UNITED STATES v. HORSE (2021)

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.2021-07-20No. No. 20-2832

Summary · law.co

Holding. The appellate court affirmed the district court's 24-month revocation sentence, finding no abuse of discretion in the sentencing decision.

Kirk Flying Horse pleaded guilty in 2015 to assaulting, resisting, and impeding a federal officer and received a 30-month sentence followed by supervised release. He struggled to comply with release conditions due to alcohol addiction, leading to two separate revocations. After a second revocation in 2020 for consuming alcohol, using marijuana and methamphetamine, the district court imposed 24 months' imprisonment—the statutory maximum—despite the sentencing guidelines recommending 6 to 12 months.

Flying Horse appealed, arguing the sentence was substantively unreasonable. The appellate court reviewed the sentence under an abuse-of-discretion standard, examining whether the district court properly considered relevant factors and avoided clear errors in judgment. The court found that the district judge had appropriately considered the statutory factors, including Flying Horse's addiction struggles, but reasonably determined that his pattern of repeated violations and the danger he posed while intoxicated justified a custodial sentence rather than treatment placement.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

Substantive reasonableness of a revocation sentence imposed at the statutory maximum
Whether district court properly weighed mitigating factors including documented alcohol addiction
Application of abuse-of-discretion standard to supervised release revocation sentencing

Procedural posture

Flying Horse appealed the district court's revocation of his supervised release and the resulting 24-month imprisonment sentence.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion · public domain

In 2015, Kirk Flying Horse pleaded guilty to assaulting, resisting, and impeding a federal officer. See 18 U.S.C. § 111(a), (b). The district court

sentenced him to 30 months’ imprisonment and a three-year term of supervised release. Flying Horse completed his initial term of imprisonment but has struggled to comply with the conditions of his supervised release because of his alcohol addiction.

Flying Horse began serving his first term of supervised release on November 1, 2017. The district court revoked his supervised release on June 24, 2019, after Flying Horse admitted to consuming alcoholic beverages, possessing marijuana, and failing to attend cognitive behavioral treatment. The court sentenced him to seven months’ imprisonment and a 29-month term of supervised release.

The new term of supervised release began on September 16, 2019. Nine months into that term, Flying Horses probation officer petitioned the district court to again revoke his supervised release because of a series of alleged violations. On August 17, 2020, Flying Horse admitted to consuming alcohol and using marijuana and methamphetamine, and the district court revoked his supervised release. The advisory Guidelines range for the revocation sentence was 6 to 12 months’ imprisonment. See U.S. SENTG COMMN, Guidelines Manual, § 7B1.4 (2018). But the district court imposed the statutory maximum of 24 months’ imprisonment, see 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3), with no term of supervised release to follow. Flying Horse appeals, asserting that this sentence was substantively unreasonable.

We review the substantive reasonableness of a district courts revocation sentence under the same abuse of discretion standard that applies to initial sentencing proceedings. See United States v. Growden, 663 F.3d 982, 984 (8th Cir. 2011). A district court abuses its discretion if it “fails to consider a relevant factor that should have received significant weight, gives significant weight to an improper or irrelevant factor, or considers only the appropriate factors but commits a clear error of judgment in weighing those factors.” United States v. Staten, 990 F.3d 631, 636 (8th Cir. 2021) (per curiam) (quoting United States v. Petersen, 848 F.3d 1153, 1157 (8th Cir. 2017)).

The district court properly consulted the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors and considered Flying Horses struggle with alcohol addiction in selecting the sentence imposed. Although Flying Horse requested placement in a treatment facility instead of prison, the district court determined that his repeated supervised release violations warranted a custodial sentence. The court expressed particular concern about the physical danger Flying Horse had posed to others, including law enforcement officers, while intoxicated. And although the court acknowledged the obstacles to obtaining addiction treatment during the pandemic, it was less sympathetic to Flying Horses failure to successfully complete any treatment program in the preceding 20 years. While Flying Horses case presents mitigating circumstances, including his documented decades-long struggle with alcohol, the district court did not abuse its discretion in selecting the sentence imposed.

For these reasons, we affirm the district courts judgment.

FOOTNOTES

. The Honorable Charles B. Kornmann, United States District Judge for the District of South Dakota.

PER CURIAM.