Court Opinion

ID: 9841288
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-21 20:01:51.12481+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:43:37.532507
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-11960    Document: 36-1     Date Filed: 09/21/2023   Page: 1 of 7

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                   In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-11960
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                      Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
       versus
       JOSHUA HUNTER,

                                                  Defendant-Appellant.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                    for the Southern District of Alabama
                  D.C. Docket No. 1:08-cr-00053-TFM-M-2
                          ____________________
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       2                         Opinion of the Court                     22-11960

       Before JORDAN, BRANCH, and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Joshua Hunter appeals the above-guidelines 48-month sen-
       tence imposed -- pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3) -- upon the sec-
       ond revocation of his supervised release. 1 Hunter challenges the
       substantive reasonableness of his sentence. No reversible error has
       been shown; we aﬃrm.
              In 2008, Hunter pleaded guilty to carjacking and to pos-
       sessing a ﬁrearm during a crime of violence: violations of 18 U.S.C.
       §§ 2119 and 924(c). Hunter was sentenced to a total of 161 months’
       imprisonment followed by 5 years’ supervised release.
              Hunter completed his custodial sentence and began his 5-
       year term of supervised release in August 2019. In October 2020,
       the district court revoked Hunter’s supervised release and sen-
       tenced Hunter to 13 months in prison followed by 47 months of
       supervised release.
               Hunter began his second term of supervised release in Sep-
       tember 2021. In May 2022, a probation oﬃcer petitioned the dis-
       trict court to revoke Hunter’s supervised release for a second time.
       The probation oﬃcer alleged that Hunter had violated the condi-
       tions of his supervised release in two ways: (1) by committing new
       state crimes (trespass and attempt to introduce contraband into a

       1 Hunter does not challenge the revocation of his supervised release.
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       22-11960                Opinion of the Court                          3

       prison facility); and (2) by failing to notify his probation oﬃcer
       within 72 hours of being arrested.
              The petition set forth the circumstances underlying
       Hunter’s newly-charged state oﬀenses. 2 In the early morning
       hours on 8 April 2022, oﬃcers responded to a call about a trespasser
       on state property near an Alabama prison facility. Oﬃcers discov-
       ered a black duﬀel bag containing a drone battery and several sealed
       packages containing “37 touchscreen cell phones, 44 (USB) charg-
       ing cords, 28 charging blocks, 71 sim cards, 29 push pins, 20 sticky
       notes containing phone numbers, pin numbers and account num-
       bers, two (2) gold necklaces, one (1) pair of eyeglasses, 214 grams
       of white pills and 60 grams of brown pills (believed to be supple-
       ment pills).” The packages had zip ties taped to them in a way that
       led oﬃcers to believe that the trespasser intended to deliver the
       packages by drone into the prison yard.
              After discovering the duﬀel bag, oﬃcers used police dogs to
       track the trespasser. Oﬃcers located Hunter and arrested him
       without incident. Oﬃcers later located a drone near the area where
       Hunter had been found.
              At the ﬁnal revocation hearing, the district court revoked
       Hunter’s supervised release. The district court then considered the
       parties’ submissions, the advisory guidelines range (18 to 24
       months), and the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors. The district court

       2 Never has Hunter disputed the factual allegations underlying his state
       charges.
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       4                      Opinion of the Court                  22-11960

       acknowledged -- but noted that it was not bound by -- the parties’
       joint recommended sentence of 24 months. At the end of the hear-
       ing, the district court concluded that an above-guidelines sentence
       of 48 months’ imprisonment with no additional term of supervised
       release was appropriate.
               We review a sentence imposed upon revocation of super-
       vised release for reasonableness in the light of the totality of the
       circumstances and the section 3553(a) factors. See United States v.
       Trailer, 827 F.3d 933, 935-36 (11th Cir 2016). We evaluate the sub-
       stantive reasonableness of a sentence -- whether one inside or out-
       side the guidelines range -- under a deferential abuse-of-discretion
       standard. See Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007). “The party
       challenging the sentence bears the burden of showing that it is un-
       reasonable.” Trailer, 827 F.3d at 936.
               In imposing a sentence upon revocation of supervised re-
       lease, the district court must consider (1) the nature and circum-
       stances of the oﬀense, (2) the defendant’s history and characteris-
       tics, (3) the need for the sentence to deter criminal conduct and to
       protect the public, (4) the need to provide the defendant with edu-
       cation training or medical care, (5) the advisory guidelines range,
       (6) the policy statements of the Sentencing Commission, (7) the
       need to avoid sentencing disparities, and (8) the need to provide
       restitution to victims. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 3553(a), 3583(e). We will
       disturb a sentence only “if we are left with the deﬁnite and ﬁrm
       conviction that the district court committed a clear error of judg-
       ment in weighing the [sentencing] factors by arriving at a sentence
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       22-11960               Opinion of the Court                        5

