United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Argued June 10, 2015 

Decided July 15, 2015 

Before 

DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge 

ANN CLAIRE WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

No. 14-2732 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

HORATIO A. SUMRALL, 

 Defendant-Appellant.

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Southern District of Illinois.

No. 3:92-CR-30004-001-MJR 

Michael J. Reagan, 

Chief Judge. 

O R D E R 

The district court revoked Horatio Sumrall’s supervised release and ordered him 

to serve an additional 36 months in prison. In this appeal Sumrall argues that the court, 

in selecting a term of that length, relied too heavily on 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A), which 

directs a sentencing court to consider the “need for the sentence” to “reflect the 

seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for the law, and to provide just 

punishment.” Section 3553(a)(2)(A) is not among the statutory factors applicable to 

revocations of supervised release, though we have approved its consideration during 

revocation proceedings. The district court did not place too much reliance on this factor, 

so we affirm the judgment. 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 
No. 14-2732 Page 2 

 Sumrall ran a drug ring in East St. Louis, Illinois, selling powder and crack 

cocaine. He was convicted in 1992 of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, 21 

U.S.C. § 848, conspiring to distribute cocaine, id. §§ 846, 841(a)(1), and using and 

carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking offense, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). 

As part of a plea agreement, he cooperated with the government after sentencing, and 

his original prison terms totaling 420 months later were reduced to 180 months. See FED.

R. CRIM. P. 35(b). 

 Sumrall’s sentence included concurrent terms of supervised release, the longest 

being 10 years on the conspiracy count. He was released from prison in March 2005 and 

soon began racking up violations: 5 in 2005, 7 in 2006, 5 in 2007, 2 in 2008, 4 in 2009, 1 in 

2010, 2 in 2011, 3 in 2012, 2 in 2013, and 3 in 2014, for a total of 34 violations. In 

November 2013, about 17 months before Sumrall’s 10-year term of supervised release 

would expire, his probation officer petitioned for revocation (that petition was amended 

twice to include additional violations). By the time of Sumrall’s revocation hearing in 

July 2014, he had accumulated Grade B violations for committing new crimes (among 

them multiple false statements and thefts, including one theft involving a motor vehicle 

and another for which he was serving time in state prison), as well as Grade C violations 

for, among other infractions, committing traffic offenses, leaving the judicial district 

without permission, failing to submit monthly reports to his probation officer, and 

failing to notify his probation officer of contacts with law-enforcement authorities. 

Sumrall admitted every violation. As a result he faced a reimprisonment range of 18 to 

24 months under the Chapter 7 policy statements applicable to revocations of supervised 

release. See U.S.S.G. § 7B1.4. 

The government argued for an above-range term of 36 months, noting that 

Sumrall had admitted committing multiple thefts, some of them after being charged 

with other thefts and released on bond. One of those theft charges, the government said, 

involved 24 tons of stolen metal that was sold to a scrap yard. 

Sumrall’s lawyer countered that a prison term at the low end of the range should 

be sufficient because, according to counsel, Sumrall had demonstrated acceptance of 

responsibility by admitting all of the violations. One of the theft charges, counsel 

asserted, was still pending in state court because the evidence was weak and prosecutors 

didn’t want to go to trial. And it was significant, counsel added, that Sumrall had not 

been in the drug business or used guns since his 1992 convictions. The lawyer explained 

that Sumrall was a magnet for stolen property because, with only a high school 

education, he works in the junk and salvage business. He said that Sumrall has a 
No. 14-2732 Page 3 

supportive wife and daughters and is basically a “pretty good guy,” though one who 

“doesn’t follow the rules” and “is probably mildly sociopathic.” 

Sumrall personally addressed the court and asked that his federal prison term run 

concurrently with his undischarged state sentence so that he could return to his family. 

