UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. DANIEL SANCHEZ, a/k/a Danny Myrick, Defendant - Appellant.
No. 17-4169
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
Argued: May 8, 2018 Decided: June 5, 2018
Before WILKINSON, TRAXLER, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.
PUBLISHED
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Norfolk. Robert G. Doumar, Senior District Judge. (2:03-cr-00184-RGD-FBS-1)
Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Wilkinson wrote the opinion, in which Judge Traxler and Judge Thacker joined.
ARGUED: Lawrence Hunter Woodward, Jr., RULOFF, SWAIN, HADDAD, MORECOCK, TALBERT & WOODWARD, P.C., Virginia Beach, Virginia, for Appellant. Richard Daniel Cooke, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Dana J. Boente, United States Attorney, Alexandria, Virginia, William D. Muhr, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Norfolk, Virginia, for Appellee.
Daniel Sanchez was placed on supervision after serving a fifteen-year prison sentence for a federal firearm conviction pursuant to the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA),
I.
We begin with a bit of procedural history. After Sanchez publicly beat the mother of his then-infant daughter while brandishing a firearm, he was arrested and pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of
The PSR listed approximately 30 prior convictions, many for violent offenses. It highlighted a few of these convictions in making its ACCA recommendation, including multiple Massachusetts convictions for Assault and Battery with a Dangerous Weapon and one Massachusetts conviction for Armed Assault with Intent to Murder. The PSR accordingly recommended a sentence of 180 to 188 months in prison and 3 to 5 years of supervised release. Sanchez did not object to the PSR.
After a hearing, the district court sentenced Sanchez under ACCA to 180 months imprisonment and 5 years of supervised release. Sanchez appealed his conviction and sentence, and we affirmed. United States v. Sanchez, 153 F. App‘x 212 (4th Cir. 2005) (per curiam). Sanchez then filed a motion attacking his sentence under
While Sanchez was in prison, the Supreme Court held in Johnson v. United States that ACCA‘s residual clause was unconstitutionally vague. 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015). The Court soon thereafter declared that its holding in Johnson applied retroactively. Welch v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 1257 (2016).*
That brings us to the present supervised release violation. On January 10, 2017, less than three months after he was released from prison, Sanchez called his 14-year-old daughter and threatened to “slap the shit” out of her, kill her mother, and harm her
brother and uncle. J.A. 81. That same day, he called and texted his daughter‘s mother, threatening to “smash and kill” her, her children, and her brother. J.A. 81. He was charged the following day in Virginia Beach with two counts of Disturbing the Peace/Threaten Bodily Harm.
Sanchez‘s probation officer filed a Petition on Supervised Release, alleging that these Virginia charges constituted a violation of the conditions of Sanchez‘s supervised release. One condition was that Sanchez “not commit another federal, state, or local crime.” J.A. 73. The Petition on Supervised
At the revocation hearing, Sanchez argued that his original ACCA sentence was unconstitutional because his prior Massachusetts convictions for Assault and Battery with a Dangerous Weapon and Armed Assault with Intent to Murder no longer qualified as violent felonies post-Johnson. The district court declined to entertain this challenge, holding that it did not have jurisdiction to review Sanchez‘s original sentence in his supervised release revocation proceeding. After finding that Sanchez violated the terms of his supervised release, the district court sentenced him at the high end of the guidelines range (7 to 13 months) to 13 months in prison and 47 months of supervised release. Sanchez now appeals this 47-month term of supervised release.
II.
Sanchez contends initially that in order to challenge the reasonableness of his supervised release revocation sentence, he must be allowed to challenge the constitutionality of his underlying ACCA sentence. We reject this contention. A supervised release revocation hearing is not a proper forum for testing the validity of an underlying sentence or conviction.
