Court Opinion

ID: 9382546
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-28 00:00:42.206735+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:40.126999
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-10721         Document: 00516690457             Page: 1      Date Filed: 03/27/2023

              United States Court of Appeals
                   for the Fifth Circuit                                  United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                   Fifth Circuit

                                                                                 FILED
                                                                            March 27, 2023
                                         No. 22-10721                       Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                                 Clerk

   United States of America,

                                                                      Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                             versus

   Jabsie Dwayne Lewis,

                                                                  Defendant—Appellant.

                      Appeal from the United States District Court
                          for the Northern District of Texas
                               USDC No. 3:21-CR-429-1

   Before King, Jones, and Duncan, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam:*
          Jabsie Dwayne Lewis violated the conditions of his supervised release.
   The district court revoked his supervised release and sentenced him to 12
   months and a day in prison and five years of supervised release. On appeal,
   Lewis argues that the aggregate sentence was substantively unreasonable and
   that the district court erroneously considered his rehabilitative needs and his
   socioeconomic status. We disagree and hold that the district court’s

          *
              This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
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                                     No. 22-10721

   revocation and sentencing were motivated primarily by Lewis’s criminal
   history and that Lewis has thus not shown substantive unreasonableness or
   plain error. We thus AFFIRM.
                                          I.
          In 2009, Defendant-Appellant Jabsie Dwayne Lewis pleaded guilty in
   the District of New Mexico to possession with intent to distribute more than
   five grams of a mixture and substance containing cocaine base. He was
   sentenced to 188 months of imprisonment and eight years of supervised
   release. Lewis’s supervised release term was transferred to the Northern
   District of Texas on August 26, 2021.
          On November 1, 2021, Lewis’s probation officer filed a petition
   alleging that Lewis violated his release term’s prohibition on traveling
   outside the Northern District of Texas without permission; Lewis admitted
   this violation to his probation officer. In response, the district court ordered
   Lewis to participate in a location monitoring program for 60 days, during
   which time he was restricted to his residence except for authorized absences.
          On March 8, 2022, the probation officer filed another petition alleging
   further violations of Lewis’s release term conditions. The petition first
   alleged that Lewis traveled to Copperas Cove in the Western District of
   Texas. Additionally, the petition alleged that Lewis violated another
   condition by failing to attend mental health treatment. Because of these
   violations, Lewis’s recommended guidelines imprisonment range was eight
   to fourteen months. He was granted pretrial release via home detention on
   March 14. Afterwards, in an addendum filed on May 16, the probation officer
   further alleged that Lewis had again traveled outside of the Northern District
   of Texas to Lampasas in the Western District of Texas and Albuquerque in
   the District of New Mexico.

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          On May 31, Lewis filed an unopposed motion to revoke his pretrial
   release and to permit self-surrender due to changed circumstances: namely,
   his loss of stable housing. He explained that, upon his release from home
   detention, he was to stay with his aunt in the Northern District of Texas until
   May 19, the initial date of his revocation hearing. Based on this date, Lewis’s
   aunt arranged to leave her home on June 1 to travel to Oklahoma to be with
   family. But Lewis’s revocation hearing was reset for June 29. Thus, Lewis
   explained, he would become homeless on May 31, and his only alternative
   would be the financially burdensome option to stay in a hotel from May 31
   until his new revocation hearing date. Accordingly, Lewis stated in this
   motion that he and the Government had agreed as follows: (1) Lewis would
   admit the Copperas Cove travel violation; (2) in exchange, the Government
   would not pursue the other alleged violations; and (3) Lewis would request a
   sentence of two to three months of incarceration so that he could
   subsequently be released into another, non-Northern Texas district where he
   would have support. A magistrate judge granted the motion, and Lewis self-
   surrendered.
          On July 22, Lewis filed a notice of intent seeking revocation of his
   supervised release, a sentence of time served,1 and no further supervision.
   Alternatively, if the district court wanted to impose further supervision,
   Lewis asked for a reduced term of supervision and a modification of
   conditions so that he could reside in the Western District of Texas; he noted
   that the Government was not opposed to a sentence of time served, one year
   of supervision, and permission to live in the Western District.

          1
            Lewis explained in this motion that, per the Bureau of Prisons, his previously
   requested sentence of two-to-three months would not provide sufficient time to trigger a
   new release plan.

