Sentencing after supervised-release revocation; Procedural reasonableness; Consideration of the seriousness of the supervised-release violation; 18 USC § 3583(e) (incorporating most of the § 3553(a) factors); Esteras v United States; United States v Hoyle; Substantive reasonableness; Effect of a within-Guidelines sentence

[This appeal was from the ED-MI.] Holding that the district court did not err in considering the seriousness of defendant-Patterson’s supervised-release violation, the court rejected his procedural and substantive reasonableness challenges to his sentence. While on supervised release after being convicted of drug conspiracy offenses, Patterson murdered a man, which resulted in revocation of his supervised release. The advisory Guidelines range for his supervised-release violation was 51 to 63 months. The district court sentenced him to 60 months, in accordance with a statutory cap. He argued that it “procedurally erred by treating the seriousness of his supervised-release violation as a mandatory factor for consideration.” The court noted that it is true this is not a mandatory factor, but it is “a discretionary factor that may be considered.” And the court saw “no indication that the district court misunderstood its discretion or viewed the seriousness of the violation as a mandatory factor.” Although it “did dwell for some time on the gravity of the murder, it did so because Patterson had argued for a more lenient sentence.” The court discussed the Supreme Court’s decision in Esteras, noting that when “3553(a)(2)(A) speaks of the ‘seriousness of the offense,’ the term ‘offense’ refers to ‘the underlying crime of conviction, not the violation of the supervised-release conditions.’ Courts are forbidden from considering the former, but not necessarily the latter. Here, the district court didn’t consider the seriousness of Patterson’s ‘offense’—the drug conspiracy—as § 3553(a)(2)(A) uses that term. Instead, [it] discussed the seriousness of [his] supervised-release violation—committing murder[,]” which it was permissible to consider. The court found “no procedural error, much less a plain one, in the district court’s decision.” As to Patterson’s substantive reasonableness challenge, the court rejected his claim “the district court placed too much weight on the seriousness of the supervised-release violation[,]” concluding that it did not abuse its discretion in weighing the relevant “factors and imposing a within-Guidelines term of imprisonment. Sixty months for murdering someone while on supervised release isn’t ‘too long.’” Affirmed.