United States v. Evans

• Decision Date: 16 August 2013
• Docket Number: No. 12–3726.,12–3726.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Patrick T. EVANS, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

727 F.3d 730

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee,
v.
Patrick T. EVANS, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 12–3726.

United States Court of Appeals,
Seventh Circuit.

Argued April 10, 2013.
Decided Aug. 16, 2013.

[727 F.3d 731]

Gregory J. Haanstad, Office of the United States Attorney Milwaukee, WI, for Plaintiff–Appellee.

Juval O. Scott, Federal Defender Services of Eastern Wisconsin, Incorporated, Milwaukee, WI, for Defendant–Appellant.

Before POSNER, WOOD, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

WOOD, Circuit Judge.

In 2010 a jury convicted Patrick Evans of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2), and of possessing cocaine and marijuana with intent to distribute it, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C), and (b)(1)(D). The court sentenced him to 55 months' imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release. Shortly thereafter, he was convicted in Wisconsin state court on two charges involving sexual abuse of a minor. The state court sentenced him to five years of probation and ordered that this should follow his federal term of supervised release. When the district court learned of Evans's state sex-offense convictions two years later, it modified the terms of Evans's original sentence to require Evans to attend a sex offender assessment and treatment program while on supervised release for his federal convictions.

On appeal, Evans challenges the district court's modification of the conditions of his supervised release. He argues first that the district court did not have the authority to change the terms when he did not violate the existing terms, and second that the court was not authorized to impose sex-offender treatment because it is unrelated to his crimes of conviction in federal court. We find no merit in either of these points. District courts have wide latitude to modify the terms of supervised release regardless of whether the violated the original terms. Evans's second argument presents a closer call: the terms of supervised release must be reasonably related to the goals of sentencing—deterrence, rehabilitation, and protecting the public—in light of the history and characteristics of the Because Evans's sex-offense conviction was contemporaneous to his drug and firearm convictions, the goals of rehabilitation and protecting the public justified the district court's decision to impose sex-offender treatment.

I

On February 4, 2010, Evans received his sentence for the federal drug and firearm offenses. Eleven days later, he pleaded no contest in Wisconsin state court to one count of “child enticement-sexual contact” and one count of “sex with a child age 16 or older.” The criminal complaint underlying these charges alleged that Evans abducted a 16–year–old girl; forced her to smoke crack; watched her have sex with another woman; and had sexual intercourse with her twice. The semen extracted from a condom found at the crime scene and from vaginal and cervical swabs of the victim matched Evans's DNA profile. The record does not reflect whether Evans accepted responsibility for all of the alleged misconduct when he pleaded no contest to these charges. The Wisconsin state court sentenced Evans to five years of supervised release, during which he would be required to undergo sex-offender treatment. This state supervised release term was to follow his three years of federal supervised release.

Evans began serving his federal supervised release term on June 29, 2012. Shortly thereafter, the United States Probation Department contacted the Wisconsin Department of Corrections regarding

[727 F.3d 732]

Evans's sex-offense convictions. Wisconsin officials reported that Evans would be required to attend sex-offender therapy as a condition of his state supervised release. Rather than wait three years for the federal supervised release to end before starting Evans's sex offender therapy, the probation department petitioned the district court to include sex-offender therapy in Evans's federal supervised release, “to provide a risk assessment and interventions designed to reduce the likelihood this behavior would occur in the future.”

On November 20, 2012, the district court held a hearing to address the probation department's petition. The court explained that “Evans's status before the court today [is] not what it was when it sentenced him and set the conditions for supervised release,” since the court could not take the sex offenses into account at the original sentencing because Evans had not yet been convicted of those charges. It concluded that the supervised release terms could be modified in light of these “changed circumstances” and accepted the probation department's recommendation to order Evans to attend sex-offender treatment while serving his federal supervised release.

II

Because Evans objected to the new condition, we review the district court's decision for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Sines, 303 F.3d 793, 800 (7th Cir.2002). Evans first argues that the district court lacked authority to modify the terms of his supervised release because he did not violate the original conditions. We can readily dispose of this claim. The statute governing supervised release, 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(2), allows a district court “to modify, reduce or enlarge the conditions of supervised release at any time prior to the expiration or termination of a defendant's term of supervised release, pursuant to ... Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure [32.1] and the provisions applicable to the initial setting of terms and conditions of post-release supervision.” (Emphasis added). When initially setting the terms and conditions of post-release...