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          In his notice, Lewis further explained his troubled housing history.
   After his imprisonment (i.e., before his supervised release) and during his
   stay in a residential re-entry center, Lewis had received approval to live in the
   Eastern District of Texas, which was then listed as the district of supervision.
   Upon starting his supervised release, Lewis’s supervision was re-assigned to
   the Northern District of Texas; this required Lewis to break his Eastern
   District lease and move into a motel with his son. Lewis then moved into a
   room that turned out to be a scam. A family member offered a trailer in
   Copperas Cove in the Western District of Texas for Lewis to stay in. On
   February 9, 2022, Lewis provided this Copperas Cove address to his
   probation officer but was advised it would take two-to-three weeks for
   approval to transfer his address. During this time, Lewis and his son lived in
   a motel and, when he ran out of money, in his vehicle. Lewis moved to the
   Copperas Cove trailer about two weeks after submitting the transfer request
   but before he had received approval.
          On July 25, the district court held the revocation hearing. There,
   Lewis admitted his unauthorized travel to Copperas Cove. His counsel
   reiterated Lewis’s housing troubles and his prior request for a sentence of
   time served and no further supervised release. Lewis’s counsel stated that
   Lewis would be able to find stable housing in the Western District of Texas
   but that there was no guarantee that the court in the Western District would
   agree to accept his supervision.
          The district court then reviewed Lewis’s criminal history, including
   possession of a firearm and a failure to appear after his release. Lewis’s
   counsel noted that Lewis’s drug possession sentence was a mandatory
   minimum sentence for possessing five or more grams of crack cocaine; less
   than four months after his sentencing, the Fair Sentencing Act raised this
   five-gram standard to twenty-eight grams. Accordingly, Lewis’s counsel
   noted that had Lewis delayed his plea, he may have been sentenced later

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   under the more lenient Fair Sentencing Act standard. Lewis’s counsel noted
   that, under supervision, Lewis had no offenses, no drug use, and no issues
   reporting to his probation officer.
          The district court expressed some concern about Lewis’s release
   violations. It stated: “Well, he’s wandering where he’s not supposed to be.
   That concerns me. And I understand that there is some homelessness and
   some instability issues. . . . I do have concerns about just releasing him
   without trying . . . to resolve those issues.” The district court stated that it
   would not send Lewis to the “Western District where he would have some
   support . . . because it sounds like they won’t take him.” It then noted that
   Lewis’s criminal history raised “concerns about safety” and that it needed
   “to balance . . . keeping him safe with needing to keep society safe.”
          As an alternative to revoking his supervised release, Lewis’s counsel
   suggested modifying his release conditions to authorize travel between the
   districts and checking up on him after three months at a status conference.
   The Government expressed its hope for a “solution that will permit
   either . . . an easier transfer to the Western District, or at least if his
   supervision continues here, . . . travel between the districts that’s not going
   to cause another violation.” The Government agreed with Lewis that it
   would be “completely appropriate” not to revoke his supervised release in
   this case, as Lewis’s violation was only a “technical” one. In addition, the
   Government specified that it did not “think any further term of incarceration
   is appropriate.”
          The district court rejected both parties’ proposed solutions. It stated
   that it “gave [Lewis] a shot earlier” when Lewis had “wandered” before.
   Given this past violation, the district court was “not comfortable” with
   allowing Lewis unrestricted travel to other districts. It stated, “I want to
   address this homelessness issue, but there’s a reason that I’m supervising

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   him in the Northern District; and it’s because I want to keep an eye on him”
   because Lewis has “a significant criminal history.”
            The district court then revoked Lewis’s supervised release and
   sentenced him to twelve months and a day in prison. It also sentenced Lewis
   to five years of supervised release, during which time he must reside at a
   residential re-entry center “for a period of no more than 180 days, to be
   released at the direction of the probation officer” and participate in a location
   monitoring program for one year while being “continuously restricted to his
   place of residence, except for authorized absences approved in advance by
   his U.S. probation officer.” Lewis timely appeals, challenging (1) the
   reasonableness of the district court’s aggregate sentence; (2) the district
   court’s reliance on Lewis’s rehabilitative needs in sentencing; and (3) the
   district court’s reliance on Lewis’s socioeconomic status (“SES”) when
   determining the sentence.
                                          II.
            Lewis preserved his substantive reasonableness claim in the district
   court by advocating for a particular sentence. See Holguin-Hernandez v.
   United States, 140 S. Ct. 762, 766 (2020) (holding that, “where a criminal
   defendant advocates for a sentence shorter than the one ultimately
   imposed,” “[n]othing more is needed to preserve the claim that a longer
   sentence is unreasonable.”). We thus review this issue under the “plainly
   unreasonable” standard. United States v. Miller, 634 F.3d 841, 843 (5th Cir.
   2011).
            Lewis concededly did not object at sentencing to the district court’s
   purported reliance on his rehabilitative needs and SES; accordingly, we
   review these issues for plain error. United States v. Warren, 720 F.3d 321, 326
   (5th Cir. 2013).

