Court Opinion

ID: 9911910
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-21 00:00:39.380776+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:58:02.208169
License: Public Domain

RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
                                Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b)
                                       File Name: 23a0273p.06

                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

                                                             ┐
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                             │
                                    Plaintiff-Appellee,      │
                                                              >        No. 23-3422
                                                             │
        v.                                                   │
                                                             │
 EDGARDO ESTERAS,                                            │
                                 Defendant-Appellant.        │
                                                             ┘

                               On Petition for Rehearing En Banc
         United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio at Youngstown.
                  No. 4:14-cr-00425-10—Benita Y. Pearson, District Judge.

                            Decided and Filed: December 20, 2023

             Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; WHITE and THAPAR, Circuit Judges.

                                      _________________

                                            COUNSEL

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC: Christian J. Grostic, OFFICE OF THE
FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellant. ON RESPONSE: Matthew
B. Kall, Jason Manion, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Cleveland, Ohio, for
Appellee.

        The court issued an order denying the petition for rehearing en banc. MOORE, J. (pp. 3–
9), delivered a separate opinion dissenting from the denial of the petition for rehearing en banc.
GRIFFIN, J. (pp. 10–11), also delivered a separate opinion, in which BLOOMEKATZ, J.,
joined, dissenting from the denial of the petition for rehearing en banc.
 No. 23-3422                         United States v. Esteras                            Page 2

                                    ____________________

                                            ORDER
                                    ____________________

       The court received a petition for rehearing en banc. The original panel has reviewed the
petition for rehearing and concludes that the issues raised in the petition were fully considered
upon the original submission and decision. The petition then was circulated to the full court.
Less than a majority of the judges voted in favor of rehearing en banc.

       Therefore, the petition is denied.
 No. 23-3422                                 United States v. Esteras                                          Page 3

                                            ____________________

                                                     DISSENT
                                            ____________________

         KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge, dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc.1
The top line of any sentence is generally the term of incarceration. What catches the eye is how
long the defendant will be in prison, not how long the defendant will remain under court
supervision. But in the federal system, supervised release—the often years’ long period of court
supervision and restrictions following incarceration—comes with the specter of more time in a
cell. Judges may “revoke” a defendant’s supervised release if a defendant violates court-ordered
conditions, sending the defendant back to prison for months or possibly years. After Edgardo
Esteras spent twelve months in federal prison on his original term of incarceration, the judge in
his case sentenced him to 24 more months in prison—double his original sentence—for violating
conditions of supervised release. R. 439 (Revocation Tr. at 85:13–21) (Page ID #2887).

         Revocation of supervised release is immensely impactful, and sometimes carries
consequences even greater than an original term of incarceration. In sentencing Esteras after
revoking his supervised release, the district court focused on the retributive purpose of the
additional term of incarceration. See, e.g., id. at 81:17–22 (Page ID #2883) (explaining what
information can be considered “in the punishment I will issue today” (emphasis added)); id. at
83:9–11 (Page ID #2885) (“[W]hat’s been done before isn’t sufficient enough to deter you, to
encourage you to be respectful of the law, to be law-abiding.” (emphasis added)). But the
supervised-release statute tells district courts not to consider punishment as a purpose when
imposing or revoking supervised release. When defense counsel objected to the district court’s

          1The court received a petition for rehearing en banc concerning the original order in this case, which
followed binding Sixth Circuit precedent. The petition for rehearing en banc was circulated to the entire court, and
less than a majority of the judges voted in favor of rehearing the original order en banc. Following circulation to the
full court of the en banc petition, however, the panel revised its prior order and circulated it to the en banc court. En
banc rehearing of the prior order was warranted, which is why I dissent from denial of rehearing en banc. And en
banc rehearing remains warranted now that the panel is issuing an amended order, because that revised decision
likewise relies on the same mistaken precedent. Because both the original and revised orders rely on United States
v. Lewis, 498 F.3d 393 (6th Cir. 2007), I have addressed both in this dissent from denial of rehearing en banc.
Esteras is of course free to petition for en banc rehearing again, now that the panel has filed a revised and published
decision.
 No. 23-3422                          United States v. Esteras                              Page 4

