United States v. Smith, No. 10-3579 (8th Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CaseDefendant entered a conditional guilty plea to failing to register as a sex offender as required by the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 18 U.S.C. 2250(a), and was sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment and five years' supervised release, with special conditions. Defendant appealed both the conviction and sentence. The court held that, while the district could have made better findings, there was no abuse of discretion in the district court's imposition of conditions 3, 5, 7, 9, and 10 because the district court's failure to make individualized findings on the record was harmless. The court held, however, that without more individualized fact-finding and without any factual support in the record for the sweep of the contact restriction, the district court abused its discretion in imposing Condition 6. The court further held that defendant's prior sexual-assault-of-a-minor and failure-to-register convictions formed a sufficient basis for contact Conditions 5 and 7; Conditions 9 and 10 related to legitimate sentencing purposes of rehabilitation and protection of the public and did not deprive defendant of greater liberty than necessary; and, as in United States v. Bender, the district court did not relinquish final authority over the conditions of supervised release. The court finally held that even though defendant had standing, his Tenth Amendment claim failed on the merits. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded as to Condition 6 and affirmed in all other respects.
Court Description: Criminal case - criminal law and sentencing. District court's failure to make individualized findings on the record was harmless as to four of the special conditions of supervised release; nor do the four conditions constitute a greater deprivation of liberty than necessary; however, without specialized findings or further support in the record, it was error to impose a condition which prohibits defendant from coming within 500 feet of schools, parks, and other areas used primarily by children; the approved special conditions are not an improper delegation of judicial authority to the Probation Office as the court retains ultimate control; constitutional challenges to SORNA rejected.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on December 21, 2012.
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