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                                        III.
                                         A.
          We begin with the reasonableness of Lewis’s aggregate sentence. The
   “plainly unreasonable” standard requires that we first consider whether the
   district court committed procedural error. Warren, 720 F.3d at 326. Because
   the parties do not argue that there was procedural error, we assume without
   deciding that Lewis’s sentence was procedurally proper and next consider
   his challenges to substantive reasonableness under an abuse-of-discretion
   standard. Miller, 634 F.3d at 843. “A [revocation] sentence is substantively
   unreasonable if it (1) does not account for a factor that should have received
   significant weight, (2) gives significant weight to an irrelevant or improper
   factor, or (3) represents a clear error of judgment in balancing the sentencing
   factors.” United States v. Winding, 817 F.3d 910, 914 (5th Cir. 2016)
   (alteration in original) (quoting Warren, 720 F.3d at 332). “If a sentence is
   unreasonable, then we consider whether the error was obvious under existing
   law.” Miller, 634 F.3d at 843.
          Lewis makes various arguments as to substantive unreasonableness.
   First, he argues that the factors cited by the district court do not reasonably
   justify the sentence. This argument is unavailing. The revocation hearing
   transcript suggests that the district court was motivated in large part by
   Lewis’s criminal history, which it reviewed extensively before explaining its
   decision. It noted that Lewis’s repeated violations, combined with his history
   of assaults, shootings, and batteries, raised “concerns about safety.” The
   court then explained it was supervising him “to keep an eye on him” due to
   his “significant criminal history; a lot of it violent.” Such comments evince
   a concern for Lewis’s criminal history as undergirding the district court’s
   sentencing. Such a justification is substantively reasonable, as criminal
   history is an appropriate factor for the district court to consider in revoking

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   supervised release. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 3583(e), 3553(a)(1) (allowing
   consideration of “the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history
   and characteristics of the defendant”); see also United States v. Sanchez, 900
   F.3d 678, 683 n.2 (5th Cir. 2018) (noting these allowances). The district
   court’s reliance on Lewis’s criminal history reasonably justified the sentence.
          Second, Lewis argues that the revocation was substantively
   unreasonable because the district court considered retribution as a factor in
   its revocation of Lewis’s supervised release. Lewis is correct that district
   courts cannot consider retribution in a revocation decision. See Sanchez, 900
   F.3d at 683 (stating that “retribution is off the table when it comes to
   revocation”). But we are not convinced that the district court erroneously
   considered retribution as a factor in revoking Lewis’s supervised release. In
   support of his argument, Lewis identifies instances where the district court
   noted its discomfort with Lewis’s repeated violations and chastised Lewis for
   perceived disrespect. But these comments alone do not require a finding of
   unreasonableness. “Mere mention of impermissible factors is acceptable; to
   constitute reversible error, our circuit has said, the forbidden factor must be
   ‘dominant.’” Id. at 684 n.5 (quoting United States v. Rivera, 784 F.3d 1012,
   1017 (5th Cir. 2015)). Here, the district court’s isolated references to
   retribution do not indicate that retribution was the dominant factor in its
   revocation decision, particularly given the repeated invocations of Lewis’s
   criminal history. Accordingly, Lewis fails to show that the district court
   improperly considered retribution as a factor in its revocation decision.
          Third, Lewis challenges the reasonableness of the location restriction
   as an unreasonable term of supervised release. But the location restriction—
   requiring Lewis to get approval to travel outside the Northern District of
   Texas—was motivated specifically by the fact that Lewis had previously
   violated this condition during his supervised release term. Given that these
   prior violations specifically precipitated this restriction, the district court’s

