United States of America v. Adam James Rollins
No. 23-2168
United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit
July 2, 2024
Submitted: February 12, 2024 [Published]
Appeal from United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa - Central
PER CURIAM.
The district court2 revoked Adam James Rollins’ third term of supervised release, and imposed a sentence of 40 months in prison, with no supervised release to follow. Rollins appeals, challenging the substantive reasonableness of his sentence.
I.
In January 2010, Rollins was convicted of conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine having been previously convicted of a felony drug offense, in violation of
Rollins’ first term of supervised release began in January 2017, and it was revoked in April 2019, after he admitted to violating several conditions of his release, all related to the use of controlled substances. All violations were Grade C, and his advisory Guidelines range of imprisonment was 6-12 months. See
This appeal addresses Rollins’ third term of supervised release, which was revoked in May 2023. At his revocation hearing, Rollins admitted that he did not provide a sample for drug testing on three separate dates, failed to report for drug testing, used methamphetamine, committed a new law violation—distribution of methamphetamine, and did not timely inform his probation officer that he had been fired from his job. His most serious violation—the new law violation—was Grade B. See
Based on these violations, Rollins’ Guidelines imprisonment range was 12–18 months. See
II.
On appeal, Rollins argues his sentence is substantively unreasonable. When reviewing a sentence imposed upon revocation of supervised release, we apply “a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.” United States v. Growden, 663 F.3d 982, 984 (8th Cir. 2011) (citing Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007)). “A district court abuses its discretion and imposes an unreasonable sentence when it fails to consider a relevant and significant factor, gives significant weight to an irrelevant or improper factor, or considers the appropriate factors but commits a clear error of judgment in weighing those factors.” Id. (citation omitted). “We afford the court
Rollins’ argument focuses on a comment the district court made when explaining why a Guidelines range sentence was not sufficient. The district court stated: “the [G]uidelines, of course, wouldn‘t be able to take into account [Rollins‘] new law violation.” But as Rollins points out, the Grade B new law violation was taken into account when calculating his advisory Guidelines range. See
The district court misstated the extent to which Rollins’ advisory Guidelines range already accounted for the new law violation. But we read that statement in the context of the court‘s explanation and the entirety of the sentencing record. See United States v. Barbee, 44 F.4th 1152, 1156 (8th Cir. 2022). The record shows that the district court correctly calculated the advisory range based on the Grade B new law violation. The court credited Rollins for admitting violations of his supervised release but found the repeated nature of his noncompliance to be aggravating. It highlighted his continued drug use, failure to follow the rules of supervision, association with others engaged in criminal activity, and demonstrated lack of interest in changing his behavior. The district court also found the new law violation to be especially aggravating. It explained that if Rollins’ violations involved only substance use, a sentence at the top of the Guidelines range would be adequate. But the district court deemed it “outrageous” that Rollins sold drugs while under court supervision and concluded that because “committ[ing] yet another federal [felony] drug offense” while on supervised release went “way above a breach of trust by using drugs,” it would vary upward.
Assuming the district court gave some weight to an erroneous understanding of how the Guidelines accounted for Rollins’ new law violation, Rollins has not convinced us that the district court abused its discretion by giving that improper factor significant weight. The district court determined that an above-Guidelines sentence was warranted after considering permissible factors for revocation sentences, such as the new law violation, as well as “the number of violations, the very serious nature of the violations, [and Rollins‘] complete breach of trust.” See
For the foregoing reasons, we find no abuse of discretion and affirm the judgment of the district court.