impermissible consideration of certain statutory factors embodying retributive purposes, the
district court confirmed that it relied heavily on “promot[ing] respect for the law” in reaching its
sentence, which represented an upward variance. Id. at 92:16–18 (Page ID #2894). In effect,
there is a real chance that Esteras was essentially punished twice, raising concerns of a
constitutional dimension and flagrantly violating Congress’s intent in any event. Our precedent
that allows district courts to consider unenumerated sentencing factors when revoking supervised
release, United States v. Lewis, 498 F.3d 393 (6th Cir. 2007), relies on atextual reasoning directly
contrary to Congress’s purposes. It is an outlier among the circuits. Our failure today to correct
Lewis’s basic mistakes usurps Congress’s role, runs afoul of rudimentary principles of statutory
interpretation, and ultimately undermines the purposes of supervised release. Today’s decision
in this case serves only to prolong our unfortunate adherence to a mistaken precedent.

       Today’s opinion defends Lewis on two grounds: “one textual, [and] one contextual.”
Amended Order at 5. Neither ground supports Lewis or today’s decision. The statutory text is
clear. It directs district judges to take account of certain sentencing factors, but not others, when
revoking supervised release. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e), a court “may, after considering the
factors set forth in section 3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(B), (a)(2)(C), (a)(2)(D), (a)(4), (a)(5), (a)(6), and
(a)(7),” terminate, modify, extend, or revoke a defendant’s term of supervised release. Notably
absent from this list is § 3553(a)(2)(A), which directs district courts to consider “the need for the
sentence imposed . . . to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for the law, and
to provide just punishment for the offense.” Canons of statutory construction dictate that this
omission was intentional and command district courts not to take account of the (a)(2)(A) factors
when revoking supervised release. See, e.g., Leatherman v. Tarrant Cnty. Narcotics Intel. &
Coordination Unit, 507 U.S. 163, 168 (1993) (declining to extend Rule 9(b)’s pleading
requirements to complaints alleging municipal liability because “the Federal Rules do address in
Rule 9(b) the question of the need for greater particularity in pleading certain actions, but do not
include among the enumerated actions any reference to complaints alleging municipal liability”);
id. (“Expressio unius est exclusio alterius.”); Russello v. United States, 464 U.S. 16, 23 (1983)
(“[W]here Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in
another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and
 No. 23-3422                           United States v. Esteras                              Page 5

purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion.” (quoting United States v. Wong Kim Bo,
472 F.2d 720, 722 (5th Cir. 1972))).

       Simply put, Lewis and today’s opinion offer no explanation for why Congress
deliberately chose to include some, but not all, of the § 3553(a) factors in § 3583(e). Today’s
opinion declares that § 3583 “generally gives courts considerable discretion over supervised-
release decisions after considering the listed factors.”      Amended Order at 5 (citing Lewis,
498 F.3d at 400). But neither Lewis nor the instant opinion can ground this contention in the
statutory text. Rather, § 3583(e) explicitly constrains the exercise of discretion, directing district
courts to focus on only the enumerated factors. Had Congress wished for district courts to
consider the § 3553(a)(2)(A) factors, it would have made § 3583(e) coterminous with § 3553(a).
Congress did not. See Azar v. Allina Health Servs., 587 U.S. ----, 139 S. Ct. 1804, 1813 (2019)
(explaining that courts should not rely on the “doubtful proposition that Congress sought to
accomplish in a ‘surpassingly strange manner’ what it could have accomplished in a much more
straightforward way” (quoting RadLAX Gateway Hotel, LLC v. Amalgamated Bank, 566 U.S.
639, 647 (2012))).

       The context follows from the text.        In Tapia v. United States, the Supreme Court
explained that 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A)–(D) reflects “the four purposes of sentencing
generally”: “retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation.” 564 U.S. 319, 325
(2011). The statute’s “provisions make clear that a particular purpose may apply differently, or
even not at all, depending on the kind of sentence under consideration.” Id. at 326. Following
the statute’s plain text, “a court may not take account of retribution (the first purpose listed in
§ 3553(a)(2)) when imposing a term of supervised release.” Id. Section § 3583(e), which
pertains to revoking supervised release, is the mirror-image of § 3583(c), which pertains to
imposing a term of supervised release. It follows that both subsections direct district courts not
to consider retribution when imposing or revoking supervised release.

