United States v. Randy Scott Rader

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
• Decided: June 3, 2025
• Docket: 24-1761
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 25a0270n.06

No. 24-1761

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FILED FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT Jun 03, 2025 KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk ) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) Plaintiff-Appellee, ) ON APPEAL FROM THE ) v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT ) COURT FOR THE EASTERN ) RANDY SCOTT RADER, DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN ) Defendant-Appellant. ) OPINION ) )

Before: GRIFFIN, LARSEN, and MATHIS, Circuit Judges.

GRIFFIN, Circuit Judge.

After defendant Randy Rader violated his supervised-release conditions by testing positive

for cocaine and failing to reside at a residential reentry center for four months, the district court

revoked his supervised release and sentenced him to a below-Guidelines term of imprisonment.

Rader now appeals the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the violations and the resulting

sentence. We affirm.

I.

Rader pleaded guilty to distributing cocaine and cocaine base and possessing a firearm in

furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime. For these crimes, the district court sentenced him to 240

months’ imprisonment followed by eight years of supervised release. Shortly after Rader began

supervised release, he admitted to using controlled substances, including cocaine, on two separate

occasions, so the district court twice revoked his supervised release, sentenced him to brief periods No. 24-1761, United States v. Rader

of incarceration, and ordered him to participate in additional terms of supervised release. After

the second revocation and re-imposition of supervised release, the district court imposed a special

condition that Rader reside at a residential reentry center (RRC) for four months.

When Rader first began living at the RRC, he stayed only a few weeks because he

continually tested positive for marijuana, in violation of the RRC’s policies. The district court

then issued an order for his re-admission to the RRC, clarifying that the center need not test him

for marijuana unless the center deemed it necessary.

A few weeks later, Rader arrived at the RRC to serve his four months. However, due to

Rader’s “combative” and “disrupt[ive]” behavior, the RRC refused to admit him. According to

the center’s staff, Rader arrived with several personal belongings—many of which were likely

prohibited—strewn “all over the place” and blocking the check-in area. His belongings impeded

staff from breathalyzing and searching incoming residents and thus “pose[d] a security issue.”

And when the RRC’s program manager informed Rader that he was subject to the same check-in

procedures as other residents, including a urine test for marijuana, he “raised his voice” and

claimed to be exempt from marijuana testing. Because the situation got “a little out of control”

and caused “commotion with other residents,” RRC staff decided not to admit him that day. Rader

thus gathered his belongings and left the facility.

Three weeks after the RRC incident, Rader participated in a routine urine analysis as part

of his supervised release; his urine preliminarily tested positive for cocaine, among other

substances. The probation office then sent the sample to a toxicology laboratory, which confirmed

the results of the preliminary testing. Despite these results, Rader denied using cocaine, opining

that the positive result “c[a]me from some trace [of] something,” like a joint he had smoked “or a

piece of money” he had handled.

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Based on Rader’s failure to reside at the RRC and use of controlled substances, Rader’s

probation officer notified the court of these two potential supervised-release violations. The

district court held a three-days-long violation hearing where it heard testimony from the RRC’s

program manager, Rader’s probation officers, and Rader himself. After the hearing, the court

concluded by a preponderance of the evidence that Rader committed both violations. It then

revoked his supervised release and calculated his Guidelines range at 8–14 months on the RRC

violation and 21–27 months on the controlled-substances violation. Varying downward

considerably, the district court sentenced Rader to four months’ imprisonment for failing to reside

at the RRC and six months’ imprisonment for using controlled substances, for a total of ten

months’ imprisonment with no supervised release to follow. Rader timely appealed.

II.

A.

A district court may revoke a supervised-release term upon finding by a preponderance of

the evidence that the defendant violated a condition of his supervised release. 18 U.S.C.

§ 3583(e)(3). We review a district court’s revocation of supervised release for an abuse of

discretion. United States v. Kontrol, 554 F.3d 1089, 1091 (6th Cir. 2009). In doing so, we review

the district court’s legal conclusions de novo and its factual findings for clear error. Id. at 1091–

92.

B.

