi olation of his condition. And the supervisee may raise at the revocation hearing an as-applied claim that the condition cannot properly be applied to the particular circumstances of the alleged violation. See LeCompte , 800 F.3d at 1213–14. The problem for Defendant is that he is not making an as-applied challenge to his condition of supervised release a nd the condition of supervised release purportedly imposed by the General Order ha d not been set aside or stayed at the time he violated it. He claims that he has timely appealed from the General Order because it was never entere d on the docket in his case. See United States v. Mendoza , 698 F.3d 1303, 1308–09 (10th Cir. 2012) (“[W ]e conclude that a judgment is not ‘entered on the criminal docket’ for purpos es of Fed. R. App. P. 4(b)(6) unless Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 1314 judgment is noted on the docket in a public ly accessible manner. . . . Because the criminal docket in [the defe ndant’s] case does not reflect th e entry of final judgment, we deny the government’s motion to dismiss [t he appeal as untimel y].”). But even if the appeal from that order is timely, he di d not obtain, or even seek, a stay of the order before violating the challenged condi tion of supervised release. And he has never argued that he lacked notice of the condition. The dissent suggests that this did not matter because Defendant was unable to appeal the General Order before it was ente red in the docket of his case. But this suggestion is misconceived in several respects. To begin with, it is worth noting that even if Defendant had filed an appeal, that would not in itself excuse his violation of the condition of supervised release. He would be required to comply with the c ondition while the appeal was pending unless it was stayed during appeal. Moreover, Defendant had avenues to seek relief from the condition of supervised release before he violated it. He has not disput ed that he had notice of the General Order. If he thought that the Gene ral Order was valid, he could have filed a notice of appeal even before entry in his docket. Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(b)(2) states: “A notice of appeal file d after the court a nnounces a decision, sentence, or order—but before the entry of the judgment or order—is treated as filed on the date of and after the entry.” Even if additional steps would need to be taken before we would co nsider the merits, but see Mendoza , 698 F.3d at 1309 n.3 (“Although final judgment was never prope rly entered, we nevertheless have Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 1415 jurisdiction over this appeal. As long as no question exists as to the finality of the district court’s decision, de fects in the proper entry of judgment do not affect our appellate jurisdiction.” (int ernal quotation marks omitted )), Defendant could have acted to be sure those steps would be take n so that his appeal could be promptly addressed by this court. For ex ample, he could have filed with us a petition for writ of mandamus to require the district court to enter the General Order on his docket; if the petition noted that Defendant wished to challenge the condition of supervised release and could not appeal until entry on th e docket, there is li ttle doubt that this court would have ta ken prompt action. As an alternative, Defendant could have pursued relief in di strict court. He could have filed a motion challenging the General Order and seeking a stay pending further proceedings in district court or on appeal. And he coul d, of course, have requested the district court to enter the General Order on his docket so that he could appeal. The one thing that Defendant could not do is take the law into his own hands and decide to disobey an undisturbed order of a court with jurisdiction. In the above discussion, we have assu med that the General Order was a valid order of the district court. We think, ho wever, that Defendant would have a strong argument that the district court acted be yond its authority in modifying a special condition of his supervised rele ase by means of a general order. 7 But Defendant has

7 The term general order (or standing order ) refers to “order s . . . adopted by district courts . . . as dist rict-wide or division-wide orde rs, without an opportunity for Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 1516 not pursued this argument a nd we dispose of his appeal on other grounds. We note, however, that even if the General Order wa s a nullity and could supply him with an excuse for not complying w ith the sexual-material condition as modified, then his original sexual-material c ondition would still have been in effect. Because the

