United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

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No. 19-3138

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United States of America

lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellee

v.

Rodney Adam Hurdsman

lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellant

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Appeal from United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Little Rock

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 Submitted: April 17, 2020

Filed: September 11, 2020

[Unpublished]

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Before KELLY, WOLLMAN, and STRAS, Circuit Judges. 

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PER CURIAM.

Rodney Hurdsman pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting bank

robbery in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2 and 2113. The district court1imposed a 71-

1The Honorable J. Leon Holmes, United States District Judge for the Eastern

District of Arkansas, now retired. 
month sentence and a three-year term of supervised release. Hurdsman appeals,

alleging the district court erred in imposing a special condition of supervised release

that requires him to participate in substance abuse treatment and abstain from

drinking alcohol during the course of treatment. 

Because Hurdsman did not object to this condition atsentencing, we review for

plain error. United States v. Ristine, 335 F.3d 692, 694 (8th Cir. 2003) (standard of

review). We need not analyze all four prongs of plain-error review if “the threshold

requirement for relief under the plain-error standard . . . [,] the presence of an error,”

is missing. United States v. Perrin, 926 F.3d 1044, 1047 (8th Cir. 2019) (cleaned up).

 

Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d), special conditions of supervised release must

be reasonably related to four factors: (1) the nature and circumstances of the offense

and the history and characteristics of the defendant; (2) the need to afford adequate

deterrence to criminal conduct; (3) the need to protect the public from future crimes

of the defendant; and (4) the need to provide the defendant with needed educational

or vocational training, medical care, or other correctional treatment in the most

effective manner. United States v. Moore, 860 F.3d 1076, 1078 (8th Cir. 2017). “The

special condition need not be related to all four factors,” and any such condition also

can “involve[] no greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary.” Id. 

Hurdsman first argues the special condition is not reasonably related to his

offense of conviction or his personal characteristics because he currently does not

have a substance abuse problem. But the record showsthat Hurdsman has a relatively

long history of abusing both drugs and alcohol. Hurdsman started smoking

marijuana, using cocaine, and drinking alcohol at age 14. He attended residential

substance abuse treatment at age 15 and was referred again for similar treatment two

years later, but he left the program early “against medical advice.” In 2001,

Hurdsman was diagnosed with “bipolar disorder, mixed with psychotic features, and

alcohol and cannabis abuse, in remission.” The examining psychiatrist noted that

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Hurdsman abused alcohol as a way of self-medicating when suffering from mental

health problems and that it was “a reoccurring pattern since [Hurdsman] was age 18.” 

Hurdsman himself has admitted he is an alcoholic. 

At sentencing, Hurdsman highlighted his problems with substance abuse as

mitigating factors in his argument to the court. Counsel stated that “much of

[Hurdsman’s] alcohol and drug use has been in response to his troubled state of

mind.” He also explained that Hurdsman’s involvement in the bank robbery was in

part “fueled by some alcohol and probably pill abuse that was self-medicating to

soothe the troubled bipolar brain.” Given the evidence before it, the district court did

not plainly err when imposing a condition of supervised release that requires

Hurdsman to participate in substance abuse treatment. 

Hurdsman also asserts the special condition is a greater deprivation of his

liberty than is reasonably necessary because it includes a ban on the use of alcohol

during the course of treatment. Again, the record supports a finding that Hurdsman

has abused alcohol in the past, even if he has recently been sober. Moreover, the

limitation on alcohol use is not a total ban. Rather, it is time-restricted: the condition

prohibits Hurdsman from using alcohol only during his time in substance abuse

treatment. See United States v. Hataway, 933 F.3d 940, 946 (8th Cir. 2019)

(determining the district court did not abuse its discretion in imposing supervised

release condition banning alcohol use during substance abuse treatment, even though

defendant had no history of alcohol abuse, because the condition was “not a total ban

and [was] aimed at curbing addictive behavior during substance abuse treatment”). 

The district court did not commit plain error when including this limited restriction.

The judgment of the district court is affirmed. 

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