United States v. Leonard Young

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
File Name: 18a0491n.06
Case No. 17-4140
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
FILED
Oct 02, 2018
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk
)
Plaintiff-Appellee, )
) ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
v. ) STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR
) THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF
LEONARD YOUNG, ) OHIO
)
Defendant-Appellant. )
____________________________________/ )
Before: MERRITT, COOK, and LARSEN, Circuit Judges.
MERRITT, Circuit Judge. In an unhappy continuation of his legal troubles, the
defendant appeals the third revocation of his supervised release, to be served consecutively to his
sentences in the Cuyahoga County court system in Ohio. He argues that his sentence was
substantively unreasonable. Given the troubling facts prompting the District Court’s revocation
of his supervised release in October of 2017, we AFFIRM.
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Defendant Young pled guilty in 2011 to a federal conspiracy charge related to the
distribution of heroin. He began a three-year term of supervised release for that sentence on April
15, 2014, but his release was revoked twice for different violations. The first violation concerned
the defendant’s guilty plea in late 2014 to a state charge of assault after the defendant assaulted his
mother’s boyfriend. The second violation in January 2016 concerned the defendant’s failure to
Case No. 17-4140, United States v. Young
complete mental healthcare treatment. The third violation of his release is the subject of the instant
appeal.
In this latest series of encounters with the criminal justice system, the defendant pled guilty
to several new state charges, including child endangerment and attempted domestic violence in
March 2017 and domestic violence, animal cruelty, and petty theft in August 2017. The victims
in March and August of 2017 were defendant’s child and mother, respectively. In each instance,
the Defendant admitted to the conduct and pled guilty when charged. The District Court conducted
a hearing on the third set of violations and revoked supervised release on October 18, 2017,
sentencing the defendant to the statutory maximum of two years, 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3), which
fell within the Guidelines advisory range. The defendant appealed on October 30, 2017.
II. ANALYSIS
Our review following revocation of supervised release is for abuse of discretion by the
sentencing judge. United States v. Glowka, 726 F. App’x 1013, 1017 (6th Cir. 2018). Assuming
the sentence is procedurally sound, our review of the substantive reasonableness focuses on the
totality of the circumstances. Id. at 1017–18. Here, the defendant only argues that his sentence
was substantively unreasonable. All of this is simply a way of asking whether the sentence
comports with the conduct. To focus this inquiry, 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) sets out various factors
relevant to a sentence, including the nature of the offense, the defendant’s history, and the need to
protect the public. Because Young’s sentence is within the advisory Guidelines range, it is
presumptively reasonable. United States v. Polihonki, 543 F.3d 318, 322 (6th Cir. 2008).
Violating the terms of supervised release is a breach of trust between the defendant and the
court. U.S.S.G. ch.7, part A(3)(b). A basic premise of supervised release is that the defendant
shall not commit another offense under state law. Id. at § 5D1.3(a)(1). The defendant’s attorney
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acknowledges in his brief that the defendant’s criminal conduct in this latest series of incidents
could be seen as “alarming.” Still, he argues that the defendant’s mental illness and substance
abuse were inadequately considered by the District Court.
Certainly the defendant’s mental health and addiction issues were relevant to the sentence
he received. But the record in this case reflects that the District Court exhaustively considered
those issues during the revocation hearing, just as it had done on the two prior supervised release
revocation hearings. The District Court clearly concluded that the defendant’s latest conduct is
troubling not simply because of the details of the incident, but because, in the words of his
probation officer: it is an “escalati[on]” of his prior violent tendencies. As recounted by the
attorney for the United States at the October 17, 2017, release violation hearing, the defendant
demanded money from his mother, brutally assaulted her by throwing her over a bed and pulling
out her hair, and then stepped on and killed a kitten on his way out of the house. He also told his
mother that he would kill her if she didn’t give him her cellphone. The Ohio state court sentenced
the defendant to three years in prison for these offenses. The District Court considered these latest
convictions all the more troubling because the defendant harmed the people closest to him while
under the court’s eye.
Even if we would have fashioned a different penological sentence for a defendant, that
perspective would not justify reversing a sentencing determination. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S.
38, 51 (2007). The sentencing judge in this case had sentenced the defendant multiple times
before. In fact, at a prior hearing in February 2016, the District Judge heard from the defendant’s
mother and attempted to craft a sentence that would restore the defendant’s mental health. This
latest revocation hearing was the latest entry in years of work by the District Court to stabilize the
defendant. The judge extensively discussed these efforts on the record at the October 2017
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hearing, setting forth in detail how the defendant’s conduct fit into the factors specified by
§ 3553(a). She concluded that “all noncustodial options have been exhausted.”
Contrary to the defendant’s argument, the court considered the defendant’s mental illness
and substance abuse multiple times over the course of three separate release revocation
proceedings. We cannot say that the District Judge’s conclusions in this case were unreasonable.
Nothing in the lengthy series of hearings conducted by the District Judge in working with this
defendant indicates that the latest decision to sentence him was arbitrary. United States v. Lapsins,
570 F.3d 758, 772 (6th Cir. 2009).
III. CONCLUSION
In short: the defendant’s sentence was substantively reasonable, his arguments to the
contrary are without merit, and the District Judge did not abuse her discretion. For all of the
foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the decision of the District Court to sentence the defendant to two
years of incarceration to be served consecutively to his sentence in the state court system.
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