Court Opinion

ID: 9839952
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-14 18:01:23.786978+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:42:43.007037
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-11863    Document: 20-1     Date Filed: 09/14/2023   Page: 1 of 6

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-11863
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                      Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
       versus
       MARK JOSEPH UNREIN,

                                                  Defendant-Appellant.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Middle District of Florida
                  D.C. Docket No. 8:14-cr-00262-VMC-JSS-1
                          ____________________
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       2                      Opinion of the Court                22-11863

       Before LUCK, LAGOA, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Mark Joseph Unrein appeals the district court’s denial of his
       motion for compassionate release. After careful consideration, we
       affirm.

           FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
              Unrein, now seventy years old, was convicted in 2015 of at-
       tempting to persuade a minor to engage in sexual activity and pos-
       sessing child pornography. Unrein had exchanged emails and
       phone calls with an undercover police officer he thought was a
       woman who would allow him to have sex with her twelve-year-
       old daughter. Unrein told the officer that he’d previously engaged
       in sexual activity with a twelve-year-old and that having sex with
       her daughter would be a “dream come true.”
              Police arrested Unrein after he traveled to an address the un-
       dercover officer provided to him, where he’d planned to meet the
       girl and begin a sexual relationship with her. When police later
       searched Unrein’s computer, they found over one hundred images
       of child pornography—including several images involving infants
       and toddlers.
              After the jury convicted Unrein, the district court sentenced
       him to 151 months’ imprisonment. We affirmed Unrein’s convic-
       tion on direct appeal. See United States v. Unrein, No. 15-14787, 688
       F. App’x 602 (11th Cir. 2017).
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       22-11863                Opinion of the Court                         3

               In 2022, Unrein moved for compassionate release under the
       First Step Act. He explained that, besides other ailments, he’d been
       diagnosed with terminal, stage-4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma but
       couldn’t receive the treatment he wanted while imprisoned. He
       also protested that he was innocent, claimed that the government
       had entrapped him and planted the child pornography on his com-
       puter, and argued he received ineffective assistance of counsel at
       trial. The motion proposed he would live in an Ohio reentry facil-
       ity and collect government benefits upon his release. Unrein also
       attached to his motion a medical summary from May 2020 that
       confirmed his lymphoma diagnosis and stated he posed a “mini-
       mum” risk of recidivism.
               The district court denied Unrein’s motion. Although Un-
       rein’s terminal condition potentially qualified him for compassion-
       ate release, the district court found he would still pose an “ongoing
       threat and danger to the community, particularly children,” and
       shouldn’t be released early. It based this conclusion on (1) the na-
       ture and severity of Unrein’s criminal behavior, (2) the fact that Un-
       rein denied responsibility for his offenses, and (3) Unrein’s failure
       to seek counseling or other psychological treatment for sex of-
       fender rehabilitation.

                           STANDARD OF REVIEW
              We review the denial of a compassionate relief motion for
       an abuse of discretion. United States v. Harris, 989 F.3d 908, 911
       (11th Cir. 2021). “A district court abuses its discretion if it applies
       an incorrect legal standard, follows improper procedures in making
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       4                      Opinion of the Court                22-11863

       the determination, or makes findings of fact that are clearly erro-
       neous.” Id. at 911–12 (quoting Cordoba v. DIRECTV, LLC, 942 F.3d
       1259, 1267 (11th Cir. 2019)).

                                 DISCUSSION
              To be entitled to compassionate release under the First Step
       Act, Unrein had to show that: “(1) the [18 U.S.C. section] 3553(a)
       sentencing factors favor[ed] doing so, (2) there [were] ‘extraordi-
       nary and compelling reasons’ for doing so, and . . . (3) doing so
       wouldn’t endanger any person or the community.” United States v.
       Tinker, 14 F.4th 1234, 1237 (11th Cir. 2021). The government con-
       cedes here, as it did below, that Unrein’s cancer diagnosis is an ex-
       traordinary and compelling reason for compassionate release. See
       U.S.S.G. § 1B1.1, cmt. n.1(A)(i) (listing terminal illness as an ex-
       traordinary and compelling reason). But, the government con-
       tends, the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining
       that the section 3553(a) factors do not favor compassionate release.
       We agree.
              Unrein told an undercover agent that it would be a “dream
       come true” to have a sexual relationship with a twelve-year-old,
       and admitted that he’d previously engaged in sex acts with “some-
       one around the child’s age.” And he kept a large trove of child por-
       nography that included sexually graphic images of infants and tod-
       dlers. Yet Unrein has not once taken responsibility for his actions.
       Instead, he protested before the district court that he was the real
       victim—of government entrapment and falsely planted evidence.
       We agree with the district court that, “despite Unrein’s serious
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       22-11863                Opinion of the Court                         5

       medical condition, early release would not adequately reflect the
       seriousness of his crimes or promote respect for the law.”
               Unrein argues that the district court abused its discretion by
       overlooking his proposed reentry plan (living at a reentry facility
       and collecting government benefits), or the fact that the Bureau of
       Prisons assessed him a low recidivism risk. But the failure to spe-
       cifically mention each piece of mitigating evidence does not mean
       that the district court abused its discretion in considering the sec-
       tion 3553(a) factors. See United States v. Snipes, 611 F.3d 855, 873
       (11th Cir. 2010) (“Although Snipes argues that there were mitigat-
       ing factors that the judge did not specifically mention at sentencing,
       these facts . . . do not compel the conclusion that the sentence
       crafted in accordance with the 18 U.S.C. [section] 3553(a) factors
       was substantively unreasonable.”); United States v. Amedeo, 487 F.3d
       823, 833 (11th Cir. 2007) (“[A]lthough the district court’s sentencing
       order made no mention of evidence that arguably mitigated in
       Amedeo's favor under [section] 3553(a), we cannot say that the
       court’s failure to discuss this ‘mitigating’ evidence means that the
       court erroneously ‘ignored’ or failed to consider this evidence in
       determining Amedeo’s sentence.”).
              Unrein also argues that he’s innocent and he was only con-
       victed because he was entrapped, evidence was planted, and his
       trial counsel was ineffective. But a prisoner cannot use section
       3582(c) as a vehicle to collaterally attack his conviction or sentence.
       Rather, “a § 2255 motion is the exclusive remedy for a federal pris-
       oner to collaterally attack his conviction and sentence . . . .”
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       6                       Opinion of the Court                  22-11863

       Antonelli v. Warden, U.S.P. Atl., 542 F.3d 1348, 1351 n.1 (11th Cir.
       2008).
              Because the section 3553(a) factors did not favor compas-
       sionate release, the district court didn’t abuse its discretion in deny-
       ing Unrein’s motion. See United States v. Giron, 15 F.4th 1343, 1348
       (11th Cir. 2021) (explaining that a defendant who doesn’t meet
       each of Tinker’s three requirements is not entitled to compassion-
       ate release). So we affirm.
              AFFIRMED.