       Faced with this obvious hurdle, today’s decision attempts to rewrite Tapia. Of course,
I need not put much gloss on what Justice Kagan straightforwardly said in that opinion: a district
court cannot rely on the § 3553(a)(2)(A) factors when making decisions concerning supervised
release. Tapia, 564 U.S. at 326. Today’s decision attempts to skirt this plain statement through
 No. 23-3422                          United States v. Esteras                               Page 6

two paragraphs of explanation of what Justice Kagan supposedly must have meant. I, like
Justice Kagan, prefer to rely on the actual text of the statute. In any event, today’s attempt to
square what the district court did with Tapia is futile. For one, today’s opinion gets its facts
wrong. It says in conclusory words that no one has shown that the district judge let retribution
guide the decision. Amended Order at 7. Most obviously, Esteras has. Pet. Rehearing En Banc
at 10 (“The district court expressly relied on the section 3553(a)(2)(A) factors—specifically, the
need to punish and to promote respect for the law—when revoking Esteras’ supervised release.”
(emphasis added)). And this assertion of the panel is belied by the plain words the district court
used in the proceeding, which sounded in retribution. Like its take on Tapia, today’s decision
would rather reconceptualize the very words the district court used—“punishment” and
“punitive”—and chalk them up to “set[ting] the stage” rather than an error on the part of the
district court. Of course, “setting the stage” by thinking of the sentence in terms of punishment
is precisely what a district court must not do per the text of the statute. To the extent that Tapia
explains that taking the § 3553(a)(2)(A) factors into account necessarily means taking retribution
into account, today’s decision’s myopic focus on a word here or there entirely misses the point.

       Tapia is also instructive on statute-drafting more broadly.        But once again, today’s
decision would rather ignore its clear import. Today’s decision suggests that unless Congress
enacts a separate statutory provision forbidding district courts to take account of certain factors,
as it did in § 3582(a), the purposeful omissions in § 3583(c) and (e) are meaningless. Yet
Congress can accomplish its statutory purposes in a variety of ways, as Tapia recognizes. Again,
the only understanding of § 3583(e) that gives effect to its plain text is that explained by Tapia.

       That retributive concerns are not to be taken into account reflects Congress’s judgment of
the purpose of supervised release. The relevant legislative history explicitly states that “the
sentencing purposes of incapacitation and punishment would not be served by a term of
supervised release—that the primary goal of such a term is to ease the defendant’s transition into
the community.” S. Rep. No. 98-225, at *124 (1983); see also Johnson v. United States,
529 U.S. 694, 708–09 (2000) (citing the Senate Report and discussing the purpose of supervised
release). By contrast, taking the retributive § 3553(a)(2)(A) factors into account when imposing
or revoking supervised release contravenes this congressional purpose and also creates “serious
 No. 23-3422                         United States v. Esteras                              Page 7

constitutional questions . . . by construing revocation and reimprisonment as punishment for the
violation of the conditions of supervised release.” Johnson, 529 U.S. at 700. The Sentencing
Guidelines confirm this understanding:       revocation of supervised release is not meant to
“substantially duplicate the sanctioning role of the court with jurisdiction over a defendant’s new
criminal conduct,” but instead to “sanction primarily the defendant’s breach of trust.” U.S.
Sent’g Guidelines Manual Ch. 7A Intro. (U.S. Sent’g Comm’n 2023).

       No doubt, there is some level of overlap between the factors district courts must consider
when revoking supervised release, and those that a district court cannot consider. See Lewis, 498
F. 3d at 400 (explaining that a district court likely takes into account the seriousness of an
offense when considering the nature and circumstances of the offense). But today’s opinion
treats this reality—that there is some degree of overlap—as a virtue, manifestly dishonoring
Congress’s decision to omit the § 3553(a)(2)(A) factors from consideration. Amended Order at
6 (“To think about the one requires the judge to think about the other.”); id. (“To neglect the one
dishonors the other.”). That a district court may consider, to some degree, the seriousness of the
offense, however, does not justify allowing district courts to disregard Congress’s mandate that
retributive concerns should not influence the overall sentence. Put differently, the overlap
problem first identified by Lewis is exaggerated to the extent that a district court can avoid
running afoul of the statute by avoiding viewing revocation of supervised release as retribution.

