United States v. Harris, No. 14-2269 (8th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseHarris sold cocaine to an undercover officer at his residence. Police obtained a warrant and discovered cocaine and firearms. Harris pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm as a convicted felon, 18 U.S.C. 922(g). Harris had one conviction for felony assault and two for felony sale of a controlled substance on different occasions. The court determined that Harris was an armed career criminal, 18 U.S.C. 924(e), and sentenced him to the statutory minimum of 180 months, with a novel special condition of supervised release that “there be no unprotected sex activities without probation office approval.” In a later written order, the court stated that Harris “shall use contraceptives before engaging in sexual activity that may otherwise cause pregnancy unless such use would violate his religious scruples or is expressly rejected by his sexual partner.” The Eighth Circuit modified the judgment to eliminate the condition. The condition is not reasonably related to the purposes that motivated it or to the statutory factors. The court upheld the ACCA designation, rejecting an argument that the court violated his Sixth Amendment rights by finding that his prior offenses were committed on different occasions without requiring that the fact be proved beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury or be admitted.
Court Description: Colloton, Author, with Riley, Chief Judge, and Kelly, Circuit Judge] Criminal case - Sentencing. Recidivism is not an element that must be admitted or proved to a jury and the question of whether prior offenses were committed on different occasions is among the recidivism-related facts covered by the rule of Almendarez-Torres; the special condition of supervision announced at sentencing - that defendant shall not participate in any unprotected sex activities without approval of the Probation Office during the term of supervision - cannot be sustained as the condition is not reasonably related to the statutory factors set forth in Section 3583(d).
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