Court Opinion

ID: 9491062
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:02:40.743476+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:29.246130
License: Public Domain

MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
In this ease, the district court ignored our holdings in United States v. Bass, 121 F.3d 1218, 1223-25 (8th Cir.1997), United States v. Stoural, 990 F.2d 372, 372-73 (8th Cir.1993) (per curiam), and United States v. Prendergast, 979 F.2d 1289, 1292-93 (8th Cir.1992), and imposed conditions on the defendant in this case that were clearly illegal. In sentencing the defendant, the district court conditioned a six-year term of supervised release on- the defendant not using or possessing alcohol and submitting to testing to detect the use of alcohol. Under the terms of his supervised release, moreover, the defendant was subject to warrantless searches and seizures to determine whether he possessed alcohol.
Despite the plain unlawfulness of these terms in cases like the present one, in which there is no evidence whatever that alcohol was in any way related to the offense, the court concludes that the conditions imposed did not affect the defendant’s substantial rights. Given the severity of the restrictions, I am unable to accede to this characterization. Given, too, the likelihood of a successful claim that counsel was ineffective at sentencing for not objecting to the conditions imposed, the court’s holding seems to me not only incorrect but entirely ineffective in the long term.
I therefore respectfully dissent.