United States v. Daniels ( 2023 )

22-263
United States v. Daniels
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A
SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY
FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT=S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1.
WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST
CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION
“SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON
ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.
At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the
Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the
31st day of January, two thousand twenty-three.
Present:
DEBRA ANN LIVINGSTON,
Chief Judge,
JOSÉ A. CABRANES,
Circuit Judge,
RACHEL P. KOVNER,
District Judge. *
_____________________________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v. 22-263
JONATHAN DANIELS,
Defendant-Appellant.
_____________________________________
For Appellee: RAJIT S. DOSANJH, Assistant United States Attorney
(Geoffrey J.L. Brown on the brief), on behalf of Carla
B. Freedman, United States Attorney for the Northern
District of New York, Syracuse, NY.
*
Judge Rachel P. Kovner, of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York,
sitting by designation.
1
For Defendant-Appellant: MELISSA A. TUOHEY, Assistant Federal Public
Defender, Office of the Federal Public Defender,
Syracuse, NY.
1 Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern District of
2 New York (Hurd, J.).
3 UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND
4 DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
5 Defendant-Appellant Jonathan Daniels (“Daniels”) appeals from a February 7, 2022,
6 sentencing and judgment for revocation of supervised release of the United States District Court
7 for the Northern District of New York. Daniels argues, first, that the district court’s sentence was
8 procedurally unreasonable because the district court failed to explain its reasons for imposing a
9 five-year term of supervised release; and, second, that the district court’s sentence was
10 substantively unreasonable because it imposed supervision that resulted in unreasonably exposing
11 him to dual federal and state supervision. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying
12 facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal.
13 * * *
14 We review sentences for violations of supervised release “under the same standard as for
15 sentencing generally: whether the sentence imposed is reasonable.” United States v. Brooks, 889
16 F.3d 95, 100 (2d Cir. 2018) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). The reasonableness
17 of a sentence is reviewed “under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.” United States v.
18 Ingram, 721 F.3d 35, 37 (2d Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). 1 A
1
The government urges that we review for plain error the procedural component of the
reasonableness of Daniels’s sentence. Daniels argues that abuse-of-discretion applies. We
need not resolve the question, or the ambiguity in the objection made before the district court, see
2
1 district court has “abused its discretion if it based its ruling on an erroneous view of the law or on
2 a clearly erroneous assessment of the evidence or rendered a decision that cannot be located within
3 the range of permissible decisions.” In re Sims, 534 F.3d 117, 132 (2d Cir. 2008) (internal
4 quotation marks, alteration, and citations omitted).
5 I. Procedural Unreasonableness
6 A district court commits procedural error when “it fails to calculate (or improperly
7 calculates) the Sentencing Guidelines range, treats the Sentencing Guidelines as mandatory, fails
8 to consider the § 3553(a) factors, selects a sentence based on clearly erroneous facts, or fails
9 adequately to explain the chosen sentence.” United States v. Robinson, 702 F.3d 22, 38 (2d Cir.
10 2012) (citing Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007)). Here, Daniels argues that the district
11 court committed procedural error by failing to specifically address the reasons for imposing a five-
12 year term of supervised release. We disagree.
13 A district court need not undertake to separately justify the reasons for imposing each part
14 of a sentence. See United States v. Williams, 998 F.3d 538, 541 (2d Cir. 2021) (“Nothing in
15 Section 3553(c) or our caselaw requires a district court to undertake a separate recitation of the
16 basis for each part of the sentence imposed.”). Moreover, we demand less specificity in the
17 context of sentencings for violations of supervised release than in plenary sentencings. See
18 United States v. Verkhoglyad, 516 F.3d 122, 132–34 (2d Cir. 2008). And we have often
19 emphasized our aversion to requiring district courts to recite “robotic incantations” where a
20 sentence has been adequately explained. United States v. Brown, 98 F.3d 690, 694 (2d Cir. 1996).
21 Here, the district court made clear at sentencing for the violation that, in the circumstances, a
A107, because we conclude that the outcome would be the same even under the lower abuse-of-
discretion standard.
3
1 within-Guidelines, top-of-the-range sentence was appropriate “[e]specially[] in view of the fact
2 that [Daniels was] awaiting a manslaughter sentence in [the] state court.” A106. This
3 explanation was sufficient to explain both the term of imprisonment and supervision after Daniels
4 committed an additional and serious crime only days after commencing supervision.
5 II. Substantive Unreasonableness
6 A district court’s sentence is substantively unreasonable where “[t]he length of a sentence
7 is outside the range of permissible decisions . . . [and] affirming it would damage the
8 administration of justice because the sentence imposed was shockingly high, shockingly low, or
9 otherwise unsupportable as a matter of law.” United States v. Mumuni Saleh, 946 F.3d 97, 107
10 (2d Cir. 2019) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). We are guided by the “lodestar”
11 of § 3553(a)’s parsimony clause, which requires that a district court impose a sentence that is
12 “sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the factors set out in 18 U.S.C.
13 § 3553(a)(2)—namely, retribution, deterrence, and incapacitation.” Id. (citing United States v.
14 Park, 758 F.3d 193, 200 (2d Cir. 2014)).
15 We disagree that Daniels’s sentence was substantively unreasonable because it had the
16 effect of exposing him to simultaneous state and federal supervision. The relevant statute
17 expressly contemplates dual supervision, and Daniels has described no unusual circumstances that
18 would make federal, in addition to state, supervision substantively unreasonable as applied to him.
19 See 18 U.S.C. § 3624 (“The term of supervised release commences on the day the person is
20 released from imprisonment and runs concurrently with any Federal, State, or local term of
21 probation or supervised release . . . .”).
22 * * *
23
4
1 We have considered Defendant-Appellant’s remaining arguments and find them to be
2 without merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.
3 FOR THE COURT:
4 Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk
5