Congress has provided a detailed roadmap to guide federal defendants who wish to contest the validity of their convictions or sentences. First, the defendant may appeal as of right to the court of appeals. See
Sanchez does not contend that he overturned his sentence through these designated channels. Indeed, he cannot. His conviction and sentence were affirmed on direct appeal, Sanchez, 153 F. App‘x 212, and he was denied the relief he sought under
Any holding to the contrary would not only skirt the efforts of Congress to provide a comprehensive route for challenging sentences but would also mark this circuit as an outlier of one. Every other circuit to have ruled on the question has held that a revocation
hearing is neither the time nor the place to entertain challenges to an underlying conviction or sentence. See United States v. Miller, 557 F.3d 910, 913 (8th Cir. 2009) (holding that a defendant may not “challenge the validity of his underlying conviction and sentence . . . in a supervised-release revocation proceeding“); United States v. Lewis, 498 F.3d 393, 395 (6th Cir. 2007) (holding that a defendant may not use an “appeal of the revocation of his supervised release to challenge the reasonableness of his original sentence“); United States v. Warren, 335 F.3d 76, 78 (2d Cir. 2003) (“[T]he validity of [the defendant‘s] sentence could not properly be raised in the supervised release revocation proceeding.“); United States v. Hofierka, 83 F.3d 357, 363 (11th Cir. 1996) (per curiam) (“[A] supervised release revocation proceeding is not the proper forum in which to attack the conviction
The Second Circuit‘s reasoning in United States v. Warren is illustrative. In that case, much like here, the defendant in a supervised release revocation proceeding sought to challenge the constitutionality of his underlying sentence. The Second Circuit declined to entertain it. Refusing to consider such a challenge, the court noted, “furthers the
important interest of promoting the finality of judgments.” Warren, 335 F.3d at 78. It is also consistent with the “detailed scheme” Congress has designed for criminal appeals, which introduces “various substantive and procedural limitations as the legal and temporal distance from the trial or guilty plea increases.” Id. at 79. Short-circuiting this scheme would not only “lead to endless confusion over the nature of the claims that could be made” but would also “be unfair to those defendants who do not violate the terms of their supervised release.” Id.
Our own nonprecedential decisions have reached the same conclusion. See United States v. Easterling, 481 F. App‘x 812, 813 (4th Cir. 2012) (per curiam) (holding that the defendant‘s “underlying conviction could not be attacked at the supervised release revocation hearing“); United States v. Carter, 468 F. App‘x 351, 352 (4th Cir. 2012) (per curiam) (holding that the defendant could not “challenge the validity of his underlying conviction” when appealing the revocation of his supervised release); United States v. Neal, 458 F. App‘x 246, 248 (4th Cir. 2011) (per curiam) (holding that the defendant could not “collaterally attack” his underlying conviction in a supervised release revocation proceeding).
Relatedly, this court has held that a defendant may not challenge the special conditions of his original term of supervised release during later revocation proceedings. United States v. Johnson, 138 F.3d 115, 117-18 (4th Cir. 1998). Revocation, we explained, simply was not the time for such a challenge. The defendant should instead “have raised his objections in a timely appeal of that initial sentence.” Id. at 118.
Insisting that defendants use the correct process to challenge their convictions and sentences is not empty formalism. Courts “have a strong interest in preserving valid final judgments and not expending judicial resources on cases that upset those judgments.” United States v. Oliver, 878 F.3d 120, 125 (4th Cir. 2017); see Warren, 335 F.3d at 78-79. Allowing defendants to raise yet another challenge to their convictions or to redo entire sentencing proceedings when supervised release is revoked would not only jeopardize that interest in finality but would also impose substantial burdens on district courts. Judges would be required to rehash issues in largely duplicative proceedings that are more remote in time from the initial trial and sentencing. The prospect of a partial or wholesale sentencing redo upon revocation would also risk diminishing the utility and attractiveness of supervised release as a sentencing tool. It would be wrong for the criminal justice system to suggest to judges that one relative advantage of lengthier prison terms would be to curtail the collateral attacks
For the above reasons, the district court properly understood that it lacked jurisdiction to entertain Sanchez‘s challenge to the constitutionality of his underlying sentence.
