United States v. Blair, 933 F.3d 1271

Michael Blair pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography after police found a hard drive with >700,000 images; charged under 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B). He received the statutory maximum 120 months imprisonment and seven years supervised release.
The PSR increased Blair’s offense level (to 33) based on the district court’s credibility finding of testimony alleging prior sexual abuse, yielding an advisory guidelines range above the statutory maximum.
Blair waived appeal for a within-guidelines sentence but the government conceded this appeal was allowed because the offense level exceeded plea expectations.
The district court imposed a supervised-release special condition limiting Blair’s use of computers and Internet access devices to those he requests and the probation officer authorizes; it also required monitoring software on any authorized computer.
Blair appealed, arguing (1) the ten-year prison sentence was substantively unreasonable and (2) the internet/computer condition was overbroad and therefore violated 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)(2).
The Tenth Circuit affirmed the prison term as substantively reasonable but vacated and remanded the challenged special condition as an abuse of discretion for permitting the probation officer effectively to ban all Internet and computer use.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Substantive reasonableness of 120‑month prison sentence	Blair: sentence excessive given age, health, childhood, military service	Government: sentence within applicable guideline range and presumption of reasonableness applies	Affirmed — district court did not abuse discretion; presumption applied and Blair failed to rebut it
Whether special condition limiting computer/Internet use is reasonably related to supervision goals	Blair: condition allows probation officer to ban all Internet/computer use and thus is a greater deprivation of liberty than reasonably necessary under § 3583(d)(2)	Government: condition should be construed narrowly; district court’s oral statements and surrounding conditions show it does not bar all use; enforcement presumed reasonable	Vacated — condition impermissibly broad because it permits a complete ban and lacks required limits; remand for reformulation
Whether court should defer enforcement and let probation practice resolve scope	Blair: waiting forces him to test limits and risk violation; problem must be fixed on appeal	Government: leave to probation; modify later if enforcement unreasonable	Court rejected government’s wait‑and‑see approach and required clearer, narrower written condition on remand

United States v. White, 244 F.3d 1199 (10th Cir. 2001) (invalidated absolute ban on possessing a computer with Internet access as overly broad)
United States v. Walser, 275 F.3d 981 (10th Cir. 2001) (upheld permission‑first Internet condition under plain‑error review but expressed concern about potential complete bans)
United States v. Ullmann, 788 F.3d 1260 (10th Cir. 2015) (held that language permitting "restrictions and/or prohibitions" could be read to allow a complete ban; condition saved only by oral clarification restricting rather than prohibiting use)
United States v. Bear, 769 F.3d 1221 (10th Cir. 2014) (ambiguous, broad supervised‑release conditions should be construed narrowly to avoid infringing significant liberty interests)
United States v. Franklin, 785 F.3d 1365 (10th Cir. 2015) (presumption of reasonableness applies to within‑guidelines sentences under U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2)