United States v. Trung Dang, 907 F.3d 561

Dang was serving supervised release (after a 2005 federal drug sentence) when he was convicted in Arkansas state court of first‑degree computer child pornography and computer exploitation of a child; state court sentenced him to 20 years.
The U.S. Probation Office filed a superseding petition to revoke Dang’s federal supervised release; the violation memorandum tracked the state charging allegations.
At the revocation hearing Dang admitted the convictions but denied the other factual allegations in the petition; the government offered no further proof and relied on the state convictions.
The district court found a mandatory revocation (Grade B violation; criminal history III), imposed the statutory maximum revocation sentence of 60 months, and ordered it to run consecutive to the state term under U.S.S.G. § 7B1.3(f).
Dang objected that the court failed to consider the Chapter 7 advisory range (8–14 months), relied on unproven/disputed allegations, overemphasized the seriousness of the conduct, and that the sentence was substantively unreasonable.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed, rejecting procedural and substantive challenges to the revocation sentence.

Issue	Dang's Argument	Government/District Court Argument	Held
Failure to consider Chapter 7 policy range	Court did not expressly state or apply the 8–14 month Chapter 7 guideline range	Court implicitly considered Chapter 7 and may impose above-guidelines revocation sentence; judge presumed to know law	Affirmed — any omission was not plain or prejudicial; court considered Chapter 7 and lawful to exceed range
Reliance on unproven, disputed facts	Sentence was based on violation memorandum’s unproven allegations	Dang’s state convictions and statutes of conviction supplied sufficient factual predicate for revocation findings	Affirmed — convictions establish the necessary misconduct; not improper factfinding
Overweighting seriousness of the offense	Court gave undue weight to offense seriousness (and thus erred)	§ 3583(e) omits § 3553(a)(2)(A) factors but circuit has not held consideration to be error; court may consider nature of violation	Affirmed — no plain procedural error; consideration of conduct permissible
Substantive unreasonableness / Double jeopardy	Sentence is much higher than necessary and punishes same conduct twice	Circuit precedent allows consecutive punishments for criminal conviction and revocation; district court reasonably exercised discretion	Affirmed — sentence not substantively unreasonable; double jeopardy not implicated

United States v. Richey, 758 F.3d 999 (8th Cir.) (district court may err by basing sentence on unproven, disputed allegations)
United States v. Feemster, 572 F.3d 455 (8th Cir.) (abuse of discretion standard for weighing sentencing factors)
United States v. Woods, 670 F.3d 883 (8th Cir.) (improper Guidelines calculation is significant procedural error)
United States v. Olson, 716 F.3d 1052 (8th Cir.) (presumption that judges know the law at sentencing)
United States v. Fallin, 946 F.2d 57 (8th Cir.) (failure to consider Chapter 7 may be harmless where record supports higher sentence)
United States v. Synowiecki, [citation="218 F. App'x 543"] (8th Cir.) (court may impose revocation sentence outside Chapter 7 range when justified)
United States v. Moore, 624 F.3d 875 (8th Cir.) (consecutive sentences for state criminal conviction and supervised release revocation do not violate Double Jeopardy)
United States v. Bennett, 561 F.3d 799 (8th Cir.) (post-revocation penalties for same conduct do not implicate Double Jeopardy)
United States v. Godfrey, 863 F.3d 1088 (8th Cir.) (percentage variances from low Guidelines ranges are not alone proof of substantive unreasonableness)
United States v. Ruelas-Mendez, 556 F.3d 655 (8th Cir.) (district court has considerable discretion in weighing sentencing factors)