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   sentence was reasonable as “sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to
   comply with the purposes” of section 3553(a), Sanchez, 900 F.3d at 683
   (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)), which allows courts to consider the “history
   and characteristics of the defendant,” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1).
          Fourth, Lewis challenges the reasonableness of the sentence in light
   of the “draconian” sentence he received for his underlying crack cocaine
   offense. This argument also fails. Although Lewis’s sentence for this
   underlying offense was greater than the then-statutory minimum of ten years,
   his extensive criminal history at that point (including two felonies) made him
   a career offender. See U.S. SENT’G GUIDELINES MANUAL § 4B1.1(b)(2)
   (U.S. SENT’G COMM’N 2010). Accordingly, the intervening change in law
   raising the amount of cocaine needed to trigger a mandatory minimum does
   not necessarily suggest that his above-minimum sentence was inappropriate
   nor that the district court’s revocation was a substantively unreasonable
   “part of the final sentence for his [underlying] crime.” United States v.
   Haymond, 139 S. Ct. 2369, 2380 (2019).
          In sum, Lewis has not made the requisite showing of substantive
   unreasonableness required for us to find reversible error in the district
   court’s decision. The district court properly relied on Lewis’s criminal
   history and, as further discussed below, did not give significant weight to an
   improper factor.
                                          B.
          Lewis next argues that the district court erroneously relied on Lewis’s
   rehabilitative needs in violation of Tapia v. United States, 564 U.S. 319 (2011).
   See also United States v. Garza, 706 F.3d 655, 657 (5th Cir. 2013) (applying
   Tapia in the revocation context). Accepting this argument would require us
   to hold that the district court erred by considering rehabilitative needs as a

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   dominant factor in reaching its sentence. United States v. Walker, 742 F.3d
   614, 616 (5th Cir. 2014).
          A survey of our post-Tapia caselaw indicates that we have not applied
   that case to find error where a district court provided other reasons for its
   sentencing decision. See, e.g., United States v. Pillault, 783 F.3d 282, 290–92
   (5th Cir. 2015) (noting that the district court discussed the defendant’s work
   history and his disciplinary record as motivating its desire to protect the
   public); Walker, 742 F.3d at 616–17 (holding that a mention of rehabilitation
   was a non-dominant concern when this reference came only after discussing
   the defendant’s multiple violations of his release conditions). By contrast,
   instances where we have applied Tapia to find error have involved far clearer
   instances of the district court’s reliance on rehabilitation. See, e.g., United
   States v. Wooley, 740 F.3d 359, 366–69 (5th Cir. 2014) (“[T]he sentencing
   court repeatedly emphasized Wooley’s ‘desperate[]’ need for treatment and
   stated explicitly that the ‘purpose[]’ of the sentence,” which was three times
   higher than the top of the guideline range, “was to allow Wooley to get help
   for a cocaine problem.” (alteration in original)).
          For the reasons stated above, we hold that the dominant factor
   motivating the district court’s sentencing decision was Lewis’s criminal
   history. See supra Section III.A. We acknowledge that, at points in the record,
   the district court mentioned Lewis’s homelessness. But having reviewed the
   record in its entirety, we cannot say that these isolated mentions of Lewis’s
   homelessness were a dominant factor in the district court’s analysis given its
   lengthy consideration of Lewis’s criminal history. See Walker, 742 F.3d at
   616–17 (finding that rehabilitation was not a dominant factor “although the
   district court certainly took rehabilitation into account”); see also United
   States v. Terry, 518 F. App’x 273, 274 (5th Cir. 2013) (finding no Tapia error
   in the district court’s mention of defendant’s need for a place to live given
   the court’s “statement that it imposed the sentence to provide adequate

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   deterrence and to protect the public”). This case is more analogous to
   instances where we have ruled that rehabilitative needs were, at most, an
   additional justification. And in any case, given the record, we cannot say that
   Lewis has met the high bar of showing that the district court plainly erred in
   in a way that “was obvious under existing law.” Miller, 634 F.3d at 843.
   Accordingly, we hold that the district court did not impermissibly consider
   Lewis’s rehabilitative needs in violation of Tapia.
                                         C.
          Finally, Lewis argues that the district court erred by relying on his SES
   when imposing the judgment. In doing so, he identifies instances where the
   district court purportedly grounded its decision on his homelessness in what
   Lewis describes as the “central focus” of the revocation hearing. For the
   reasons stated above, this argument fails because Lewis’s criminal history
   was the dominant justification for the district court’s revocation. Thus, we
   hold that the district court did not erroneously consider Lewis’s SES in its
   revocation decision.
                                         IV.
          While we are sympathetic to Lewis’s efforts to secure stable housing
   for himself given his circumstances, he has not shown reversible error by the
   district court. For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM.

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