United States v. Miller
| Decision Date | 20 October 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 19-2156,19-2156 |
| Citation | 978 F.3d 746 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. Eldon MILLER, Defendant - Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
Devon M. Fooks, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Albuquerque, New Mexico, for Defendant - Appellant.
Frederick Mendenhall, Assistant United States Attorney (John C. Anderson, United States Attorney, with him on the brief), Albuquerque, New Mexico, for Plaintiff - Appellee.
Before PHILLIPS, BALDOCK, and McHUGH, Circuit Judges.
In this appeal, Defendant-Appellant Eldon Miller challenges his sentence. Mr. Miller pleaded guilty to one count of assault resulting in serious bodily injury, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 113(a)(6) and 1153. The charges arose out of Mr. Miller's operation of a motor vehicle while intoxicated, leading to an accident that caused serious and permanent injuries to his sole passenger. The district court imposed a within-Guidelines sentence of 36 months' imprisonment, to be followed by a three-year term of supervised release. Mr. Miller challenges his sentence on two grounds.
First, he argues that his sentence is substantively unreasonable. More specifically, Mr. Miller asserts that the district court unreasonably discounted, inter alia , the relationship between his disease of alcoholism and his criminal record, the detrimental effect that a lengthy prison term would have on his rehabilitation, and various mitigating facts related to his background.
Second, Mr. Miller objects to the district court's imposition of a special condition of supervised release that authorizes his probation officer to determine the number of drug tests to which he must submit during his term of supervised release. Mr. Miller contends the district court's imposition of this condition constituted error for several reasons. He argues: (1) this delegation of authority violated 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d), which requires that the district court determine the maximum number of drug tests to which a defendant must submit, at least when the testing is not imposed as part of a treatment program; (2) this same delegation of authority was constitutional error, constituting an impermissible delegation of judicial authority in contravention of Article III; and (3) the district court erred in failing to make findings on the record supporting imposition of the challenged condition. Mr. Miller concedes he did not challenge this condition below and that our review must be for plain error, but he contends that each of these errors satisfies the plain-error standard. He asks this court to remand for resentencing.
Exercising jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a) and 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm the district court's sentence. Mr. Miller falls far short of rebutting the presumption of substantive reasonableness that attends a within-Guidelines sentence. Regarding the special condition, none of the three asserted errors satisfies plain-error review. To begin, we reject Mr. Miller's argument that the district court's delegation to probation constitutes constitutional error, and we therefore hold that this claim fails under the first prong of plain-error review. But we agree with Mr. Miller that the district court committed (1) a statutory delegation error and (2) erred in failing to make supporting findings on the record. We also agree that these two errors were plain, under the second prong of plain-error review. However, we hold that Mr. Miller's appeal falters under the third prong of the plain-error analysis, with respect to these two errors, and we therefore decline to reach the fourth prong. Because Mr. Miller has failed to establish that any of the asserted errors constituted plain error, we affirm the district court's sentence in its entirety.
The facts underlying this appeal are undisputed. On April 23, 2015, Mr. Miller was driving a Chevrolet pickup truck while intoxicated on a highway within the Navajo Reservation. He lost control of the vehicle and it rolled over, causing serious injuries to his sole passenger, Jane Doe. Prior to the accident, Mr. Miller had consumed about a half-pint of vodka, and a blood test determined that his blood alcohol concentration ("BAC") was 0.29 at about the time of the accident.
As law enforcement officers arrived at the scene, they found Ms. Doe unconscious and outside of the vehicle. She was airlifted to an Albuquerque hospital where doctors diagnosed her with seventeen different injuries, including a traumatic brain injury
, a lacerated liver, and fractures of the spine, hip socket, pelvis, ribs, elbow, and shin. Ms. Doe required a feeding tube, splenectomy, bilateral chest tubes, and a ventilator to breathe. She spent three weeks in intensive care and could not walk for weeks following her discharge from the hospital.
