Criminal – District court erred when imposing probation violation sentence

Where the district court concluded the defendant’s violation of a condition of supervised release prohibiting illegal drugs was a Grade B violation under the Sentencing Guidelines, it erred. Because of this sentencing error, the defendant must be resentenced.

Background

Naeem Deonte Jones was convicted of Hobbs Act robbery and brandishing a firearm in connection with that robbery. Following his release from prison, Jones began almost immediately violating several conditions of his supervised release. Accordingly, the probation officer filed a petition for revocation, charging Jones with four violations of his conditions of supervised release. The district court concluded that testing positive for illegal drugs was a Grade B violation under the Sentencing Guidelines.

Analysis

The Sentencing Guidelines Manual defines a Grade B violation as one involving conduct that constitutes a “federal, state, or local offense punishable by a term of imprisonment exceeding one year.” It defines a Grade C violation as one involving conduct that “constitute[s] (A) a federal, state or local offense punishable by a term of imprisonment of one year or less; or (B) a violation of any other condition of supervision.”

The district court’s characterization of violation two as a Grade B violation was plain error. Of the four violations with which Jones was charged, only violation one alleged conduct constituting a federal, state or local offense at all, and the conduct alleged there — after the district court dismissed the portion charging possession of counterfeit instruments — amounted to only misdemeanor offenses punishable by one year’s imprisonment or less.

The other three violations charged only violations of Jones’s conditions of supervised release, including failing drug tests, violating location restrictions and leaving the judicial district. Accordingly, the most serious violation left in the petition for revocation, which is the violation the court had to consider for sentencing, was a Grade C violation.

The district court considered violation two to be the most serious and characterized it as a Grade B violation. But violation two thus did not charge an offense punishable by a sentence exceeding one year; it only charged a violation of the stated condition of supervised release and therefore was a Grade C violation. Moreover, the district court proceeded throughout the revocation hearing with the fact that violation two charged only a violation of the drug-test condition, not the commission of a felony offense.

Yet, when it came time to sentence Jones, the district court, without explanation, simply characterized violation two as a Grade B violation, which, when combined with Jones’s Criminal History Category, carried a higher sentencing range of 8 to 14 months’ imprisonment, as compared to 5 to 11 months’ imprisonment for a Grade C violation. The court then used this mistaken range to compute its upward variant revocation sentence on Count One of 19 months’ imprisonment. This error was plain.

The government argues, nonetheless, that sentencing Jones for a Grade B violation was appropriate in this case because illegal drug use “can be inferred” from the failed drug tests. It also notes that this inference is supported by the Probation Officer’s Supplemental Report, which stated, for the purpose of calculating the Guidelines sentencing range, that Jones’s “use of” the illegal drugs was a Grade B violation.

However the issue is not whether the inference is possible; it is whether the record shows that the district court made that inference. Here, the record does not show that the district court made the inference. To the contrary, the record shows that the district court understood that violation two charged Jones with only a violation of his supervised release conditions, not the commission of a new drug offense. And it proceeded with that understanding consistently. Because of this sentencing error, the defendant must be resentenced, applying the proper calculation for a Grade C violation.

Maximum

Section 3583(h) provides that when sentencing a defendant on a revocation, if the court chooses to impose a term of supervised release, that term “shall not exceed the term of supervised release authorized by statute for the offense that resulted in the original term of supervised release, less any term of imprisonment that was imposed upon revocation of supervised release.” It would appear that the sentence imposed here violated this provision. The court commits the issue it in the first instance to the district court for consideration on remand.

So ordered.

United States v Jones, Case No. 24-4624, April 14, 2026. 4th Cir. (Niemeyer), from MDNC at Greensboro (Osteen Jr.). Aaron Bader Wellman for Appellant. Karla E. Painter for Appellee. VLW 026-2-129. 13 pp.

Full-Text Opinion

VLW 026-3-077
Virginia Lawyers Weekly