Notable Seventh Circuit panel finds insufficient explanation for revoking supervised release for missed drug test and assessments
Late last week, a Seventh Circuit panel handed down an interesting and seemingly important ruling in US v. Jordan, No. 19-2970 (7th Cir. Mar. 18, 2021) (available here). The 10-page unanimous ruling should be of interest to all federal sentencing fans because the ruling gives some teeth to "the parsimony principle of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)," but it also ought to be of interest to any other criminal justice fans concerned about drug policy and about how community supervision and revocations can undergird mass incarceration.
The start of the opinion highlights why the Jordan ruling caught my attention:
During his first three months while on supervised release, Anthony Jordan consistently tested negative on drug tests and called the probation office to find out about his next required tests. Nonetheless, over two days in June 2019, he missed a drug test and two assessments, prompting his probation officer to petition to revoke his supervised release. The district court ruled that Jordan had committed the violations, revoked his supervised release, and sentenced him to six months in prison followed by 26 months of supervised release (including 120 days in a halfway house). Jordan has appealed. We conclude that the district court did not sufficiently explain its decision, consider Jordan’s defense that his violation was unintentional, or otherwise ensure that its sentence conformed to the parsimony principle of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). We therefore reverse the judgment.
And here are excerpts from the heart of the opinion (which is very much worth reading in full, in part because it notes that the feds here "asked for 14 months of imprisonment"), as well as its closing paragraph:
Jordan’s core claim is that the district court failed to sufficiently justify both the revocation and prison sentence. He invokes the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, but we think this case fits better within “the supervisory power of an appellate court to review proceedings of trial courts and to reverse judgments of such courts which the appellate court concludes were wrong.” Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U.S. 141, 146 (1973). This authority permits us to require sound procedures that are not specifically commanded by the statutes or other relevant provisions. Thomas v. Arn, 474 U.S. 140, 146–47 (1985); Terry v. Spencer, 888 F.3d 890, 895 (7th Cir. 2018).
Under our supervisory authority, we see two flaws in the district court’s procedures and decision. First, the district court did not mention, let alone adequately explain, its rejection of Jordan’s defense that he lacked intent to violate the conditions of supervised release and had made reasonable and good faith attempts to comply. Such an explanation is required. United States v. Hollins, 847 F.3d 535, 539 (7th Cir 2017). The need to address the defense is particularly important here because, before hearing a word of testimony, the court told Jordan that it was adopting the findings of violations from the probation officer’s memo. We do not know why the court seemed to make findings about violations before the planned hearing on whether violations occurred. But because it seemed to signal its view of the facts before hearing any evidence, we think that after the court heard the evidence, it needed to explain why that evidence did not move the court from that earlier view. And it did not do so here. We hasten to add that a revocation may have been justified. We recognize that the testimony of offenders on supervised release might not be credible, and we know that district judges may hear a lot of creative excuses for failing to comply with conditions of supervised release. But without an evaluation of the defense, we cannot review whether the district court’s rationale for rejecting it was permissible.
Second, the district court did not adequately explain its decision to imprison Jordan again for six months. Sentences must always conform to the “broad command” of the parsimony principle, which requires that sentences be “‘sufficient, but not greater than necessary to comply with’ the four identified purposes of sentencing: just punishment, deterrence, protection of the public, and rehabilitation.” Dean v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 1170, 1175 (2017), quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). This principle is especially important in a case like this where the alleged violations were not criminal, the defendant asserted a lack of intent, and there was evidence of reasonable efforts and good faith, putting in question which of the purposes of sentencing apply.
The Supreme Court has observed that prison is not necessarily appropriate for every violation of a condition of release, such as where, as the defendant asserts here, the defendant made bona fide efforts to comply and does not obviously pose a threat to society. Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660, 668–70 (1983). “The congressional policy in providing for a term of supervised release after incarceration is to improve the odds of a successful transition from the prison to liberty.” Johnson v. United States, 529 U.S. 694, 708–09 (2000). Sending a defendant back to prison for a violation that occurs despite reasonable and good faith efforts to comply may well undermine that transition....
We do not mean to imply that imprisonment may never be the appropriate response to violations like those charged here, missing a drug test and appointments for treatment. The district court may have had in mind the notion that the assurance of reimprisonment — even for a short time for intentional or even careless violations — deters future violations. We understand that different judges have different philosophies in balancing the factors under § 3553(a). But the district court needed to say explicitly why it thought that six months in prison was necessary for a defendant who had tested negative on every test and committed no other violations.
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