UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JOHN HALE, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 24-5362
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
January 30, 2025
25a0022p.06
Before: GILMAN, STRANCH, and LARSEN, Circuit Judges.
RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b).
COUNSEL
ON BRIEF: Molly Rose Green, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellant. S. Carran Daughtrey, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY‘S OFFICE, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellee.
OPINION
LARSEN, Circuit Judge. Appellant John Hale moved for early termination of supervised release four years and four months into his ten-year term of supervision. The district court denied his motion. For the reasons stated, we VACATE and REMAND for reconsideration of Hale‘s motion.
I.
In 2010, John Hale pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual battery by unlawful sexual contact. He was sentenced in Tennessee state court to eight years of imprisonment and lifetime supervision. As a result of his conviction, Hale was required to
In October 2011, Hale was indicted in the Middle District of Tennessee for traveling out of the state and failing to update his sex-offender registration in Tennessee as required under the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA),
On June 8, 2018, after serving his sentences, Hale was released, and his supervision began. In January 2020, Hale violated a condition of his supervised release by consuming alcohol, and he was placed on a formal random-drug-testing program. Nearly three years later, he moved for early termination of his federal term of supervised release, having served approximately four years and four months of his ten-year term. He argued that, despite his January 2020 violation, he had otherwise complied with the conditions of his supervision, warranting early termination. For support, he cited his sex-offender treatment, his limited number of violations, and letters from his state probation officer, therapist, and long-time friend attesting to his compliance. Hale‘s federal probation officer could not recommend early termination for a convicted sex offender due to office policy. The United States did not oppose Hale‘s motion for early termination.
The district court denied Hale‘s motion. The court commended Hale for his positive behavior, but determined that early termination of supervised release was not appropriate. Hale timely appealed.
II.
We review the district court‘s denial of a motion for early termination of supervised release under the abuse-of-discretion standard. United States v. Webb, 30 F.3d 687, 688 (6th Cir. 1994). “A district court abuses its discretion when it relies on clearly erroneous findings of fact, or when it improperly applies the law or uses an erroneous legal standard.” United States v. Carter, 463 F.3d 526, 528 (6th Cir. 2006) (citation omitted). Hale argues that the district court relied on both an improper legal standard and clearly erroneous facts when rejecting his motion.
A.
We begin with the legal standard that governs a motion for early termination of supervised release. A district court may, after considering a subset of the sentencing factors set forth in
In United States v. Atkin, we stated that “[e]arly termination of supervised release
We agree with Hale that Atkin did not correctly state the legal standard when it said that early termination of supervised release is “only warranted” upon a showing of “exceptionally good behavior.” Atkin, 38 F. App‘x at 198 (emphasis added).
That is not to say that a district court may not consider whether a defendant exhibited “exceptionally good behavior” when exercising its broad discretion to resolve motions for early termination of supervised release. Indeed, we might expect that district courts will “generally” find early termination proper only when exceptionally good conduct or other changed circumstances are present. See Melvin, 978 F.3d at 53. After all, compliance with all conditions “is expected of an individual on supervised release,” Butler, 2023 WL 6552878, at *2, and non-compliance is a ground for revocation, see
We, like other circuits, seem to have gotten the idea that the statute invariably demands a showing of exceptionally good behavior from United States v. Lussier, a Second Circuit opinion. See Atkin, 38 F. App‘x at 198 (citing United States v. Lussier, 104 F.3d 32, 36 (2d Cir. 1997)); see also Melvin, 978 F.3d at 53 (discussing prior, but mistaken, reliance on Lussier); Ponce, 22 F.4th at 1047 (same). But, of course, Lussier does not bind us. What‘s more, Lussier did not even involve the early-termination-of-supervised-release provision before us now,
Like the other circuits that originally relied on Lussier, we clarify today that
Because we remand for reconsideration, we do not reach Hale‘s argument that the district court relied on clearly erroneous facts about the terms of his state supervision. Hale‘s motion argued generally that he “no longer needs simultaneous state and federal supervision,” and he noted that his state “supervision terms are extensive.” R. 46 Motion for Early Termination, PageID 122, 124–25. Hale offered a long list of these terms. But the motion made no mention of any mandatory state-imposed sex-offender treatment. The district court concluded that Hale‘s “continued state supervision fails to erase the utility of his remaining federal term” because not all of his “state conditions overlap with his federal requirements.” R. 51 Dist. Ct. Order, PageID 145. The court noted, in particular, that “only his federal conditions . . . explicitly require ongoing sex offender treatment.” Id. Hale now argues that his state terms do require mandatory sex offender training, so the district court‘s finding was clearly erroneous. Because we remand for reconsideration under the proper legal standard, we decline to reach this question. On remand the district court may, in the exercise of its discretion, reconsider this question, including whether Hale‘s argument was properly developed in the initial motion.
* * *
We VACATE and REMAND in accordance with this decision.