Opinion ID: 2777752
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Sex-Offender Treatment Condition.

Text: The defendant challenges the imposition of the sexoffender treatment condition and related polygraph testing on two grounds. Neither ground is persuasive. 1. Delegation. We start with the defendant's claim that the sex-offender treatment condition constitutes an unlawful delegation of the district court's sentencing authority. In support, the defendant points to the district court's statements that sex-offender treatment is to be as directed by the Probation Office and that the Probation Office has the discretion to require the defendant to attend treatment sessions. These -5- statements, the defendant says, show that the court granted unfettered discretion to the probation office. That grant, the defendant says, is unconstitutional. There is a procedural obstacle to this claim of error: it is raised for the first time in this court. Consequently, it is subject only to review for plain error. See United States v. Padilla, 415 F.3d 211, 218, 220 (1st Cir. 2005) (en banc); see also United States v. Bey, 188 F.3d 1, 10 (1st Cir. 1999) (applying plain error review where defendant's objections were on grounds different than those raised on appeal). Plain error review engenders a four-part inquiry. The appellant must show (1) that an error occurred (2) which was clear or obvious and which not only (3) affected the defendant's substantial rights, but also (4) seriously impaired the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. United States v. Duarte, 246 F.3d 56, 60 (1st Cir. 2001). We need not tarry. This case does not require us to make a definitive ruling on the lawfulness of the delegation. Even assuming, for argument's sake, that the delegation is improper, and that the error is clear, the defendant cannot satisfy either of the last two parts of the plain error test. We do not write on a pristine page. In the past, we twice have rejected, under plain error review, unpreserved delegation challenges to supervised release conditions. See United -6- States v. Sánchez-Berríos, 424 F.3d 65, 81-82 (1st Cir. 2005); Padilla, 415 F.3d at 220-21. Although those decisions did not involve sex-offender treatment, they are nonetheless instructive here. We go directly to the third prong of plain error review. In assessing whether an unlawful delegation of sentencing authority affects a defendant's substantial rights, we must gauge whether he has shown a reasonable probability that, but for the alleged error, the court would likely have imposed a different and more favorable sentence. See Padilla, 415 F.3d at 221. When the challenged delegation grants the probation officer the discretion to require, in the first instance, that the defendant undergo some sort of treatment or testing, the plain error test places the defendant in the nearly impossible position of proving two variables. Id. First, he must show a fair probability that the court, acting directly, would not have mandated such treatment or testing. Second, he must show that the probation officer will likely exercise her discretion to require the defendant to participate in such treatment or testing. See id. The uncertainties surrounding those questions erect too high a hurdle for the defendant to clear. Even if the defendant could show that the district court, delegation aside, would not itself have imposed the sex-offender treatment condition — a proposition that, on this record, verges on wishful thinking — there is simply no way that the defendant can -7- show that, upon his future release from incarceration, the probation officer is likely to require him to participate in sexoffender treatment. It follows inexorably that the defendant cannot show that the sentencing outcome would have been more favorable to him had the alleged delegation error not occurred and, thus, the delegation did not affect the defendant's substantial rights. See Sánchez-Berríos, 424 F.3d at 81-82; Padilla, 415 F.3d at 221. The fourth prong of the plain error test is equally inhospitable to the defendant's claim: the alleged delegation error does not in any way undermine the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the sentencing proceeding. Where, as here, supervised release will not commence until the end of a substantial term of immurement, most people would think it both fair and sensible to postpone the decision as to whether sex-offender treatment is needed until the commencement of supervised release. That is precisely what the district court's delegation accomplishes. And in any event, we have held before that delegation errors concerning matters incidental to a defendant's sentence are not so grave or consequential as to demand resentencing under plain error review. Padilla, 415 F.3d at 22122. That reasoning applies here. We add that the defendant is not without recourse should the probation officer abuse the discretion delegated to her. A -8- district court may at any time prior to the conclusion of a supervised release term modify, reduce, or enlarge the conditions of supervised release. