United States v. Porter, No. 20-2088 (8th Cir. 2021)
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Porter received a 104-month prison sentence for illegally possessing a firearm. Shortly before he was scheduled for supervised release, the probation office realized that he did not have a release plan and asked the district court to order Porter to spend 120 days at a residential reentry center, to find work and a place to live. The district court approved the request, but Porter checked out to go to work one day and never returned, violating both his conditions of supervised release and the reentry center’s rules. Porter remained at large until he was captured several weeks later. The district court imposed a 14-month prison sentence for violating the conditions of supervised release. The government filed a separate charge for escaping from custody, 18 U.S.C. 751(a). Porter argued that he was not in the reentry center “by virtue of” a “conviction,” as the statute requires, but rather because he did not have a place to live.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed his conviction and concurrent 12-month sentence. Porter was in “custody” at the reentry center and his “unauthorized departure” was an “escape.” A conviction must only be a cause of the custody or confinement, whether “immediate” or not. Porter never would have been at a reentry center had he not first been convicted of a crime.
Court Description: [Stras, Author, with Smith, Chief Judge, and Gruender, Circuit Judge] Criminal case - Criminal law. Placement in a residential reentry center is placement "by virtue of" a conviction for purposes of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 751(a), even if the offender has nowhere else to live, and defendant's unauthorized departure from the center was an escape. [ November 08, 2021 ]
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