Rader first argues that insufficient evidence supported the district court’s finding that he

violated the special condition requiring him to spend four months at an RRC. We disagree.

It is undisputed that Rader did not reside at an RRC for four months. However, Rader

contends that he did not knowingly or willfully violate the district court’s special condition because

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he reported to the RRC with the intent to serve his four-month term. Regardless of whether this

condition implicitly contained, or needed to contain, such a mens rea requirement, see United

States v. De Leon, 810 F. App’x 384, 388–89 (6th Cir. 2020); United States v. Smith,

695 F. App’x 854, 858 (6th Cir. 2017), the district court did not clearly err in finding that Rader

knowingly violated this condition. When the district court imposed the RRC special condition, it

twice warned Rader that if he failed to comply with the RRC’s rules, he would spend four months

in prison. Although Rader had a short stint at the RRC, he did not complete his stay due to his

marijuana use. Yet the district court gave him one more chance, warning him again that failing to

complete his four months at the RRC would result in prison time. Thus, the district court

appropriately concluded at the violation hearing that Rader “was on notice of his responsibility to

comply with all the RRC rules.”

Nor did the district court clearly err in finding that Rader was the cause of the disruption

at the RRC, leading to his inability to be admitted to the facility. Notably, Rader had successfully

checked into the RRC only two months prior, so he knew how to appropriately check in without

causing commotion. This time, however, Rader’s belongings prevented RRC staff from

performing their check-in duties, and he became “combative” when attempting to check in. And

Rader “raised his voice” and claimed to be exempt from certain admissions procedures despite

being notified that he was subject to the same procedures as everyone else. Therefore, the district

court more than reasonably concluded that Rader knew he was “to be cooperative” at the RRC,

not “combative” or “disruptive.”

Accordingly, the court did not abuse its discretion in finding by a preponderance of the

evidence that Rader violated the special condition of his supervised release.

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C.

Rader also argues that the evidence did not support the district court’s finding that he

violated a standard condition of his supervised release—that he refrain from using controlled

substances, particularly cocaine. Again, we disagree.

As Rader acknowledged at the violation hearing, he has a history of cocaine use. Indeed,

his underlying crimes involved cocaine. And prior to the instant supervised-release violations, he

had already violated this same condition once before after testing positive for cocaine. Given

Rader’s drug-use history, the district court rightfully opined that the instant violation “wouldn’t be

the type of situation where it would seem to be some kind of mistake or an unusual occurrence.”

Although Rader denies using the cocaine that triggered the present violation, the record

belies that assertion. As a probation officer testified, Rader provided a urine sample in the officer’s

presence, which preliminarily tested positive for cocaine. That probation officer immediately sent

the sample to the toxicology laboratory, which confirmed the presence of cocaine in the sample.

And the laboratory director’s affidavit, which the district court admitted into evidence, detailed the

laboratory’s testing procedures and once again confirmed that Rader’s sample contained cocaine.

In short, the district court did not clearly err by crediting the test results over Rader’s unsupported

statement that he inadvertently ingested cocaine.

Rader’s arguments to the contrary do not move the needle. He claims that the laboratory

director’s affidavit was unreliable hearsay, but supervised-release-revocation hearings “are more

flexible than a criminal trial,” and at such hearings, district courts “may consider hearsay if it is

proven to be reliable.” See United States v. Stephenson, 928 F.2d 728, 732 (6th Cir. 1991); see

also United States v. Lofton, 810 F. App’x 436, 438 (6th Cir. 2020) (“Defendants in supervised

release revocation hearings do not enjoy the same procedural and evidentiary protections as at

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trial.”). Because the affidavit here—made under oath and “replete with detail”—was sufficiently

reliable, the district court appropriately relied upon it. See United States v. Kokoski, 435 F. App’x

472, 474 (6th Cir. 2011) (citation omitted). Further, Rader’s argument that he needed to test

positive for controlled substances three times in one year before the district court could properly

revoke his supervised release is contrary to plain language of the supervised-release statute: the

three-positive-tests rule applies only when the district court revokes supervised release under the

mandatory-revocation provisions, see 18 U.S.C. § 3583(g)(4), not the discretionary-revocation

provisions the district court used here, see id. § 3583(e)(3).