       that lies outside the range of reasonable sentences dictated by the
       facts of the case.” See Trailer, 827 F.3d at 936 (quotation omitted).
               Hunter has failed to demonstrate that his above-guidelines
       sentence substantively was unreasonable. The record reﬂects that
       Hunter has a lengthy criminal history. Hunter also committed the
       instant supervised-release violations less than 7 months after his
       most recent release from custody and after already serving an ad-
       ditional 13-month sentence upon the revocation of his ﬁrst term of
       supervised release in this case. At the revocation hearing, the dis-
       trict court described Hunter’s criminal history as demonstrating a
       willful disregard for the law and a “disregard for any sense of au-
       thority and any sense of compliance” with societal rules.
             The district court gave little weight to Hunter’s arguments
       about whether his charged state crimes constituted felonies or mis-
       demeanors under Alabama law. The district court, instead, stressed
       the “ﬂat-out dangerous” nature of the conduct underlying
       Hunter’s violations. The district court recognized the already-dan-
       gerous conditions inside Alabama’s prisons and explained that -- by
       attempting to smuggle contraband into a prison -- Hunter acted to
       further endanger the safety of inmates and correctional oﬃcers.
       The district court observed that allowing inmates access to cell
       phones would facilitate ongoing criminal activity both inside and
       outside of the prison and could lead to possible prison violence.
       The district court observed that Hunter showed disdain for the law
       not only by violating the law himself while under the court’s
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       6                      Opinion of the Court                22-11960

       supervision but also by assisting others in violating the law and
       prison rules.
               The district court observed that the circumstances sur-
       rounding Hunter’s conduct indicated that Hunter had conspired
       with inmates to smuggle the contraband. The district court noted
       that -- had Hunter been successful -- Hunter was likely to repeat the
       behavior.
               In the light of the nature and circumstances of Hunter’s su-
       pervised-release violations and of Hunter’s history and character-
       istics, we accept that an above-guidelines sentence of 48 months’
       imprisonment could be reasonably thought to be necessary to pro-
       vide adequate deterrence and to protect the public from future
       crimes.
               Contrary to Hunter’s assertion on appeal, the district court
       considered expressly evidence that Hunter had earned his OSHA
       certiﬁcation and that Hunter was close to obtaining his commercial
       driver’s license. The district court recognized that Hunter had “the
       ability to do diﬀerently” but “willfully ch[o]se not to.” That the
       district court aﬀorded more weight to Hunter’s criminal history
       and underlying conduct than the court did to other mitigating fac-
       tors is no abuse of discretion. Cf. United States v. Amedeo, 487 F.3d
       823, 832 (11th Cir. 2007) (“The weight to be accorded any given §
       3553(a) factor is a matter committed to the sound discretion of the
       district court, and we will not substitute our judgment in weighing
       the relevant factors.” (quotation and alteration omitted)).
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       22-11960               Opinion of the Court                        7

               Viewing the record as a whole, we are not “left with the def-
       inite and ﬁrm conviction that the district court committed a clear
       error of judgment in weighing the § 3553(a) factors by arriving at
       a sentence that lies outside the range of reasonable sentences dic-
       tated by the facts of the case.” See Trailer, 827 F.3d at 936. The
       district court abused no discretion; we aﬃrm Hunter’s sentence.
             AFFIRMED.