notice or public comment.” Committee on Ru les of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States, Report and Recommended Guidelines on Standing Orders in District and Bankruptcy Courts at 1 (2009). But the power to issue such orders is limited. To be sure, a court has “inhere nt authority to regulate the practice of litigan ts before it.” United States v. Ray , 375 F.3d 980, 992 (9th Cir. 2004). This authority is recognized in Fe deral Rule of Criminal Procedure 57(b), which states that a “[a] j udge may regulate practice in a ny manner consistent with federal law, [the Federal Rules of Crimin al Procedure], and the local rules of the district.” General Order 2020-13, however, does not regulate practice or procedure— it purports to substantively m odify existing special conditi ons of supervised release for a class of defendants. We are not aware of any law authorizing such a modification by general order rather than by proceeding in each applicable case. One could therefore assume that the Genera l Order was a nullity. Perhaps a viable alternative would have been a general order instructing probation officers on the enforcement of a supervised-release condition. See 18 U.S.C. § 3602(a) (Probation officers serve “under the direction of the court making the a ppointment.”). This approach has been used to restrict the application of already-imposed conditions in response to changes in the law gove rning supervised-release conditions. See, e.g. , In the Matter of: Enforcement and Imposition of Standard Conditi ons of Supervised Release and Probation No. Twelve , No. 19-MC-00004-27 (D.N.M. July 10, 2019) (“In accordance with [ United States v. Cabral , 926 F.3d 687, 691 (10th Cir. 2019)], the United States Probation Office . . . shal l cease enforcing the risk-notification condition for those Defendants already under supervision, unless Court approval is first obtained.”); Standing Order Pursuant to 18 U.S. C. § 3583(e)(2) Ordering the Probation Office to Construe the Thirteen Standard Conditions of Supervised Release (N.D. Ill. May 24, 2015) (Reinhard, J.) (“Based on recent caselaw authority from the Seventh Circuit regarding the impermissi ble vagueness of certain conditions of supervised release, the cour t hereby orders the probation o ffice to construe and apply the above thirteen conditions as hereinaf ter modified to de fendants currently on supervised release or senten ced but not yet on supervised release in the following manner . . . .” (cita tions omitted)). Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 1617 conduct underlying his revo cation would have violated both conditions—he has not argued otherwise—the outcome he re would remain the same.
III. CONCLUSION
We AFFIRM the sentence imposed by the dist rict court upon revocation of Defendant’s term of supervised release.

Entered for the Court

Harris L Hartz Circuit Judge Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 17United States v. Brian Joseph Nielsen , No. 21-8087 BACHARACH , J., dissenting I respectfully dissent. The district court broadly prohibited Mr. Nielsen’s viewing of adult pornog raphy. After enteri ng this broad prohibition, the court issued a genera l order, modifying the conditions for many defendants (including Mr. Nielsen) subject to supervised release. Mr. Nielsen argues that the district co urt erred by imposi ng the modified conditions without maki ng particularized fi ndings. The government conceded error. Faced with this concession , the district court trie d to cure its error by conducting a hearing and making new findings. Th e resulting question is whether the new findings cured the error. The majority declines to answer this questi on, reasoning that we don’t consider facial ch allenges initiated in re vocation proceedings. But we decline to consider those challe nges only when th e defendant could have appealed the conditions earlier. That’s not the case here. Mr. Niel sen couldn’t appeal the conditions any earlier than he did because the district court hadn’t entered the disputed conditions in hi s docket. So I would cons ider the merits of Mr. Nielsen’s challenge to the conditions. Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 182 In considering this challenge, I wo uld reverse because the district court didn’t cure its failure to make particularized findin gs when entering the general order.
1. Mr. Nielsen appealed the disput ed conditions at his first opportunity. Defendants can challenge supervised release condition s in two ways: facially and as applied. The parties agree that Mr. Nielsen could raise an as-applied challenge now ev en though he di dn’t appeal when the district court modified the conditions. Bu t at oral argumen t, Mr. Nielsen disavowed an as-applied ch allenge. The only chal lenge left would be a facial challenge. The majority points out that ordina rily, a defendant ca n’t wait until a revocation proceeding to ma ke a facial challenge to the conditions. We and other circuits have generally held that waiting until the revocation proceeding is too late because the defendant could have appealed the supervised release conditions when they were imposed. See, e.g. , United States v. Helton , 612 F. App’x 906, 909 ( 10th Cir. 2015) (unpublished) (attributing the bar on facial challenges in revocation proceedings to the presumed ability of the supervisee to “timely challeng e a condition ‘on direct appeal from the sentenci ng court’s judgm ent’” (quoting United States v. Wayne , 591 F.3d 1326, 1334 (10th Cir. 2010))); see also Wayne , 591 F.3d at 1334 (concludi ng that the defendant was time-barred from Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 193 making a facial challenge to a supervised release condition at a compliance hearing because she had failed to a ppeal from the judgm ent imposing the sentence); accord United States v. Johnson , 138 F.3d 115, 117–18 (4th Cir. 1998) (declining to review the defendant’s facial challenges to his conditions of supervised release afte r revocation of his supervised release because he should have appealed the sentence); United States v. Preacely , 702 F.3d 373, 376 (7th Ci r. 2012) (concluding that a supervisee couldn’t wait until the revocation he aring to challenge a c ondition of supervised release because the time “to challenge the condition [had been] at the sentencing or on direct appeal”); United States v. Key , 832 F.3d 837, 840 (8th Cir. 2016) (“We are skeptical that a defendan t who failed to appeal the imposition of a conditi on of release can bring a facial challenge to the condition following revocat ion.”). But what if the defendant couldn’t have appealed the supervised release c onditions when th ey were imposed? That’s the situation here. In every criminal case, the district court must enter orders in the defendant’s criminal docket. Fed. R. Crim. P. 55. Entry in the docket is essential to “start[] th e appeal deadline.” United States v. Mendoza , 698 F.3d 1303, 1307 (10th Cir. 2012) (citing Adviso ry Committee Note to 1966 Amendments, reprinted in 39 F.R.D. 69, 200 (1966)); see also Bankers Trust Co. v. Mallis , 435 U.S. 381, 384 (1978) (per curiam) (explaining that the Fede ral Rules of Civil Proce dure governing entry of Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 204 orders in the docket serve “to clarify when the time for appeal . . . begins to run”). Given this purpose, the time to appeal begins with entry of an appealable order in the docket of the criminal case. Fed. R. App. P. 4(b)(1); see Fed. R. App. P. 4( b)(6) (“A judgment or order is entered for purposes of this Rule 4(b) when it is entered in the criminal docket.”). Until the order is en tered in the crimin al case, an appeal is premature. See United States v. West , 240 F.3d 456, 458–59 (5th Cir. 2001) (concluding that the defendan t’s appeal of her crimin al judgment was premature because the district court had not ye t entered the judgmen t (under review) in the docket). So a defendant can’t appeal until the di strict court has entered an appealable order in the docket. See Constien v. United States , 628 F.3d 1207, 1210 (10th Cir. 2010) (“When premat urity of a notice of appeal cannot be ‘c ured’ by [Federal Rule of Ap pellate Proce dure 4(a)(2)], the aggrieved party must await a final judgment before f iling a notice of appeal to challeng e the allegedly erroneous ruling.”). 1

