United States v. Hook, George

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedDecember 13, 2006
Docket06-1362
StatusPublished

This text of United States v. Hook, George (United States v. Hook, George) 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. Hook, George, (7th Cir. 2006).

Opinion

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________

No. 06-1362 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v.

GEORGE C. HOOK, Defendant-Appellant. ____________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 04 CR 1045—Joan Humphrey Lefkow, Judge. ____________ ARGUED SEPTEMBER 27, 2006 —DECIDED DECEMBER 13, 2006 ____________

Before POSNER, MANION, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges. MANION, Circuit Judge. George Clive Hook, a white collar criminal, was scheduled by his probation officer to submit to DNA collection while serving his term of super- vised release. Hook filed a verified petition with the dis- trict court objecting to this process. The district court denied Hook’s petition and ordered him to submit to DNA collection. Hook appeals, and we affirm. 2 No. 06-1362

I. In 1998, George Clive Hook was convicted by a jury of wire fraud, money laundering, and theft involving an employee benefit plan. The district court sentenced Hook to eighty-four months’ imprisonment and thirty-six months of supervised release. Among the conditions of his super- vised release, the district court ordered Hook to follow his probation officer’s instructions and not to commit any additional crimes. After serving his term of imprisonment and over a year of supervised release, Hook’s probation officer scheduled him for DNA collection in October 2005 pursuant to the Justice for All Act of 2004, Pub. Law No. 108-405, 118 Stat. 2260, and the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act of 2000, Pub. Law No. 106-546, 114 Stat. 2726 (codified at 42 U.S.C. §§ 14135-14135e) (collectively “DNA Act”). Hook filed a verified petition in the district court alleging that the DNA collection violated his con- tract with the government, violated his rights under the Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and Thirteenth Amend- ments, and violated the Ex Post Facto and Bill of Attainder clause, Article I, § 9, the Equal Protection clause, Article IV, § 2, of the Constitution, and the separation of powers doctrine. After a hearing, the district court denied Hook’s petition, finding the DNA Act constitutional, and ordered him to submit to DNA testing. Hook appeals, raising the issues set forth in his petition and further arguing that the district court abused its discretion in denying his request for termination of supervised release. We first set forth the landscape of the DNA Act and then address each of Hook’s claims in turn. No. 06-1362 3

II. In 2000, Congress enacted the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act, which required DNA samples to be col- lected from individuals in custody and while on probation, parole, or supervised release after being convicted of cer- tain violent crimes. 42 U.S.C. § 14135a(d) (2001). Congress amended the supervised release statute to add the DNA sample requirement to supervised release. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d). Then in 2004, Congress passed the Justice For All Act which amended the DNA Act, expanding the list of qualifying offenses to include, as relevant here, any felony. 42 U.S.C. § 14135a(d) (2004). Congress mandated that the United States Probation Office collect DNA sam- ples of those individuals under its supervision and sub- mit those samples to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) for inclusion in its Combined DNA Index System (“CODIS”). 42 U.S.C. § 14135a(a)(2), (b). Failure of an individual covered by the DNA Act to submit to DNA collection constitutes a class A misdemeanor subject to punishment according to Title 18. 42 U.S.C. § 14135a(a)(5). The information maintained in CODIS may be disclosed only to law enforcement agencies for “identification purposes,” “in judicial proceedings,” “for criminal defense purposes,” and for statistical and quality control purposes, in the case of the latter if personally identifiable informa- tion is first removed. 42 U.S.C. § 14132(b)(3)(A)-(D). Finally, the DNA Act provides a criminal penalty for those who improperly use or disclose CODIS information. 42 U.S.C. § 14133(c). Against this backdrop, we consider Hook’s challenge to the probation officer’s directive to submit to DNA col- lection. In challenging the DNA collection, Hook makes three arguments: First, he claims that requiring him to 4 No. 06-1362

submit to DNA collection is an impermissible modifica- tion of his term of supervised release. Second, he argues that the district court abused its discretion by failing to consider his request for termination of supervised release. Third, he contends that the imposition of the DNA collec- tion requirement violates a contract he entered into with the United States at the time he was sentenced to a term of supervised release. We review legal questions de novo. United States v. Celliti, 387 F.3d 618, 621 (7th Cir. 2004). A district court’s imposition of conditions of supervised release or denial of requests for modification is reviewed for abuse of discretion. United States v. Nonahal, 338 F.3d 668, 670 (7th Cir. 2003) (citation omitted). Hook first contends that the DNA collection requirement is a modification of his sentence of supervised release. Specifically, he argues that the DNA collection require- ment constitutes an additional, impermissible condition of his term of supervised release because it was not im- posed as a condition originally at the time of his sentenc- ing. However, as noted above, the original term of super- vised release instituted by the district court required Hook to “follow the instructions of the probation officer” and not “commit another federal, state, or local crime.” In this case, the probation officer instructed Hook to submit to DNA collection, and this brings the DNA collection into his original sentence. Moreover, even if the DNA testing did not fit with the terms of the original sentence, the district court held a hearing on Hook’s petition prior to ordering him to com- ply with the DNA testing. This hearing satisfies the conditions of Fed. R. Crim. P. 32.1(c)(1), which requires a hearing prior to the modification of the terms of supervised release. Therefore, to the extent that there was any modi- fication, the modification was properly made. No. 06-1362 5

Second, Hook asserts that the DNA collection require- ment violates “the agreement between US [sic] and Hook,” and that collection breaches his contract with the govern- ment. There was no plea agreement in this case, but rather Hook was convicted by a jury. While there is nothing be- fore us on appeal to suggest that there was an agreement between the government and Hook regarding sentenc- ing recommendations, even if such an agreement existed, the district court is not bound by any recommendations made by the government at sentencing. United States v. Grimm, 170 F.3d 760, 768 (7th Cir. 1999). Moreover, a sentence within the sentencing guidelines and below the statutory maximum does not create a contract. Therefore, Hook’s argument based on contract fails because no con- tract is present in this situation.

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