Court Opinion

ID: 9384923
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-05 16:00:37.230431+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:57.636014
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                             For the Eighth Circuit
                         ___________________________

                                 No. 22-2467
                         ___________________________

                             United States of America

                                        Plaintiff Appellee

                                         v.

  Antoine Raymone Killing, also known as Toine Starks, also known as T, also
        known as Toine, also known as Blow, also known as Blowstakz

                                      Defendant Appellant
                                   ____________

                     Appeal from United States District Court
                          for the District of Minnesota
                                  ____________

                            Submitted: January 9, 2023
                               Filed: April 5, 2023
                                  [Unpublished]
                                 ____________

Before SMITH, Chief Judge, WOLLMAN and LOKEN, Circuit Judges.
                             ____________

PER CURIAM.

      After completing a term of imprisonment for federal drug-distribution offenses,
Antoine Raymone Killing began a term of supervised release in October 2017. The
district court1 modified Killing’s conditions of supervised release three times: to order
participation in a reentry program; to reduce the supervised-release term for
completion of the program; and later, to require Killing to temporarily reside at a
halfway house and to complete anger-management and domestic-violence treatment
programs, conditions to which Killing had agreed.

      The probation office filed an amended petition to revoke supervision in
September 2021, alleging five violations of the conditions of supervised release.
Killing admitted one Grade C violation, for which the district court imposed a ten-
month prison sentence. The written judgment, however, indicated that Killing was
adjudicated guilty of all five violations.

       Although he did not object at sentencing, Killing now argues that the district
court relied upon improper sentencing factors in imposing his revocation
sentence—namely, the unproved violations and the need “to provide just punishment
for the offense” under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A). He contends that he must be
resentenced in light of these procedural errors. See United States v. Richey, 758 F.3d
999, 1002–03 (8th Cir. 2014) (revocation sentence based on unproved allegations
constitutes procedural error); United States v. Trung Dang, 907 F.3d 561, 566 (8th
Cir. 2018) (assuming without deciding that considering § 3553(a)(2)(A) factors at
revocation sentencing constitutes procedural error). Killing points to the following
passages from the revocation sentencing transcript in support of his argument:

      [T]he charge to which you are pleading and admitting . . . is less than
      what you could be charged with; and there’s a whole bucket full of
      things that have gone on here that are just plain wrong. . . .

      1
      The Honorable Paul A. Magnuson, United States District Judge for the District
of Minnesota.

                                          -2-
       [T]he penalty that you [are] getting today, you earned it. . . . I just hope
       that you can change your methodology because if you don’t, you’re
       going to be doing life on the installment plan . . . .

        We find no error, let alone any plain error, in the district court’s imposition of
Killing’s revocation sentence. See Trung Dang, 907 F.3d at 566 (standard of review).
The above-cited passage acknowledges that Killing had admitted only one violation.
It also reflects the district court’s familiarity with Killing’s supervision and its dismay
regarding Killing’s continued difficulties in complying with the conditions of
supervision. The remark that “a whole bucket full of things . . . ha[d] gone on” does
not reflect any reliance by the court upon unproved violations, particularly in light of
its later reiteration that the sentence was based on “the violation.” Similarly, the
court’s single use of the word “penalty” does not establish that it erroneously relied
upon the need “to provide just punishment” under § 3553(a)(2)(A).

      We order that the written judgment be amended to reflect that Killing was
adjudicated guilty of only one violation—i.e., failing to report to the halfway house.
We affirm the judgment in all other respects.
                       ______________________________

                                           -3-