United States v. Ryan Collins, 828 F.3d 386

Defendant was convicted by a jury of receiving/distributing and possessing child pornography after investigators downloaded illicit files from his computer; trial testimony included custodial statements he later recanted.
The district court calculated a Guidelines range of 262–327 months, exceeding the statutory maximums, but statutory mandatory minimums required at least five years’ imprisonment.
After the verdict, the sentencing judge polled the jurors about an appropriate sentence; juror recommendations ranged 0–60 months with a mean of 14.5 months and median of 8 months.
The district judge considered the jurors’ post-verdict recommendations as one factor among many and varied downward to impose concurrent five-year mandatory minimum terms.
The government appealed, arguing (1) the judge improperly relied on the jury poll and (2) the judge failed to adequately consider deterrence.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether a district judge may consider a post-verdict jury sentencing poll when fashioning a sentence	Gov: Considering a jury poll impermissibly mixes jury and judge roles and is an improper sentencing factor	Def: Jury poll is permissible as one of many informational sources reflecting community views	Court: Permissible here; poll was considered only as one factor and did not usurp judicial sentencing function
Whether reliance on the jury poll made the sentence substantively unreasonable	Gov: Using the poll produced an unreasonable downward variance	Def: The judge independently weighed § 3553(a) factors and appropriately varied	Court: Sentence not substantively unreasonable; judge adequately considered § 3553(a) factors
Whether the court committed procedural error by considering an impermissible factor	Gov: Juror recommendations are impermissible information	Def: 18 U.S.C. § 3661 allows broad information and judge did not treat poll as controlling	Court: Not an impermissible factor under these circumstances; judge remained between jurors’ views and sentencing decision
Whether the district judge failed to consider deterrence sufficiently (plain-error review)	Gov: Judge did not adequately consider deterrence, so variance was unjustified	Def: Judge explained why deterrence and public protection were not major factors	Court: Under plain-error review, judge provided sufficient explanation regarding deterrence

Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38 (upholding reasonableness review and district court’s discretion to vary)
United States v. Conatser, 514 F.3d 508 (6th Cir. 2008) (abuse-of-discretion standards for sentencing; impermissible factors doctrine)
Shannon v. United States, 512 U.S. 573 (1994) (jury inquiry about consequences of verdict may intrude on jury role)
United States v. Watts, 519 U.S. 148 (1997) (district courts may consider broad information in sentencing)
Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338 (2007) (appellate review requires only sufficient explanation of sentencing rationale)
United States v. Bistline, 665 F.3d 758 (6th Cir. 2012) (reviewing reasonableness of variances in child pornography cases)
United States v. Vonner, 516 F.3d 382 (6th Cir. 2008) (plain-error standard for unpreserved sentencing objections)