United States v. Bear, No. 13-6207 (10th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CaseDefendant Wesley Bear pled guilty to one count of failing to register or update a registration as a sex offender. At sentencing, the district court imposed certain special sex offender conditions of supervised release in addition to its standard conditions of supervised release. Bear objected to the conditions restricting his contact with children and requiring him to submit to sex offender mental health assessment and treatment. The district court overruled his objections, and Bear appealed, arguing: (1) it was an abuse of discretion for the district court to impose sex offender conditions where his conviction of the prior sex offense occurred twelve years before this conviction; (2) the conditions involved a greater deprivation of liberty than reasonably necessary to achieve the purposes of sentencing; and (3) the special conditions were not consistent with pertinent policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission. The Tenth Circuit affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded this case for further proceedings. The Court held Bear’s prior sex offense was reasonably related to the imposition of the special sex offender conditions and survive his 3583(d)(1) challenge. The assessment and treatment condition also survived Bear’s 3583(d)(1) challenge. The Court vacated the conditions limiting Bear’s ability to be at his children’s residence and his ability to be alone with his children without supervision, finding the district court record did not provide compelling evidence that could support the restrictions on Bear's contact with his own children.
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