United States v. Aaron Sandusky ( 2023 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS APR 21 2023
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 22-50194
Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No.
2:12-cr-00548-PA
v.
AARON SANDUSKY, MEMORANDUM*
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
Percy Anderson, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted April 18, 2023**
Pasadena, California
Before: WARDLAW and KOH, Circuit Judges, and ROSENTHAL,*** District
Judge.
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
***
The Honorable Lee H. Rosenthal, United States District Judge for the
Southern District of Texas, sitting by designation.
Aaron Sandusky appeals the district court’s denial of his motion for early
termination of supervised release. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
We vacate and remand to allow the district court to reconsider Sandusky’s motion
under the correct legal standard.
We review a denial of a motion for early termination of supervised release for
abuse of discretion. United States v. Ponce, 22 F.4th 1045, 1046 (9th Cir. 2022)
(citing United States v. Emmett, 749 F.3d 817, 819 (9th Cir. 2014)). “‘Application
of the wrong legal standard constitutes an abuse of discretion.’” Id. (quoting
United States v. Ruiz, 257 F.3d 1030, 1033 (9th Cir. 2001) (en banc)).
Sandusky argues that the district court abused its discretion when it denied his
motion on the ground that he failed to demonstrate “exceptionally good behavior”
while on supervised release, contrary to our precedent. We agree. In Ponce, we
clarified that requiring a defendant to demonstrate “exceptional behavior” as a
condition of early termination of supervised release “is incorrect as a matter of
law.” Id. at 1047. The proper legal standard is set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(1),
which “provides that, after considering a subset of the sentencing factors set forth
in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), a court may terminate a term of supervised release if it is
satisfied that such action is warranted by the conduct of the defendant released and
the interest of justice.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
The district court stated the legal standard as follows:
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Early discharge is appropriate to “account for new or unforeseen
circumstances” not contemplated at the initial imposition of
supervised release. See [United States v.] Lussier, 104 F.3d [32, 36
(2d Cir. 1997)]. Changed circumstances that justify early termination
include a defendant’s exceptionally good behavior that makes the
previously imposed term of supervised release “either too harsh or
inappropriately tailored to serve” general punishment goals. Id.The district court then found that Sandusky “has failed to present facts and
circumstances that demonstrate ‘exceptionally good behavior.’”
The district court’s misplaced reliance on Lussier follows our erroneous
statement in United States v. Smith, 219 F. App’x 666 (9th Cir. 2007), which
declared, citing Lussier, that “early termination [is] reserved for rare cases of
‘exceptionally good behavior.’” Id. at 668 (quoting Lussier, 104 F.3d at 36). The
Ponce court expressly noted the error in Smith, recognizing that Lussier “[did] not
require new or changed circumstances relating to the defendant in order to modify
conditions of release, but simply recognize[d] that changed circumstances may in
some instances justify a modification.” Ponce, 22 F.4th at 1047 (quoting United
States v. Parisi, 821 F.3d 343, 347 (2d Cir. 2016)).
The government asks us to infer from fragments of the district court’s order
that the district court properly considered the motion for early termination. We
decline to draw these inferences. The district court previously denied a
codefendant’s motion for early termination of supervised release using the same
incorrect standard. The denial of the codefendant’s motion in identical terms
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supports Sandusky’s position that the district court erroneously believed that
Sandusky’s failure to demonstrate “exceptionally good behavior” was sufficient to
deny his motion.
In its order, the district court stated that early termination is only
“‘occasionally’ justified.” This standard is contrary to the Sentencing
Commission’s policy statement “encourag[ing]” early termination “in appropriate
cases.” U.S.S.G. § 5D1.2 cmt. 5. Whether a term of supervision is “appropriate”
for early termination does not turn on how often early termination is granted. The
district court’s emphasis on the unusual or exceptional nature of early termination
suggests that the court did not evaluate relevant policy statements of the
Sentencing Commission, as required by 18 U.S.C. §§ 3583(e) and 3553(a)(5), and
is further evidence that the court applied an incorrect legal standard.
Accordingly, we vacate and remand to allow the district court to reconsider
the motion for early termination consistent with this decision.
VACATED and REMANDED.
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