Ms. Doe also suffers long-term consequences from the accident. As of the time of sentencing in July 2019, which was several years after the accident occurred, she continued to suffer memory loss that was manifesting in potentially dangerous ways—for example, she would forget that she turned on the stove. She could no longer cook for herself, and her mother was taking care of Ms. Doe and one of Ms. Doe's teenage daughters. Ms. Doe also lost her job because she was no longer able to perform the duties required of her employment. As a result, Ms. Doe's mother postponed her retirement in order to provide for Ms. Doe and her daughter. Although before the accident Ms. Doe had been an athlete and had previously served in the Air Force, as of the time of sentencing she found it too painful to bend her knees. She also has difficulty speaking in full sentences and, as of Mr. Miller's sentencing, could read only at a fifth-grade level. Her physical and mental condition have led to uncontrollable outbursts, causing rifts between her and her family members.
A grand jury in the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico returned a one-count indictment against Mr. Miller, charging him with assault resulting in serious bodily injury in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 113(a)(6) and 1153. Mr. Miller entered into a Rule 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement with the government, in which the parties agreed that a 24-month sentence was appropriate. The parties came to this agreement, in part, based on evidentiary issues regarding the government's ability to prove that Mr. Miller was the vehicle's driver. The district court rejected the Rule 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement, explaining that a 24-month sentence was inappropriate under the circumstances of this case. Mr. Miller then pleaded guilty without a plea agreement.
The United States Probation Office prepared a presentence investigation report. Mr. Miller's calculated offense level of 18, together with his criminal history category of III, yielded a Guidelines range of 33 to 41 months' imprisonment.
The district court held sentencing proceedings on July 25, 2019, where it heard from the parties and spoke at length about the basis for its sentence. The district court began its remarks by stating that the "focus" in its sentencing "ha[s] to be on what services we can provide to assure the safety of the community," explaining that it placed "[m]uch emphasis" on this. ROA Vol. II, at 43–44. It acknowledged that Mr. Miller is "still suffering from" and "in the grips of [his] addiction," id. at 46, and it explained that the court system would work with Mr. Miller during his supervision to provide him with resources to help him attain his "dreams," id. at 46–47. The district court explained, "we are going to put together a plan" to allow Mr. Miller to earn his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and to finish raising his children, and the only thing standing in his way is his addiction. Id. at 48.
In considering Mr. Miller's history and characteristics, the district court noted that he had attained an associate's degree in electrical engineering, had learned how to be a welder from his father, and had been "very successful with this trade" for many years, including in the years after the instant offense. Id. at 53. It also noted that he had acquired a second job as an umpire shortly before sentencing. The court further considered that Mr. Miller has two children with whom he maintains contact and for whom he pays child support.
The court acknowledged that Mr. Miller was sober for ten years before the instant offense. It also noted that in 2018, Mr. Miller had participated in outpatient addiction treatment, including group and individual counseling, before being successfully discharged from the program. The court further considered that from the offense in 2015, until February of 2019, Mr. Miller had been compliant with the conditions of his release; however, on February 9, 2019, he consumed whiskey. Mr. Miller underwent a new substance abuse evaluation on March 11, 2019, in which he was diagnosed with severe alcohol abuse disorder. The district court noted that Mr. Miller had not returned any positive drug or alcohol tests since that relapse
.
The district court stated that it considered Mr. Miller's background "extremely serious," finding that it "reflected a lack of seriousness towards his alcohol abuse and his responsibilities towards the community in addressing it." Id. at 44. In particular, the district court noted that the instant offense was Mr. Miller's eighth conviction involving driving while intoxicated ("DWI"), and his seven previous DWIs had apparently not prevented him from continuing to abuse alcohol and drive. When he was previously sentenced to complete a DWI first-offender program, he failed to complete it. The instant offense was also his third offense involving a BAC level above 0.25. Mr. Miller's last arrest was "for similar reckless conduct of having a [BAC level] of over .25," and the three-year sentence imposed on Mr. Miller for that offense "did...
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