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(2); see Fed. R. Crim. P. 32.1 advisory committee's note (explaining that in event of unreasonableness on the part of the probation officer, the probationer should have recourse to the sentencing court when a condition needs clarification or modification). If future developments indicate that the probation officer is attempting unreasonably or unnecessarily to require sex-offender treatment, the defendant may move the district court for relief. To say more about the delegation argument would be supererogatory. Suffice it to say that we discern no plain error in the court's grant of discretion to the probation officer with respect to the defendant's possible participation in sex-offender treatment. 2. Reasonableness. This brings us to the defendant's attack on the reasonableness of the sex-offender treatment condition. Refined to bare essence, the defendant argues that supervised release is intended primarily to serve rehabilitative ends and the sex-offender treatment condition fails to serve those ends; that the district court did not provide a sufficient justification for imposing the condition; and that the condition is an unwarranted deprivation of liberty, unsupported by the record. Since this claim of error was preserved below, our review is for -9- abuse of discretion. See United States v. Smith, 436 F.3d 307, 310 (1st Cir. 2006); United States v. York, 357 F.3d 14, 19 (1st Cir. 2004). We begin with first principles. A sentencing court is authorized to impose any condition of supervised release that is reasonably related to one or more of the permissible goals of sentencing. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)(1) (cross-referencing 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1) and (a)(2)(B) through (D)); see also United States v. Prochner, 417 F.3d 54, 63 (1st Cir. 2005); USSG §5D1.3(b)(1). These goals include deterrence, rehabilitation, and protection of the public. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)(1). The risk of recidivism among convicted sex offenders is frightening and high, McKune v. Lile, 536 U.S. 24, 33 (2002), and sex-offender treatment has been linked to reduced recidivism, see United States v. Morales-Cruz, 712 F.3d 71, 75 (1st Cir. 2013); York, 357 F.3d at 21. In light of the defendant's prior conviction for a sex offense against a minor and his prodigious criminal history, we think it apparent that a sex-offender treatment condition is reasonably related to rehabilitation and protecting the public. The defendant's second point is no more telling. The district court made pellucid that the supervised release term was designed not only to help the defendant in abating his criminal tendencies but also to curtail future registration violations. This is a shorthand for saying that the condition was designed to -10- facilitate both rehabilitation and deterrence. The district court's design was consistent with these goals and, in the bargain, promoted public safety. It is, therefore, nose-on-the-face plain that the court's sentencing rationale was both plausible and sufficient to ground the imposition of a sex-offender treatment condition. See Morales-Cruz, 712 F.3d at 75; York, 357 F.3d at 21. The defendant's last attack on the reasonableness of the sex-offender treatment condition is easily repulsed. We agree with the defendant that a failure to register under SORNA is not itself a sex offense. See USSG §5D1.2, comment. (n.1). Contrary to the defendant's importunings, however, sex-offender treatment may be imposed as a condition of supervised release even when the offense of conviction is not itself a sex offense. See, e.g., MoralesCruz, 712 F.3d at 72, 75; United States v. Sebastian, 612 F.3d 47, 48, 50-51 (1st Cir. 2010); York, 357 F.3d at 19-21. The appropriateness of such a condition is evident here. After all, the defendant had been convicted of sexually assaulting a minor in the past. Even though that conviction occurred some ten years prior to sentencing in this case, the defendant's persistent criminal involvement over the intervening years makes his earlier offense highly relevant. See York, 357 F.3d at 20-21; United States v. Brown, 235 F.3d 2, 6 (1st Cir. 2000). What is more, the justification for the sex-offender treatment condition is bolstered by the fact that the defendant continued to flout sex-offender -11- registration requirements even during pretrial release. The sexoffender treatment condition is, therefore, reasonably related to the defendant's history and characteristics and is not an overly broad deprivation of liberty.2