Court Opinion

ID: 9392210
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-04 16:01:53.667064+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:04.614001
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                           For the Eighth Circuit
                       ___________________________

                               No. 22-3133
                       ___________________________

                            United States of America

                       lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellee

                                          v.

                              Andre Tyrell Wilson

                     lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellant
                                     ____________

                   Appeal from United States District Court
                 for the Eastern District of Missouri - St. Louis
                                 ____________

                           Submitted: March 13, 2023
                              Filed: May 4, 2023
                                [Unpublished]
                                ____________

Before COLLOTON, MELLOY, and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.
                         ____________

PER CURIAM.

      Andre Tyrell Wilson appeals the substantive reasonableness of his within-
guideline-range revocation sentence. We affirm.
      In 2020, Wilson pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm.
18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The guideline-range recommendation was 70–87 months’
imprisonment. Wilson’s attorney argued for leniency by noting: “If [Wilson] is stupid
enough to get into trouble during the time he is on supervised release . . . [the
prosecution] . . . will fight for maximum incarceration.” The district court sentenced
Wilson to time served, approximately 7 months of incarceration, and imposed a 3 year
term of supervised release.

       Shortly after Wilson started supervised release, probation began sending
reports of supervised release violations to the district court. In May 2022, probation
filed a petition to revoke Wilson’s supervised release alleging drug use. Wilson
admitted to using marijuana in violation of a condition of his supervised release. The
district court1 revoked Wilson’s supervised release.              The guideline-range
recommendation for the revocation was 7–13 months’ imprisonment. The district
court sentenced Wilson to 13 months of imprisonment. At the sentencing hearing,
the district court noted several reports of supervised release violations and Wilson’s
attorney’s statement at the initial sentence regarding maximum incarceration if
Wilson violated supervised release. The court concluded: “Mr. Wilson needs to
understand that there are consequences to his behaviors, consequences to his
noncompliance, consequences to his failure to follow the terms and conditions that
I set when I sentenced him.”

       Wilson appeals, arguing the sentence is substantively unreasonable for three
reasons: 1) the district court impermissibly relied on Wilson’s attorney’s statement
at the original sentencing about maximum incarceration, 2) the district court did not
properly weigh hardships and injuries Wilson suffered after the original sentence, and
3) the district court mischaracterized the original sentence by referring to it as

      1
       The Honorable Stephen R. Clark, then United States District Court for the
Eastern District of Missouri, now Chief Judge.

                                         -2-
“probation” rather than “time served.” “We review a district court’s sentence on
revocation of supervised release for . . . substantive reasonableness under the same
reasonableness standard that applies to initial sentencing proceedings.” United States
v. Growden, 663 F.3d 982, 984 (8th Cir. 2011) (citations omitted). “If the district
court imposes a within-Guidelines sentence, this court presumes the sentence is
reasonable, and [the defendant] bears the burden to rebut the presumption.” United
States v. Manning, 738 F.3d 937, 947 (8th Cir. 2014).

       The within-guideline-range sentence is not substantively unreasonable. First,
it was not error for the district court to consider the reasoning for the original
sentence, including statements by Wilson’s attorney, before imposing a revocation
sentence at the high-end of the guideline range. See, e.g., United States v. Michels,
49 F.4th 1146, 1148–49 (8th Cir. 2022) (holding it is permissible for the district court
to consider a previous lenient sentence when imposing a revocation sentence).
Second, the district court has the discretion to give more weight to a violation of
supervised release conditions than any injuries or hardships faced by the defendant.
United States v. Harrell, 982 F.3d 1137, 1141 (8th Cir. 2020) (The district court
“retains wide latitude to weigh the § 3553(a) factors in each case and to assign some
factors greater weight than others.” (citations omitted)). Third, Wilson does not
clearly explain, nor does this court find it obvious, how the district court’s reference
to the original sentence as “probation” and not “time served” constitutes an error that
makes the sentence unreasonable. On our review of the record as a whole, it is clear
the district court, as the original sentencing court, understood the original sentence
and “gave consideration to the appropriate factors, sufficiently explained its
reasoning, and acted well within its broad discretion” in giving the within-guideline-
range revocation sentence. United States v. Benton, 627 F.3d 1051, 1056 (8th Cir.
2010).

      Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
                        ______________________________

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