1 The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure provide an exception when

 the district court announces an ot herwise appealable ruling and

 a party files a notice of appeal before the di strict court enters the order in the docket. Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(2) (civil cases), 4(b )(2) (criminal cases). Under this exception, we treat the appeal as file d when the district court enters the order in the docket. Fed. R. App. P. 4( a)(2), 4(b)(2). Even when the district court doesn’t ever enter the order in the docket, we obtain jurisdiction when there’s “no question as to the finality of the district court’s Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 215 The district court never entered the general order in Mr. Nielsen’s docket. As a result, he couldn’t appe al the modification of his conditions through the general order. If he had appealed any ear lier than he did, we’d have lacked jurisdiction. See note 1, above (citing Warren v. Am. Bankers Ins. of Fla. , 507 F.3d 1239, 1245 (10th Cir. 2007)). The only reason that we have jurisdiction now is that when the district court revoked supervised release, the court reinstituted the modified conditions and en tered the order in Mr. Nielsen’s docket. He filed a notice of appeal the sa me day. But he couldn ’t have appealed the conditions until entry of the order in Mr. Nielsen’s docket.

decision.” United States v. Mendoza , 698 F.3d 1303, 1309 n.3 (10th Cir. 2012) (quoting Burlington N. R.R. Co. v. Huddleston , 94 F.3d 1413, 1416 n.3 (10th Cir. 1996)). This exception doesn’t apply here. The district court didn’t announce the modification of Mr. Nielsen’s conditions, and a substantial question exists regarding the finality of the ge neral order in Mr. Nielsen’s case. No one suggests that his deadli ne to appeal would have started once he learned of the modification. He did eventually learn of the general order and its application to him. But we don’t know wh en that was. Because the court didn’t announce its modification of Mr. Ni elsen’s conditions and the court’s failure to enter the general order in th e docket affects timelin ess of the appeal, the exception doesn’t appl y and jurisdiction never passed to us. See Warren v. Am. Bankers Ins. of Fla. , 507 F.3d 1239, 1245 (10th Cir. 2007) (concluding that jurisdiction didn’t pass to us wh en the notice of appeal remained in suspension prior to entry of an order of dismissal). Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 226 In these limited circumstances, we can’t fault Mr. Nielsen for waiting until the revocation proceeding to ch allenge the disputed conditions. He needed to wait because any prior a ppeal would have be en premature. I would thus address the merits of Mr. Nielsen’s challenge. The majority doesn’t question prematurity had Mr. Nielsen filed a notice of appeal to the ge neral order, but speculates on a series of possible events that might have led to an appealable order:
1. Under the federal rule s, an “announcemen t” of the decision (the general order) meant that the app eal would have been treated as filed upon entry of th e general order in Mr . Nielsen’s criminal case. Fed. R. App. P. 4(b)(2); see note 1, above.
2. Because of this federal rule, we could not have considered Mr. Nielsen’s appeal until the dist rict court entered the general order in Mr. Nielse n’s criminal case.
3. Mr. Nielsen could have requested a mandamus petition to require entry of the gene ral order in his docket. The majority’s speculation overlooks the reason for pr ohibiting facial challenges initiated in revocation proceedings and stems from a misinterpretation of the federal rule. The majority relies on the general pr ohibition of facial challenges to a supervised release c ondition made in revocation proceedings. That prohibition stems from the assumpti on that the defe ndant could have Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 237 appealed the condition when it was imposed. See pp. 2–3, above. 2 And Mr. Nielsen couldn’t appeal before entry of the revocation order. Despite his inability to appeal, the majority speculates about other actions that Mr. Nielsen could have taken. The majority rests that speculation on Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(b)(2), which provides that when a party files a notice of appeal “after the court