       Perhaps recognizing the futility of any text-based argument, today’s decision reinvents
the overlap argument in the form of a strawman. It suggests that Congress cannot possibly have
meant that district courts should not rely on the § 3553(a)(2)(A) factors when revoking
supervised release, because “Congress requires courts to consider the same set of factors when
first imposing a term of supervised release as when revoking one.” Amended Order at 6. Per
today’s decision, district courts would be forced to “adjourn the hearing after imposing a[n]
[initial] sentence” and “start over with a new unblemished inquiry into the right term of
supervised release” so as to not mistakenly consider the § 3553(a)(2)(A) factors. Id. This
argument is disingenuous. What the statute requires is that district courts not view supervised
release as an additional punishment, and that district courts adjust their rationale and
 No. 23-3422                         United States v. Esteras                             Page 8

considerations accordingly when imposing or revoking supervised release. The district court
manifestly failed to do that here.

       What is more, some degree of overlap cannot explain away Congress’s explicit choice to
omit certain sentencing factors from consideration when revoking supervised release. In this
way, the analyses of Lewis and today’s opinion are self-defeating. If Congress believed that
courts would inevitably consider the § 3553(a)(2)(A) factors when revoking supervised release,
it would not have omitted such factors from § 3583. Lewis, 498 F.3d at 400. The same is true if
Congress affirmatively wanted district courts to consider such factors.          Id. at 399–400.
Regardless, bare judicial pragmatism cannot overcome the plain text of the statute, which directs
district courts not to take retributive sentencing factors into account. United States v. Tohono
O’Odham Nation, 563 U.S. 307, 317 (2011) (“[C]onsiderations of policy divorced from the
statute’s text and purpose could not override its meaning.”).

       Beyond these fundamental errors, en banc reconsideration is warranted because the Sixth
Circuit’s approach is an outlier among the circuit courts. Lewis and today’s opinion are entirely
untethered from the statutory text, and it would appear that they allow a district court to rely
exclusively on the § 3553(a)(2)(A) factors when revoking supervised release. Lewis, 498 F.3d at
399–400 (holding “that it does not constitute reversible error to consider § 3553(a)(2)(A) when
imposing a sentence for violation of supervised release, even though this factor is not
enumerated in § 3583(e)”). In other words, our cases contain no limits and allow district courts
to disregard § 3583(e) in toto. Though there is a circuit split on this issue, most circuits would
find that a revocation of supervised release principally based on the § 3553(a)(2)(A) factors is
procedurally unreasonable. See, e.g., United States v. Booker, 63 F.4th 1254, 1260 (10th Cir.
2023) (“[I]t is procedural error to consider an unenumerated [§ 3553(a)(2)(A)] factor.”); United
States v. Miqbel, 444 F.3d 1173, 1182–83 (9th Cir. 2006) (holding that “mere reference” to
unenumerated § 3553(a)(2)(A) factors would not be reversible error, but that further
consideration of such factors when revoking supervised release is procedurally unreasonable);
United States v. Rivera, 784 F.3d 1012, 1017 (5th Cir. 2015) (“[A] sentencing error occurs when
an impermissible consideration is a dominant factor in the court’s revocation sentence.”); United
States v. Young, 634 F.3d 233, 241 (3rd Cir. 2011) (recognizing that consideration of
 No. 23-3422                         United States v. Esteras                              Page 9

