Court Opinion

ID: 9952549
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-20 00:00:42.351622+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:40:43.054576
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-20207            Document: 74-1         Page: 1      Date Filed: 03/19/2024

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

                                    No. 23-20207                          FILED
                                  Summary Calendar                   March 19, 2024
                                  ____________                       Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                          Clerk
United States of America,

                                                                    Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                          versus

Scott Jackson Davis,

                                            Defendant—Appellant.
                   ______________________________

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Southern District of Texas
                            USDC No. 4:16-CR-214-1
                   ______________________________

Before Willett, Duncan, and Ramirez, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam: *
       Scott Jackson Davis pleaded true to violating various conditions of his
supervised release, and the district imposed the statutory maximum
sentence, 24 months, to run consecutively to a 78-month sentence imposed
for charges filed in a concurrent indictment.
       On appeal, Davis argues for the first time that the district court plainly
erred by failing to consider the policy statements in Chapter 7 of the

       *
           This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 23-20207         Document: 74-1       Page: 2    Date Filed: 03/19/2024

                                   No. 23-20207

Sentencing Guidelines. Had the district court done so, Davis argues, it would
have imposed a revocation sentence within the four- to ten-month advisory
range.
         There are no binding Sentencing Guidelines for revocation of
supervised release. See United States v. Headrick, 963 F.2d 777, 780-82 (5th
Cir. 1992). But the Sentencing Guidelines include non-binding policy
statements concerning revocations, see Guidelines Manual Ch. 7, Pt. A and
Pt. B, intro. Comment, and district courts are directed to consider those
policy statements, along with the relevant factors enumerated in 18 U.S.C.
§ 3553(a), when imposing a revocation sentence, see United States v. Mathena,
23 F.3d 87, 90-93 (5th Cir. 1994).
         Contrary to Davis’s argument, the record reveals that the district
court indeed considered the Chapter 7 policy statements when it imposed the
24-month revocation sentence. For example, the district court expressly
stated during the revocation hearing, and on the record, that it considered
the Chapter 7 policy statements, and it also noted that it thought an upward
variance from the guideline range was warranted “to protect the public
from” further crime. Moreover, before the revocation hearing, the probation
office provided the district court with a sentencing worksheet that showed,
among other things, the advisory guideline range of four to ten months.
These facts are sufficient for us to infer that the district court properly
considered the Chapter 7 policy statements when it revoked Davis’s term of
supervised release.
         Davis disagrees and insists that the district court should have at least
recited that the advisory range was four to ten months on the record. But he
does not cite any authority for the proposition that the district court was
required to act at that level of specificity, and some of our prior cases (albeit
unpublished) have rejected similar arguments. See, e.g., United States v.

                                        2
Case: 23-20207       Document: 74-1        Page: 3   Date Filed: 03/19/2024

                                 No. 23-20207

Canton, 430 F. App’x 327, 329 (5th Cir. 2011) (“The record, which includes
the probation officer’s dispositional report, indicates that the district court
implicitly considered the sentencing range set forth in the policy statements
of the Guidelines.”); United States v. Easter, 668 F. App’x 589, 590 (5th Cir.
2016) (holding that the district court had considered the advisory range
because it had expressly referenced a supervised release violation report
during a revocation hearing, which contained the advisory guideline range).
Thus, Davis has not shown that the district court committed any error, let
alone a clear or obvious one. See Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 135
(2009).
       The judgment of the district court is accordingly AFFIRMED.

                                       3