United States v. Charles Schrode

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedOctober 7, 2016
Docket15-3522
StatusPublished

This text of United States v. Charles Schrode (United States v. Charles Schrode) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Charles Schrode, (7th Cir. 2016).

Opinion

In the

United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 15‐3522 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff‐Appellee, v.

CHARLES R. SCHRODE, Defendant‐Appellant. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. No. 14‐cr‐30014 — Sue E. Myerscough, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED APRIL 12, 2016 — DECIDED OCTOBER 7, 2016 ____________________

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and FLAUM and WILLIAMS, Cir‐ cuit Judges. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge. Charles Schrode was convicted in state court for predatory criminal assault of a four‐year‐old family member. He later pled guilty in federal court to vide‐ otaping assaults of the same child on two other dates, and re‐ ceiving and possessing child pornography of other victims. 2 No. 15‐3522

He was sentenced to 630 months’ imprisonment for the fed‐ eral offenses, some of which was to run consecutively to his state sentence. On appeal, Schrode argues that none of his fed‐ eral sentence should run consecutively to his state sentence. But we affirm Schrode’s sentence. The district court did not err in applying some of his federal sentence to run consecu‐ tively to his state sentence, because it did not clearly err in finding that his state offense was not relevant conduct for all of his federal offenses. Schrode also received a life term of supervised release, which he now challenges, along with several of the conditions of supervised release, which he argues improperly delegate judicial power to the probation office. However, not only did the district court adequately justify its reasons for imposing a life term of supervision, Schrode also waived any challenges to his conditions of supervised release by affirmatively with‐ drawing his objections to those conditions at the sentencing hearing. Nonetheless, we grant a limited remand to bring the sentencing calculation for Schrode’s production offenses in compliance with 18 U.S.C. § 2251(e). I. BACKGROUND A. Schrode’s Offenses On April 7, 2013, Schrode committed predatory sexual as‐ sault against Jane Doe, a four‐year‐old family member. He pled guilty in state court in February 2014 and was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment. In June 2013, the FBI executed a search warrant of Schrode’s home in Springfield Illinois. The search led to the discovery that in May 2012, Schrode sent child pornography from Illinois to a man in Michigan. In exchange, Schrode No. 15‐3522 3

watched the Michigan man through streaming video and di‐ rected him through web chats as he sexually assaulted his son. The FBI discovered over 200 still images and four videos of child pornography on Schrode’s computer in his Illinois home. In June 2014, when Schrode was in state custody, his wife discovered videos of him sexually assaulting Jane at the home of a family friend in February and March 2013. She gave the video footage to Jane’s father, who turned it over to the FBI. Schrode was indicted on four federal counts: first, for re‐ ceiving child pornography of the Michigan victim in May 2012; second, for producing child pornography by videotap‐ ing his sexual assault of Jane in February 2013; third, for pro‐ ducing child pornography of Jane in March 2013; and fourth, for possessing child pornography that the FBI discovered on his computer in June 2013. He pled guilty to all counts. B. Application of Sentencing Guidelines At Schrode’s sentencing hearing, the district court grouped Schrode’s offenses pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 3D1.1. The first group included counts one and four (receipt and posses‐ sion of child pornography), the second group contained the single count of production of child pornography in February 2013, and the third group contained the single count of pro‐ duction of child pornography in March 2013. Production of child pornography is not a groupable offense. U.S.S.G. § 3D1.2(d). The district court explicitly addressed the presen‐ tence report finding that Schrode’s state offense was relevant conduct to the “instant offense.” The judge noted that she was unsure the conduct which led to Schrode’s state sentence was relevant to his federal offenses because “these were three sep‐ 4 No. 15‐3522

arate rapes and two of these rapes involved child pornogra‐ phy production. Those are the two I’m dealing with. And they were in a different period of time.” Ultimately the judge de‐ termined that although she had “grave reservations that it is relevant conduct,” she would treat the rape for which Schrode was serving his state court sentence as relevant conduct for his production counts (counts 2 and 3). The judge then calcu‐ lated a sentence of 60 months for the receipt count, 363 months for each production count, and 240 months for the possession count. In addition to determining the prison term for each count, the court had to decide whether the sentence for each group would run concurrently or consecutively to the state prison sentence by applying § 5G1.3 of the Guidelines. It concluded that because the state prison sentence was for conduct rele‐ vant to the production counts, Schrode’s time served for the state sentence would be credited to those sentence terms, which would also run concurrently with the state term of im‐ prisonment. However, because the state sentence did not in‐ volve conduct that was relevant to the offenses of receipt and possession of pornography (Jane did not appear in any of the pornography that formed the basis of those counts), those sentences would run consecutively to the state court sentence. In making its ruling, the district court stated it was relying on both § 5G1.3(b) and (d) of the Guidelines. Schrode objected to the court’s finding that the offense underlying the state sen‐ tence was relevant conduct for some of the counts but not oth‐ ers. Ultimately, the court imposed an aggregate sentence of 630 months’ imprisonment, with an adjusted sentence of 330 months for the production counts (starting with 663 months and then crediting the 33 months already served on state sen‐ tence), to run concurrently with Schrode’s state sentence and No. 15‐3522 5

with each other; 240 months for the possession count, to run consecutively with the other federal counts and his state sen‐ tence; and 60 months for the receipt count, to run consecu‐ tively with the other federal counts and the state sentence. C. Conditions of Supervised Release After determining Schrode’s term of imprisonment, the court imposed a life term of supervised release. As part of his supervised release term, the court imposed four discretionary conditions, the relevant portions of which are included below: Condition 3: The defendant shall follow the in‐ structions of the probation officer. He shall an‐ swer truthfully the questions of Probation as they relate to his conditions of supervision, sub‐ ject to his right against self‐incrimination. Condition 8: The defendant shall participate in a sex offender treatment program as deemed necessary by probation. Condition 13: [The defendant] shall, at the direc‐ tion of the U.S. Probation Office, participate in a program for substance abuse treatment includ‐ ing not more than six tests per month to deter‐ mine whether he has used controlled or psycho‐ active substances … . He shall be subject to this condition until such time as Probation deter‐ mines that drug abuse treatment and drug test‐ ing no longer assist him to avoid committing further crimes. Condition 14: The defendant shall participate in psychiatric services and/or a program of mental 6 No. 15‐3522

health counseling/treatment as directed by Pro‐ bation … . He shall be subject to this condition until such time as Probation determines that mental health counseling/treatment no longer assists him to avoid committing further crimes.

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United States v. Charles Schrode, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-charles-schrode-ca7-2016.