United States v. Nathan Thomas, 932 F.3d 1139

Nathan Thomas pleaded guilty to two counts of receipt of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(2), (b)(1) and entered a plea agreement containing an appeal waiver (except for sentences exceeding statutory maximums).
The charged convictions involved receipt of two images from a minor victim in October and December 2014; Thomas had other uncharged abusive conduct with the same victim earlier in 2014.
At sentencing the district court imposed consecutive 180-month prison terms for each count and ordered restitution for the victim’s psychological treatment, including therapy from April 2014—six months before the October 2014 charged offense.
Thomas appealed both the sentence and the restitution order; the government moved to dismiss the appeal based on the plea-waiver.
The Eighth Circuit reviewed whether the restitution order was statutorily authorized and whether Thomas’s appeal of his prison sentence fell within the appeal waiver.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Legality of restitution order (award for April 2014 therapy)	Restitution was appropriate to compensate victim for harms connected to defendant’s conduct	Restitution exceeded statutory authority because therapy predated the offense of conviction and record shows no continuing distribution causally linking defendant to those costs	Restitution order is illegal and vacated because it compensates losses occurring before the offense of conviction and lacks evidence of contribution to continuing harm
Appealability of prison sentence given plea waiver	Thomas sought to challenge the 180-month consecutive sentences	Government argued appeal waiver bars challenge to a lawful within-statutory sentence	Appeal waiver bars review of the prison sentence; government’s motion to dismiss is granted as to the sentence

United States v. Andis, 333 F.3d 886 (8th Cir. 2003) (allows appeals of illegal sentences to prevent miscarriage of justice)
Paroline v. United States, 572 U.S. 434 (2014) (§ 2259 restitution limited to losses proximately caused by the offense of conviction; courts may apportion liability for continuing harms)
United States v. Beckmann, 786 F.3d 672 (8th Cir. 2015) (discussing Paroline and restitution for continuing and grievous harm from child-pornography distribution)
United States v. Rogers, 758 F.3d 37 (1st Cir. 2014) (restitution should generally exclude pre-offense therapy costs and focus on costs occasioned by the defendant’s conduct)
United States v. Gamble, 709 F.3d 541 (6th Cir. 2013) (a defendant generally cannot be held liable for harms that occurred prior to his offense)