United States v. Richard SteeleUnited States v. Richard Steele
Before BENTON, KELLY, and STRAS, Circuit Judges.
The Major Crimes Act “makes burglary committed by an Indian within ‘Indian country’ a federal crime.” United States v. Norquay, 905 F.2d 1157, 1158 (8th Cir. 1990) (quoting
I.
The maximum sentence an individual may receive for violating the terms of supervised release generally depends on the severity of the original crime. See
The Major Crimes Act does not explicitly assign a “letter grade” to Steele‘s crime. See
The question presented, then, is whether Steele‘s burglary conviction had a maximum sentence of at least twenty-five years in prison. If so, then his original crime was a Class B felony or higher and the district court‘s sentence of three years in prison did not exceed the statutory maximum. See
Steele committed his burglary in McLaughlin, South Dakota, on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. The government charged Steele under the Major Crimes Act based on a violation of South Dakota‘s first-degree-burglary statute,
In arguing that his sentence is unlawful, Steele makes two counterarguments, neither of which is persuasive. The first is a bit of alphabet soup and involves mixing and matching the letter grades under federal law with the alphanumeric classification system used in South Dakota. In South Dakota, the classification of felonies ranges from Class A to Class C, then from
It is understandable that Steele would confuse the South Dakota felony-classification system with the similar-sounding system under federal law, particularly because the Major Crimes Act explicitly incorporates state law in defining crimes and establishing punishments. But the incorporation ends there because the Major Crime Act makes no mention of letter grades. This is why we turned to
In a turnabout from his first argument, Steele claims that it “makes no sense” to base the federal classification of his crime on a statutory-maximum sentence borrowed from South Dakota law. Relying on differences in how good-behavior credits and parole are handled under state and federal law, Steele says a twenty-five-year state sentence is “dramatically different” from a twenty-five-year federal sentence. True or not, Steele‘s observation is beside the point because the twenty-five-year sentence he faced under the Major Crimes Act was a federal sentence, not a state sentence. The twenty-five-year statutory maximum came from a South Dakota statute, to be sure, but Steele was still sentenced by a federal judge, to serve federal time, in a federal prison, for a federal crime. See United States v. Long Elk, 565 F.2d 1032, 1040 (8th Cir. 1977) (“Although the [Major Crimes Act] adopts state law for certain purposes, the offense remains a federal offense . . . .“). And federal law classifies a federal crime with a twenty-five-year maximum sentence as a Class B felony, regardless of how long the defendant actually spends in prison or whether a state prisoner could serve less time for committing the same wrongful act. See
II.
Steele also argues that his three-year sentence is substantively unreasonable. We review the substantive reasonableness of a sentence for an abuse of discretion and generally defer to the district court‘s judgment. See, e.g., United States v. Merrival, 521 F.3d 889, 890 (8th Cir. 2008).
While on supervised release for a violent burglary, Steele used marijuana repeatedly and allegedly committed two violent acts, once threatening his neighbors with a baseball bat and later assaulting his girlfriend, possibly breaking her nose. The district court explained the reasons for imposing a three-year sentence, emphasizing that it had treated Steele leniently, both in this case and others, but that he still could not comply with the terms of supervised release. The court clarified, however, that it was taking his entire criminal history into account, “not sentencing him again, if you will, for that conduct which caused the Court in other cases to revoke his supervised release.” Steele refuses to accept the court‘s explanation, suggesting that because the cause of the revocation was “merely [his] use of marijuana,”
Contrary to Steele‘s argument, however, the district court was not required to view Steele‘s drug use in isolation and ignore all his other misconduct, even if his drug use ended up being the proverbial last straw in a course of supervised-release violations. Rather, the court was required to consider Steele‘s “history and characteristics,” as well as the need to “afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct” and “protect the public from further crimes,” in setting his sentence.
Finally, Steele argues that his sentence must be substantively unreasonable because the government originally sought a sentence substantially shorter than the one he received. In weighing the statutory factors, however, the district court was entitled to conduct its own analysis and reach a conclusion of its own, even if it deviated from the parties’ recommendations. Just because the government believed that Steele deserved a lesser sentence does not mean that the court had to as well. Cf., e.g., United States v. Mesteth, 687 F.3d 1034, 1035-37 (8th Cir. 2012) (affirming a sentence of sixty months in prison when all the government had requested was a thirty-seven-month sentence).
III.
We affirm the judgment of the district court.