Court Opinion

ID: 9944031
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-26 16:02:05.354417+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:55:07.440541
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                            For the Eighth Circuit
                        ___________________________

                                No. 23-2527
                        ___________________________

                            United States of America

                                     Plaintiff - Appellee

                                        v.

                               Charles D. Nadeau

                                   Defendant - Appellant
                                 ____________

                    Appeal from United States District Court
                    for the District of South Dakota - Central
                                  ____________

                           Submitted: January 8, 2024
                            Filed: February 26, 2024
                                 [Unpublished]
                                 ____________

Before SMITH, Chief Judge, GRUENDER and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.
                              ____________

PER CURIAM.

      In 2009, Charles D. Nadeau pled guilty to second-degree murder and was
sentenced to 120 months’ imprisonment, followed by 3 years of supervised release.
After being released from custody in 2017, the district court1 revoked Nadeau’s

      1
        The Honorable Karen E. Schreier, United States District Judge for the
District of South Dakota.
supervised release in 2018 after he admitted to ingesting marijuana and consuming
alcohol on more than one occasion. The district court sentenced Nadeau to three
months’ imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release. After
beginning his second term of supervised release in late 2018, the district court again
revoked Nadeau’s supervised release in 2022 after Nadeau admitted to consuming
alcohol on two occasions and driving while intoxicated. The district court sentenced
Nadeau to 3 months’ imprisonment followed by 18 months of supervised release.
Finally, in 2023, the district court revoked Nadeau’s supervised release for the third
time after it found that he failed to submit to urinalysis testing, ingested controlled
substances, and failed to report to a residential reentry center as directed. This time,
the district court sentenced Nadeau to 24 months’ imprisonment with no supervision
to follow. Nadeau appeals, contending that this sentence is substantively
unreasonable. Having jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.

        At the hearing on his third revocation, Nadeau admitted to failing to submit to
urinalysis testing. However, he testified that his signatures—found on supervision
documents in which he admitted to using controlled substances and acknowledged
directions to report to a residential reentry center—were forged. Nadeau further
testified that at various times he experienced car and money problems and was in
jail, which prevented him from traveling to the urinalysis testing sites and the
residential reentry center. Because Nadeau had accused his probation officer of
forging Nadeau’s signature, the district court continued the hearing to allow the
probation officer to testify. At the second hearing, the probation officer who
completed the documents in question verified that Nadeau had indeed signed the
forms.

      The district court found that Nadeau lied when he testified that he did not sign
the supervision forms, that he was aware of the dates and places he was to report for
urinalysis testing and to be admitted to a residential reentry center, and that he did
not timely advise a probation officer that alternative transportation arrangements
were needed. Further, the district court found that Nadeau was not in jail during the
relevant time period, as Nadeau had testified. Accordingly, the district court ordered
                                          -2-
Nadeau’s supervised release revoked. Nadeau’s violations were grade C violations,
and the district court calculated the United States Sentencing Guidelines range as 5
to 11 months imprisonment’ with a statutory maximum of 5 years’ imprisonment.
The district court varied upwards and sentenced Nadeau to a term of 24 months’
imprisonment with no supervision to follow.

       On appeal, Nadeau does not challenge the district court’s factual findings or
the revocation of his supervised release. Instead, he asserts that the revocation
sentence is substantively unreasonable. More precisely, he contends that the district
court abused its discretion in weighing the applicable 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors by
placing too much weight on its finding that Nadeau was untruthful at the revocation
hearing and too little weight on mitigating factors, such as “the struggles Mr. Nadeau
faced while on supervision” and “the efforts he made with the limited resources and
connections he had.” We review the substantive reasonableness of a revocation
sentence under the same reasonableness standard applied to initial sentences. United
States v. Wilkins, 909 F.3d 915, 917 (8th Cir. 2018). “A district court abuses its
discretion and imposes an unreasonable sentence when it fails to consider a relevant
and significant [18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)] factor, gives significant weight to an irrelevant
or improper factor, or considers the appropriate factors but commits a clear error of
judgment in weighing those factors.” Id. (alteration in original) (citation omitted).

       Nadeau’s argument that the district court did not place sufficient emphasis on
the mitigating factors overlooks the fact that the district court rejected much of
Nadeau’s mitigation testimony. For example, the district court heard Nadeau’s
testimony about alleged obstacles he faced in complying with the urinalysis testing
and residential reentry center requirement but found that, even if Nadeau had
encountered obstacles, he failed to timely advise a probation officer of his inability
to comply with directions or request that alternative transportation arrangements
such as bus tickets or gas vouchers be provided. The district court also found that
Nadeau did not exercise the option of providing urinalysis samples via a kit brought
to his home by a probation officer. Further, the district court found that Nadeau was
not in jail when he was to report to the residential reentry center.
                                         -3-
       In weighing the relevant sentencing factors, the district court was entitled to
place considerable weight on Nadeau’s false testimony as well as his lengthy history
of noncompliance with conditions of supervised release. See United States v. Corn,
47 F.4th 892, 898 (8th Cir. 2022) (“A sentencing court has wide latitude to weigh
the relevant factors and to assign some greater weight than others in determining an
appropriate sentence.”). Nadeau’s argument boils down to a disagreement with how
the district court weighed the applicable § 3553(a) factors, which is insufficient to
warrant reversal. See United States v. Campbell, 986 F.3d 782, 800 (8th Cir. 2021)
(“[A] defendant’s disagreement with the district court’s balancing of relevant
considerations does not show that the court abused its discretion.”). Further, “we
have frequently approved upward variances where a defendant is a ‘recidivist
violator’ of supervised release conditions,” as Nadeau is here. United States v.
Elbert, 20 F.4th 413, 416 (8th Cir. 2021) (citation omitted). The district court did
not abuse its discretion in imposing Nadeau’s sentence.

      The judgment of the district court is affirmed.
                     ______________________________

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