III.
We do, of course, have jurisdiction to consider the discrete question properly presented here: whether Sanchez‘s new term of supervised release was “plainly unreasonable.” Crudup, 461 F.3d at 437.
Sanchez clearly violated the terms of his supervised release. The district court found as much, and Sanchez does not challenge this finding on appeal. As noted, one condition of Sanchez‘s supervised release was that he “shall not commit another federal, state, or local crime.” J.A. 73. Sanchez violated this condition when he threatened the lives of his 14-year-old daughter and her mother, thereby committing the Virginia offense of Disturbing the Peace/Threaten Bodily Harm. Another condition of Sanchez‘s supervised release was that he “shall report to the probation officer.” J.A. 73. Sanchez violated this condition by failing to report as instructed on January 23, 2017. A third condition of Sanchez‘s supervised release was that he “shall notify the Probation Officer within 72 hours, or earlier if so directed, of any change in residence.” J.A. 73. Sanchez‘s probation officer reported that Sanchez had violated this condition, as well.
Given these supervised release violations, the only question is whether the new term of supervised release imposed was plainly unreasonable. Sanchez argues that it was for two reasons. We find neither persuasive.
First, Sanchez argues that his new term of supervised release exceeds the term “authorized by statute” within the meaning of
term of imprisonment that was imposed upon revocation.” Sanchez argues that because he was improperly classified as an armed career criminal at his original sentencing, the 5-year term of supervised release authorized by ACCA does not govern. Rather, Sanchez suggests that the proper point of comparison is the 3-year term that would have been authorized without the ACCA enhancement. Because his new term of supervised release exceeds 3 years, Sanchez contends that it was imposed in error.
This line of reasoning, however, is nothing more than an exercise in artful pleading. The linchpin of Sanchez‘s argument is that his original sentence was unconstitutional. But as we have just explained, such challenges may not be raised in revocation proceedings. Because Sanchez‘s original sentence has not been invalidated through the congressionally prescribed process, it remains binding in his revocation proceeding.
A straightforward application of
Sanchez next argues that further supervision is unnecessary and unjustified because he has already served an extra five years in prison on an unconstitutional sentence. Essentially, he suggests that his excess prison time should be credited to his revocation sentence.
But this argument suffers from the same fatal flaw as the first: it is but a thinly veiled attempt to get at the original sentence. The suggestion that Sanchez served excess time presupposes that his original sentence was not authorized under ACCA. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has held that “excess time served in prison” on a sentence later invalidated does not serve to reduce a defendant‘s term of supervised release. United States v. Johnson, 529 U.S. 53, 60 (2000). Offsetting supervised release in such circumstances, the Court explained, would thwart its rehabilitative objectives. “[U]nlike incarceration,” supervised release “provides individuals with postconfinement assistance.” Id. With respect to individuals like Sanchez who are finishing lengthy prison terms, it is meant to “ease the defendant‘s transition into the community.” Id. at 59 (quoting S. Rep. No. 98-225, at 124 (1983)).
Sanchez has therefore provided us with no valid basis for declaring his revocation sentence plainly unreasonable. If anything, as the district court noted, it was “a very light sentence.” J.A. 172. During the revocation hearing, the district court explained that it was “very, very concerned about the threat to the mother and to the daughter in this case.” J.A. 150. It emphasized the severity of the death threats Sanchez made and the need to protect Sanchez‘s daughter and her mother, who were “genuinely scared.” J.A. 147. Sanchez made these threats not three months after he was placed on supervision, and they were but the latest in a long list of increasingly violent criminal offenses. That list includes multiple prior domestic violence offenses, as well as prior death threats. It also includes numerous probation violations. Against these considerations, the district court weighed Sanchez‘s history of mental illness, including paranoia and post-traumatic stress
disorder. In light of all these considerations, we cannot say that the term of supervised release imposed by the district court was unreasonable, much less plainly so.
IV.
For the aforementioned reasons, the judgment of the district court is
AFFIRMED.