United States v. Nakia Phillips, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 7399

Phillips pled guilty in 2001 to statutory rape; later failed to register as a sex offender (2012) and received 24 months imprisonment and 10 years supervised release.
Two months into supervised release (2014) probation moved to revoke; Phillips admitted violations including unsupervised contact with minors.
On revocation the district court sentenced Phillips to 24 months imprisonment and lifetime supervised release.
The court imposed a special condition: Phillips may not possess or use computers, gaming equipment, cell phones, or access any online services or Internet without written probation approval.
The court’s factual record included a forensic phone exam showing nude pictures of Phillips and other adult pornography; there was no showing he possessed child pornography, and allegations he showed images to teenage girls were unproven.
Phillips appealed the lifetime supervision and the special Internet-access condition; the Eighth Circuit affirmed lifetime supervision, vacated the special condition, and remanded.

Issue	Phillips’ Argument	Government’s Argument	Held
Whether lifetime supervised release was substantively unreasonable	Lifetime supervision is a disproportionately severe burden	Sentence was within the Guidelines and court considered §3553(a) factors; presumptively reasonable	Affirmed — within-Guidelines sentence presumed reasonable and not rebutted by Phillips
Whether a blanket prior-approval ban on Internet/computer/cellphone use was permissible	Ban is overbroad given only adult pornography on phone; no child pornography or proven on-mall conduct	Ban justified by conviction for statutory rape and phone evidence of nude images and pornographic material	Vacated — broad ban unreasonable where record shows only adult pornography; remand for narrower restrictions
Whether the district court made sufficient individualized findings to support the ban	Court did not establish specific, individualized factual basis on the record	Court relied on forensic phone results and statutory rape conviction	Vacated in part — insufficient findings (especially if based on unproven allegations of showing images to minors)
Whether a prior-approval requirement would save a broad Internet ban	Prior-approval does not cure overbreadth when only adult pornography is involved	Prior-approval can allow supervision to tailor access	Vacated — prior-approval provision does not justify sweeping ban where only adult pornography is shown in record

United States v. Crume, 422 F.3d 728 (8th Cir. 2005) (vacating broad computer/Internet ban where defendant only possessed child pornography and offering narrower, content-focused alternatives)
United States v. Wiedower, 634 F.3d 490 (8th Cir. 2011) (district court must make individualized findings; possession alone insufficient to justify sweeping Internet ban)
United States v. Morais, 670 F.3d 889 (8th Cir. 2012) (affirming prior-approval Internet ban where extensive child pornography history and expert testimony supported risk)
United States v. Poitra, 648 F.3d 884 (8th Cir. 2011) (upholding restrictions on possessing sexually explicit material for defendants with demonstrated sexual interest in children)
United States v. Manning, 738 F.3d 937 (8th Cir. 2014) (within-Guidelines revocation sentence is presumptively reasonable)