## United States Court of Appeals **For the Eighth Circuit**

___________________________
No. 22

- 2229

___________________________
United States of America

Plaintiff - Appellee

v.
Christopher Plenty Chief

Defendant - Appellant

____________ Appeal from United States District Court for the District of South Dakota - Northern

____________
Submitted: November 14, 2022 Filed: February 15 , 2023 [Unpublished]

____________ Before BENTON, KELLY, and ERICKS ON, Circuit Judges.

____________

PER CURIAM.

Christopher Plenty Chief pleaded guilty to one count of assault resulting in substantial bodily injury to a spouse or intimate partner, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 113 (a)(7) , and was sentenced to 24 months i n prison and a three

- year term of supervised release. In 2019, Plenty Chief’s term of supervised release was revoked
after he violated the conditions of release . H is supervision was revoked again in- 2

- 2021 . On June 6, 2022, his supervised release was revo ked for a third time , and t he
district court 1 imposed a sentence of 24

- months ’ imprisonment with no supervision to follow. Plenty Chief appeals.

At the hearing for his third revocation, Plenty Chief admitted to two violations of his supervised release conditions: unlawful use of a controlled substance and possession of a dangerous weapon, both Grade C violations. The advisory Guidelines range was 8

– 14 months, and the parties jointly recommended a sentence
of 14

- months ’ imprisonment, with no supervision to follow. Plenty Chief argues that the district court’s decision to disregard this recommendation and impose a sentence above the advisory range resulted in a substantively unreasonable sentence.

W e review revocation sentence s under the sam e reasonableness standard applied to initial sentenc es

. United States v. Wilkins , 909 F.3d 915, 917 (8 th Cir. 2018) (“[T]he substantive reasonableness of a revocation sentence is reviewed

‘ under a deferential abuse

- of

- discretion standard. ’” (citation omit ted) ). “A district court abuses its discretion and imposes an unreasonable sentence when it fails to consider a relevant and significant factor, gives significant weight to an irrelevant or improper factor, or considers the appropriate factors but commits a clear error of judgment in weighing those factors.” Id. ( alteration and citation omitted).

P lenty Chief first argues that the district court gave too much weight to his prior criminal record and the conduct underlying his supervised release violations

. Specifically, he contends that because criminal history and severity of conduct are already considered in determining the advisory Guidelines range, see USSG §§ 7B1.1, 7B1.4

, it was error for the district court to rely on th ose factors in varying
his sentence upward. But Plenty Chief’s argument o verlooks the fact that the district court primarily relied on other factors in reaching its sentencing decision

. The district court emphasized that Plenty Chief had already been sen tenced to a term of

1 The Honorable Charles B. Kornmann, United States District Judge for the District of South Dakota.- 3

- 1 4 months ’ imprisonment after each of his first two revocation s

. T hose sentences
had not , in the district court’s view, accomplish ed the goal of helping Plenty Chief

to “recover

. . . [from] criminal conduct ” and avoid “further trouble

. ” To impos e the

same sentence yet again would fail to reflect Plenty Chief’s “course of escalating
criminal conduct .” The district court also noted, without objection, that Plenty Chief had previously received a “tremendous benefit” from his orig inal plea agreement, which lowered the advisory Guidelines range applicable to his offense of conviction.
See USSG § 7B1.4, comment. (n.4)

. These are all permissible factors for the district
court to consider

, 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)

, and the record does not support the claim
that the district court relied too heavily on factors already taken into account by the
Guidelines.

Plenty Chief next a rgues that the district court failed to give sufficient weight to the positive steps he had taken toward compliance with the terms of his supervision, including moving to a new city, finding new friends, and scheduling a chemical dependency evaluation. W e see no error in the district court’s decision not to give greater weight to these efforts, particularly considering the difficulties Plenty
Chief had with supervision. The district court stated it could see nothing that Plenty
Chief had done to “work wi th [his] probation officer to help turn his life around.” The district court has wide latitude in weighing the relevant factors when imposing

a sentence, see United States v. Barber , 4 F. 4 th 689, 692 (8 th Cir. 2021), and we
discern no abuse of discretion in how the district court did so in this case.

Th e judgment of the district court is affirmed.

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