United States v. Kerr

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• Decided: March 23, 2026
• Docket: 25-1062
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

25-1062 United States v. Kerr

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING TO A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

At a stated term of The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 23rd day of March, two thousand twenty- six.

PRESENT: DENNIS JACOBS, RICHARD C. WESLEY, BETH ROBINSON, Circuit Judges. _________________________________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

v. No. 25-1062

KAMAL KERR,

Defendant-Appellant,

ALTON RODRIGUEZ, JONATHAN BUN, AKA CAMBO, RAESHAUN WIGGINS, AKA SLEEPY, Defendants. * _________________________________________

FOR APPELLEE: JOSEPH ZABEL, Assistant United States Attorney (Nathan Rehn, Assistant United States Attorney, on the brief), for Jay Clayton, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, New York, NY.

FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLANT: SUSAN JEWELL WALSH, Vladeck, Raskin & Clark, P.C., New York, NY.

Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern

District of New York (Gardephe, Judge).

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION WHEREOF, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED,

ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment entered on April 25, 2025, is

AFFIRMED.

In 2013, Defendant-Appellant Kamal Kerr was sentenced to forty-five

months’ imprisonment and four years of supervised release for a drug crime.

After his release from prison and while on supervised release, Kerr was arrested

in October 2019 by New York authorities for a number of serious charges,

* The Clerk’s office is respectfully directed to amend the caption as reflected above.

2 including attempted murder and arson. According to the state indictment, the day

after Kerr and his girlfriend argued over her desire to end the relationship, he

poured lighter fluid through her window and ignited it while she, their child, and

others were inside. Kerr pled guilty to arson in the third degree and was sentenced

in state court to four-to-eight years’ imprisonment. A federal warrant was issued

for Kerr’s violation of the terms of his supervised release in early 2020. Following

the completion of his state sentence, Kerr was taken into federal custody. He pled

guilty to a violation of his supervised release in April 2025 and was sentenced

shortly thereafter.

Kerr appeals from the district court’s judgment revoking his term of

supervised release and imposing twenty-one months’ imprisonment to be

followed by two years of supervised release. Kerr argues that the district court

erred by considering the retributive factors listed under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A)

in imposing sentence, over his objection, in violation of the rule set forth by the

Supreme Court in Esteras v. United States, 606 U.S. 185 (2025). We assume the

parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, procedural history, and arguments

on appeal, to which we refer only as necessary to explain our decision to affirm.

3 We review challenges to the sentence imposed for violation of supervised

release using the “same standard as for sentencing generally.” 1 United States v.

Johnson, 786 F.3d 241, 243 (2d Cir. 2015), as amended (June 3, 2015). That is, we

evaluate whether the sentence imposed is reasonable, reviewing issues of law

without deference. Id.

In revoking supervised release and sentencing defendants, district courts

consider the factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e). In Esteras, the Supreme Court

held that district courts are not to consider the retributive factors from 18 U.S.C.

§ 3553(a)(2)(A) when crafting a revocation order and sentence, as they are omitted

from the list of considerations applicable in revocation proceedings. 606 U.S. at

204. The Court explained that the § 3553(a)(2)(A) factors refer to the “offense,” the

underlying crime, and not to the “violation,” the conduct resulting in the

revocation of supervised release. Id. at 193–94. The Court took “no position” on

whether district courts could consider the retributive factors with respect to the

violation conduct, id. at 194 n.5, and instructed only that courts may not “exact

retribution for the defendant’s original criminal offense” in a supervised release

revocation proceeding, id. at 203.

1In quotations from caselaw, this summary order omits all internal quotation marks, footnotes, and citations, and accepts all alterations, unless otherwise noted.

4 We disagree with Kerr’s assertion that the district court violated Esteras and

relied on the retributive sentencing factors with respect to his underlying drug

offense here. Though the court noted that it “considered the factors that generally

are considered at sentencing, including . . . the need for the sentence imposed to

reflect the seriousness of the violation, the need to promote respect for the law,

[and] to provide just punishment,” it nowhere referenced the seriousness of Kerr’s

offense, the underlying drug crime. App’x 25. Such bare statements don’t amount

to an express intention to “exact retribution for the defendant’s original criminal

offense,” requiring vacatur. Esteras, 606 U.S. at 203.

The district court mentioned the “lenient sentence” imposed for Kerr’s

underlying offense in the context of discussing the “degree of the breach of

trust . . . implicit in the supervised release violation.” App’x 26. The court

ultimately found that Kerr’s violation conduct amounted to a “serious” breach of

trust. App’x 30–32. Under our binding Circuit precedent, the district court’s

consideration of the degree to which Kerr breached the court’s trust—informed by

the leniency of his underlying sentence and the seriousness of his violation

conduct—was not improper. United States v. Ramos, 979 F.3d 994, 1002 (2d Cir.

2020) (“[A] sentence for a violation of supervised release should primarily sanction

5 the defendant’s breach of trust.”). Esteras does not hold otherwise. See Esteras, 606

U.S. at 194 n.5.

* * *

For the above reasons, the district court’s judgment is AFFIRMED.

FOR THE COURT: Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court