For these reasons, the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding by a

preponderance of the evidence that Rader used cocaine and consequently violated the conditions

of his supervised release.

III.

Upon revoking a term of supervised release, a district court may impose a new term of

imprisonment for the violation. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3). We review such sentences “under the

same abuse of discretion standard that we apply to sentences imposed following conviction.”

United States v. Polihonki, 543 F.3d 318, 322 (6th Cir. 2008) (citation omitted). Under this

standard, we review the district court’s sentence for both procedural and substantive

reasonableness. Id.

For a court’s sentence to be procedurally reasonable, the court must “properly calculate the

guidelines range, treat that range as advisory, consider the sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C.

§ 3553(a), refrain from considering impermissible factors, select the sentence based on facts that

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are not clearly erroneous, and adequately explain why it chose the sentence.” United States v.

Rayyan, 885 F.3d 436, 440 (6th Cir. 2018). To preserve a procedural-reasonableness challenge

for appeal, the defendant must object in the district court; otherwise, we review the procedural

argument for plain error. United States v. Vonner, 516 F.3d 382, 385–86 (6th Cir. 2008) (en banc).

Rader contends that his sentence is procedurally unreasonable because the district court

should have considered placing him in a substance-abuse program rather than prison. See

18 U.S.C. § 3583(d). Because Rader failed to object to the district court’s sentence on this basis,

plain-error review applies. The district court did not err, let alone plainly err, in imposing Rader’s

sentence. It properly calculated his advisory Guidelines range, considered the § 3553(a) factors,

relied on permissible facts, and explained the chosen sentence. And although Rader argues that

the district court should have placed him in a substance-abuse program rather than in prison, the

record reveals that the district court gave Rader several chances to complete supervised release—

despite multiple violations—before ultimately imposing the below-Guidelines term of

imprisonment. In fact, the district court tried to facilitate Rader’s successful re-integration into

society and ease his substance-abuse issues by ordering him to spend time at an RRC. But Rader

violated that order. Based on Rader’s multiple failures to comply with the terms of his supervised

release, the district court determined that prison was the appropriate sentence, and it did not plainly

err in making that determination.1

1 Rader also contends that “the law of the case” supported no more than a total sentence of four months. But he fails to support this single-sentence argument with any authority; it thus fails under plain-error review. See United States v. Al-Maliki, 787 F.3d 784, 794 (6th Cir. 2015) (“A lack of binding case law that answers the question presented will . . . preclude our finding of plain error.”). -7- No. 24-1761, United States v. Rader

“Substantive reasonableness, when challenged by a defendant, concerns whether a

sentence is too long.” United States v. Johnson, 95 F.4th 404, 418 (6th Cir. 2024) (internal

quotation marks omitted). When assessing the substantive reasonableness of a sentence, we must

consider whether the district court placed too much weight on some of the § 3553(a) factors and

too little on others. Id. Because a within-Guidelines sentence is presumptively reasonable, a

defendant’s burden of demonstrating that his below-Guidelines sentence “is unreasonably long is

even more demanding.” Id. (citation omitted).

Rader has not met this demanding burden. As explained, the district court appropriately

considered the § 3553(a) factors and determined that a total 10-month term of imprisonment for

both violations—a term substantially below the advisory Guidelines range—was sufficient but not

greater than necessary. While Rader argues that the district court “should have been bound” by its

statements that it would impose a four-month sentence if he failed to spend four months at the

RRC, the district court did just that. As promised, the district court sentenced Rader to four months

on that violation. That it added another six months on an additional violation does not make his

sentence substantively unreasonable. In essence, Rader asks us to re-balance the § 3553(a) factors

to impose a shorter sentence. But doing so “is simply beyond the scope of our appellate review.”

United States v. Ely, 468 F.3d 399, 404 (6th Cir. 2006). Thus, the district court did not abuse its

discretion in imposing Rader’s substantively reasonable sentence.

IV.

We affirm the judgment of the district court.

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