announces a decision, sentence, or orde r—but before the entry of the judgment or order—[the notice of appeal] is treated as filed on the date of and after the entry.” Fed. R. App. P. 4(b)(2) (emphasis added); see note 1, above. The majority says that given th is rule, Mr. Nielsen could have taken “additional steps” to obtain entry of the genera l order in his docket. Maj. Order & Judgment at 14. But this rule wouldn’t apply if Mr. Nielsen had prematurely appealed the general order. The rule applies only when a distri ct court “announces” its order, decision, or sentence; and neither party has suggested that the court announced its general order, much less announced it as a decision or

2 The majority attributes this re striction to the n eed for compliance with a condition while it’s in place. Maj. Order & Judgment at 13 . For this proposition, the ma jority relies on Maness v. Meyers , 419 U.S. 449 (1975). There the Court discusse d only the availability of contempt when an attorney advises a client to disobey a subpoena. Id. at 459. In that discussion, the Court observed that peop le must comply wi th orders absent a stay, pointing ou t that “the remedy is to appeal” the order. Id. The Court said nothing about supervis ed release or the ability to challenge orders that can’t be appealed. Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 248 order in Mr. Nielsen’s case. Because th e rule doesn’t apply, we would have had to dismiss the premature appeal for lack of jurisdiction. See pp. 3–5, above. But let’s suppose that we would ha ve applied the ru le anyway and waited for “additional st eps . . . to be taken. ” Maj. Order & Judgment at 14. And let’s suppose further that Mr. Nielse n would have requested mandamus to require entr y of the general order in his docket. And we can even suppose furthe r that we’d have granted mandamus. Why would this theoretical set of possibilities bear on Mr. Nielsen’s righ t to challenge his conditions? Regardless of what might have happened, he appealed the conditions at his first actual opportunity . So there’s no r eason to prohibit consideration of his facial challenge.
2. Mr. Nielsen’s other alleged options shou ldn’t affect our disposition. The majority relies not only on sp eculation about wh at might have happened if Mr. Nielsen had prem aturely appealed, but also on the availability of thre e other options:
1. comply with the al legedly unconstitution al conditions and forgo an appeal,
2. challenge the conditions in district court and move for a stay of the conditions while those procee dings remained pending, or
3. ask the district court to enter th e general order in his docket so that he could appeal. Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 259 Mr. Nielsen presumably did have other options. Bu t those options didn’t include the ability to appeal the conditions. And we’ve disallowed facial challenges to supervised re lease conditions th rough revocation proceedings only because we’ve assumed that the defendant could have appealed the conditions when they had been imposed. See pp. 2–3, above (citing cases). And we wo uld have lacked jurisdiction if Mr. Nielsen had appealed from the order im posing the supervised release conditions. So regardless of other options for Mr. Nielsen, we’d have no reason to disallow his challenge to the conditions. The majority suggests th at the district court might have revoked the supervised release even if the c onditions had been unconstitutional. Perhaps the majority is right. That seems unlikely because the district court said that if the disputed conditions were deemed invalid, the sentence would have been shorter by roughly two months (twelve months and a day rather than fourteen months). See p. 11, below. Regardless of what the district court would have done, though, we shouldn’t decline to consider Mr. Nielsen’s challenge to the conditions themselves. No one suggests that Mr . Nielsen could ha ve appealed the conditions any earlier than he did. And the only reason that we’ve ever given for disallowing f acial challenges to c onditions in revocation proceedings is that the defendant co uld have appealed those conditions Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 2610 when they were imposed. That’s not th e case here, so we have no reason to disallow Mr. Nielsen’s facial ch allenge to the conditions.
3. The district court erred by failing to make particul arized findings when modifying Mr. Nielsen’s conditions. On the merits, I would credit that challenge. Everyone appears to agree that