The district judge instead ran the 36-month prison term consecutively to 

Sumrall’s state sentence. Before announcing that term, the judge explained that he 

would apply the factors in § 3553(a), including the need for the punishment “to reflect 

the seriousness of the offense, promote respect for the law and provide just 

punishment.” This was a situation, the judge said, where the additional imprisonment 

should be “driven by deterrence and punishment insofar as the 3553 factors are 

concerned, as well as promoting respect for the law.” The judge noted the high number 

of violations and emphasized that, while some of them were dated and others technical, 

Sumrall still had committed three felonies despite the probation office’s best efforts to 

work with him. Sumrall had steered clear of drugs and guns, the court agreed, yet he 

had “reinvented” himself as a thief. His thefts, the court reasoned, were serious even if 

nonviolent and, to the extent committed while on bond, constituted “double thumbing 

of the nose to the Court.” The judge gauged the likelihood of recidivism as high and 

sought to deter Sumrall and protect society. As a final thought, the judge informed 

Sumrall that “the seriousness of the grade B violations” had driven the choice of a term 

above the range. 

Sumrall’s single argument on appeal is that the district court put too much weight 

on the need for his punishment to reflect the seriousness of his violations, to promote 

respect for the law, and to provide for just punishment. All of these concerns are found 

in § 3553(a)(2)(A), which applies at a sentencing hearing. But Sumrall was not being 

sentenced, and unlike most other subsections of § 3553(a), subsection (a)(2)(A) is not 

expressly incorporated into 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e), which governs revocations of supervised 

release. See United States v. Neal, 512 F.3d 427, 438 (7th Cir. 2008); United States v. Carter, 

408 F.3d 852, 854 (7th Cir. 2005). That said, Sumrall necessarily concedes this court’s 

position that subsection (a)(2)(A), even though not enumerated in § 3583(e), still can be 

considered by a district court when revoking a term of supervised release. See United 

States v. Phillips, No. 14-1354, 2015 WL 3937527, at *2 (7th Cir. June 26, 2015); United States 

v. Clay, 752 F.3d 1106, 1107 (7th Cir. 2014); accord United States v. Webb, 738 F.3d 638, 641–

42 (4th Cir. 2013); United States v. Young, 634 F.3d 233, 241 (3d Cir. 2011); United States v. 

Lewis, 498 F.3d 393, 400 (6th Cir. 2007). Sumrall insists, however, that § 3553(a)(2)(A) 

cannot be the primary justification for a term of reimprisonment. As indicia that the 
No. 14-2732 Page 4 

district judge relied too heavily on § 3553(a)(2)(A), Sumrall points to the judge’s 

references to (1) the need for “incremental punishment” as justification for running the 

federal term consecutively to his state sentence, (2) the necessity of promoting respect for 

the law given Sumrall’s commission of several offenses while on bond, and (3) the 

seriousness of the Grade B violations motivating the above-range term of 

reimprisonment. 

The district court’s statements are not problematic. First, there is no reason to 

think that the court’s reference to “incremental punishment” concerned § 3553(a)(2)(A), 

since, as a matter of Sentencing Commission policy, “[a]ny term of imprisonment 

imposed on the revocation of probation or supervised release shall be ordered to be 

served consecutively to any sentence of imprisonment that the defendant is serving, 

whether or not the sentence of imprisonment being served resulted from the conduct 

that is the basis of the revocation.” U.S.S.G. § 7B1.3(f) & cmt. n.4. A consecutive term, as 

far as the Sentencing Commission is concerned, should be the norm, making 

§ 3553(a)(2)(A) irrelevant. See United States v. Taylor, 628 F.3d 420, 423–24 (7th Cir. 2010); 

United States v. Huusko, 275 F.3d 600, 603 (7th Cir. 2001). Second, § 3553(a)(2)(A) is not the 

only subsection of that statute which gives a district court reason to consider, when 

revoking supervised release, the seriousness of the violations as well as the need to 

promote respect for the law. As we explained in Clay, those considerations are just as 

important when a district court considers the “nature” of the violations, which the court, 

to comply with § 3583(e) and § 3553(a)(1), must evaluate. See Clay, 752 F.3d at 1108; 

Young, 634 F.3d at 241; Lewis, 498 F.3d at 400. Moreover, the district court also relied 

heavily on the need for deterrence, see 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(B), noting that Sumrall 

could not conform his conduct to the norms of civilized society and needed “to be sat on 

the bench.” A quick glance at the list of violations makes this evident. 

Accordingly, the judgment is AFFIRMED.