unenumerated § 3553(a)(2)(A) factors would not be reversible per se error, but that “there may
be a case where a court places undue weight on the” § 3553(a)(2)(A) factors); United States v.
Webb, 738 F.3d 638, 642 (4th Cir. 2013) (“[A]lthough a district court may not impose a
revocation sentence based predominately on the [§ 3553(a)(2)(A) factors], we conclude that
mere reference to such considerations does not render a revocation sentence procedurally
unreasonable.”); United States v. Clay, 752 F.3d 1106, 1108 (7th Cir. 2014) (“[W]e now join the
majority of circuits that have faced this issue and rule that this subsection [§ 3553(a)(2)(A)] may
be considered so long as the district court relies primarily on [enumerated] factors.” (emphasis
added)).   Lewis appears expressly to adopt punishment as a valid rationale for revoking
supervised release, directly contrary to the statute and Congress’s intent. 498 F.3d at 400
(“[A]lthough violations of supervised release generally do not entail conduct as serious as crimes
punishable under the § 3553(a) regime, revocation sentences are similarly intended to ‘sanction,’
or, analogously, to ‘provide just punishment for the offense’ of violating supervised release.”).

       Lewis and today’s decision bulldoze over each and every indication of congressional
intent available in favor of an explicitly policy-driven outcome.        That includes plain text,
legislative history, and information from the Sentencing Commission.          “[D]eference to the
supremacy of the Legislature, as well as recognition that Congress[members] typically vote on
the language of a bill, generally requires us to assume that ‘the legislative purpose is expressed
by the ordinary meaning of the words used.’” United States v. Locke, 471 U.S. 84, 95 (1985)
(quoting Richards v. United States, 369 U.S. 1, 9 (1962)). Here, this deference requires that
district courts honor Congress’s explicit choice that supervised release not be an additional
punishment, and that district courts adjust their rationale and considerations accordingly. The
district court failed to do that here. It plainly viewed revocation of supervised release as
punishment, and sentenced Esteras to 24 months’ imprisonment based on impermissible
sentencing factors. R. 439 (Revocation Tr. at 81:17–22, 83:9–11, 85:13–21) (Page ID #2883,
2885, 2887). Because our precedent mistakenly allows a district court to do so, I respectfully
dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc in this case.
 No. 23-3422                         United States v. Esteras                             Page 10

                                     ____________________

                                            DISSENT
                                     ____________________

       GRIFFIN, Circuit Judge, dissenting.

       I respectfully dissent from the denial of the Petition for Rehearing En Banc. I would
grant the petition because the question raised is of exceptional importance warranting
consideration and decision by our En Banc Court after full briefing and argument. Fed. R. App.
P. 35(a)(2).

       Under United States v. Lewis, district courts may revoke supervised release—and impose
more prison time—for the purpose of punishment, a consideration ostensibly prohibited by the
statutory text. 498 F.3d 393, 399–400 (6th Cir. 2007); see also 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e) (“The court
may, after considering the factors set forth in section 3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(B), (a)(2)(C), (a)(2)(D),
(a)(4), (a)(5), (a)(6), and (a)(7),” revoke a term of supervised release); Tapia v. United States,
564 U.S. 319, 326–27 (2011) (explaining that 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A–D) reflects “the four
purposes of sentencing generally” and that § 3553(a)(2)(A) reflects the purpose of punishment).

       Lewis’s holding has enormous consequences for the liberty of hundreds of defendants
within our circuit who are sentenced every year for violating supervised-release conditions.
See U.S. Sent’g Comm’n, Federal Probation and Supervised Release Violations, 51–52
(July 2020),      https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/research-
publications/2020/20200728_Violations.pdf (reflecting an average of 1,685 probation and
supervised-release violations each year in district courts within the Sixth Circuit between 2013
and 2017). Under Lewis, our district courts, when sentencing supervised-release violators, are
more likely to revoke supervised release and impose longer prison terms because they are
permitted to punish the violators.

       Under the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, cases in which the dispositive issues
“have been authoritatively decided” are not usually set for oral argument. Fed. R. App. P.
34(a)(2)(B). Because of Lewis, this case was a “Rule 34” case and decided summarily. In my
view, given the widespread impact of Lewis and the vigorous debate concerning its viability, as
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articulated by Judge Moore’s dissent and the varying circuit decisions on this issue, this is an
exceptionally important issue warranting full briefing and argument before our En Banc Court.

                                            ENTERED BY ORDER OF THE COURT

                                            ___________________________________
                                            Kelly L. Stephens, Clerk