 the district court conducted th e revocation proceedings based on alleged violations of the condition stated in the general order,

 the district court applied the general order to Mr. Nielsen without particulari zed findings, and

 the lack of particularized fi ndings constituted an error. Despite agreeing that the district court erre d, the government argues that the district court cured that error by later making particularized findings that would ha ve validated the general order. I disagree. The district court did make particularized findings when revoking supervised release. In making those findings, however, th e district court relied in part on events taking pla ce in 2021—after the court had imposed the condition from the ge neral order on Mr. Nielse n. R. vol. III, at 222, 226. A court cannot support a decision based on evidence that hadn’t existed at the time of th e decision. So the distri ct court’s new findings, even if particularized, wouldn’t have cured the lack of particularized findings when the court imposed the condition fr om the general order. Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 2711 4. The district court’s err or wasn’t harmless. The government argues th at even if the court had erred in modifying the conditions, any error would have been harmless. Nonconstitutional errors are harmless unless they “had a ‘substantial influence’ on the outcome or leave[] one in ‘gra ve doubt’ as to whether [they] had such effect.” United States v. Griffin , 389 F.3d 1100, 1104 (10th Cir. 2004) (quoting United States v. Mejia-Alarcon , 995 F.2d 982, 990 (10th Cir. 1993)). For constitutional errors, th e government must prove harmlessness beyond a reasonable doubt. See Chapman v. Cal. , 386 U.S. 18, 24 (1967); Malone v. Carpenter , 911 F.3d 1022, 1029 (10th Cir. 2018). Regardless of which standard applies, the error wasn’t harmless. The district court said that Mr. Nielsen’ s sentence would have been shorter by about two months without reliance on the di sputed conditions . R. vol. III, at 242 (“[J]ust so it’s clear, to the extent a court would somehow unreasonably conclude that the Specia l Condition was no t enforceable at the time the violations occurred in this matter as noted in 1 and 6, then the sentence would be 12 months and a da y. . . [rather than] 14 months.”). The district court’s statement shows that the error was not harmless. See United States v. Serrano-Dominguez , 406 F.3d 1221, 1224 (10th Cir. 2005) (finding that the district court’s announceme nt of an alternative sentence under the methodol ogy proposed by the defendant “eliminates any need to speculate about what it would do on remand”); see also United States v. Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 2812 Gieswein , 887 F.3d 1054, 1061 (10th Cir. 2018) (stati ng that a procedural error is harmless on ly if “the district court would have imposed the same sentence” without th e error (quoting United States v. Kieffer , 681 F.3d 1143, 1165 (10th Cir. 2012 ))). So I woul d reverse and remand with instructions to vacate the disputed conditions and resentence Mr. Nielsen for the revocation of supervised release. Appellate Case: 21-8087 Document: 010110722909 Date Filed: 08/10/2022 Page: 29