United States v. Reynolds

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: May 6, 2025
• Docket: 24-2132
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAY 6 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 24-2132 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellee, 4:18-cr-00158-JD-1 v. MEMORANDUM* DAHRYL LAMONT REYNOLDS,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California James Donato, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted March 3, 2025 San Francisco, California

Before: WARDLAW, PAEZ, and BEA, Circuit Judges. Dissent by Judge PAEZ.

Dahryl Reynolds appeals the district court’s imposition at sentencing of a

standard condition of supervised release that instructed that he “must not associate,

communicate, or interact with” any person he knows has been convicted of a

felony, unless granted permission to do so by the probation officer (“felon

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. association ban”).1 Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d), district court judges may

impose discretionary conditions of supervised release that are “reasonably related”

to certain sentencing factors, see 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), and that “involve[] no

greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary.” “We review for abuse

of discretion the conditions of supervised release set by the district court and

challenged on appeal when trial counsel objects to a supervised release condition.”

United States v. Aquino, 794 F.3d 1033, 1036 (9th Cir. 2015) (citation, quotation

marks, and ellipsis omitted). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We

affirm.

1. The district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that the

felon association ban was reasonably related to the relevant sentencing factors:

“the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of

the defendant,” as well as the need for the sentence to deter future criminal

conduct, protect the public, and rehabilitate the defendant. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a);

see 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)(1) (citing relevant subsections). “The touchstone of

‘reasonableness’ is whether the record as a whole reflects rational and meaningful

1 In Reynolds’s prior appeal, we vacated the imposition of any condition of supervised release that had not been orally pronounced at sentencing pursuant to United States v. Montoya, 82 F.4th 640 (9th Cir. 2023) (en banc). United States v. Reynolds, No. 21-10368, 2024 WL 62950 (9th Cir. Jan. 5, 2024). Those included the felon association ban at issue on this appeal.

2 24-2132 consideration” of the relevant factors. United States v. Wolf Child, 699 F.3d 1082,

1090 (9th Cir. 2012).

Although the felon association ban is a standard condition used in the

Northern District of California, the district court imposed it here after considering

each of the factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)(2) as applied to Reynolds’s individual

circumstances.2 The district court expressly stated that it did not matter “whether

this were a standard condition or a custom tailored one,” but the relevant question

instead was whether the condition “fit the circumstances of this defendant.” In

imposing the condition, the district court considered (1) Reynolds’s lengthy

criminal history “distinguished by the frequent and violent use of firearms and

guns and also very closely associated with trafficking illegal narcotics”; (2) that

Reynolds was living and interacting with a known felon and was on supervised

release with a felon association ban condition when he committed the underlying

crimes; and (3) Reynolds had history of associating with felons during his

“lifelong” criminal history.

2. The district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that the

2 Thus, we do not reach the question of whether the condition when applied in circumstances distinct from Reynolds’ is overbroad. Cf. United States v. Napulou, 593 F.3d 1041 (9th Cir. 2010). And we question whether Reynolds even has standing to assert a claim of overbreadth because the district court has already conducted an individualized analysis, so this claim would not be redressable. See Novak v. United States, 795 F.3d 1012, 1019–20 (9th Cir. 2015).

3 24-2132 felon association ban was not a greater deprivation of liberty than was reasonably

necessary for both rehabilitation and to protect the public. “District courts are

given some discretion in fashioning conditions of supervised release in part

because of our uncertainty about how rehabilitation is accomplished.” United

States v. Watson, 582 F.3d 974, 983 (9th Cir. 2009). Here, the district court

permissibly concluded that the felon association ban “has proven over time in

many, many, many cases to promote the rehabilitation of defendants and to protect

the public interest from future crimes,” and, here, Reynolds’ “hanging out with

people who are felons” was not helping Reynolds, nor was it “in the public

interest,” as he was arrested while he was “firing off a firearm randomly in the

street.”

We have previously upheld conditions of supervised release that broadly

restrict the defendant’s associations. See, e.g., Malone v. United States, 502 F.2d

554, 555–57 (9th Cir. 1974) (upholding a prohibition on the defendant’s

association with people involved in the American Irish Republican movement);

United States v. Soltero, 510 F.3d 858, 866–67 (9th Cir. 2007) (per curiam)

(upholding a prohibition on the defendant’s association with members of a gang).

Here, the ban is somewhat narrowed because it prohibits association only with

those Reynolds knows to have felony convictions, and because it allows

Reynolds’s probation officer to make exceptions. The district court also

4 24-2132 acknowledged that Reynolds’ brother and sister-in-law had decades-old felony

convictions, and instructed the Probation Office that “all things being equal,

family-member access should get a little bit of priority.” Thus, the district court

did not abuse its discretion by concluding that the condition did not work a greater

deprivation of liberty than reasonably necessary.

AFFIRMED.

5 24-2132 United States v. Reynolds, No. 24-2132 FILED PAEZ, Circuit Judge, dissenting: MAY 6 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS I respectfully dissent. In my view, as applied here, the condition that

Reynolds not “associate, communicate, or interact with any person [he] know[s]

has been convicted of a felony, unless granted permission to do so by the probation

officer” involves a “greater deprivation than is reasonably necessary,” 18 U.S.C.

§ 3583(d). Because this condition is overbroad as applied to Reynolds, the district

court’s imposition of this condition was an abuse of discretion. See United States

v. Wolf Child, 699 F.3d 1082, 1089, 1100 (9th Cir. 2012).

This condition is a standard condition of supervised release.1 But it is not a

mandatory one. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 3563(a), 3583(d). Congress has instructed that a

court may only impose a non-mandatory condition of supervision if: (1) the

condition is “reasonably related to” the statutory goals of deterrence, protecting the

public, and rehabilitation, and (2) the condition “involves no greater deprivation of

1 This condition is included on the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s list of thirteen “standard” conditions of release included in the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. See U.S. Sent’g Guidelines Manual § 5D1.3(c)(8) (U.S. Sent’g Comm’n 2024). “In the language of the Sentencing Guidelines, ‘standard’ conditions should be distinguished from ‘mandatory’ conditions. The later must be imposed on any defendant placed on supervised release, while the former are merely recommended to the extent that they serve the purposes of sentencing.” United States v. Evans, 883 F.3d 1154, 1162 n.4 (9th Cir. 2018) (citation omitted). 1 liberty than is reasonably necessary” to fulfill those goals. Id. § 3583(d)(1)-(2); see

Wolf Child, 699 F.3d at 1100.

The majority correctly observes that we have upheld conditions of

supervised release that restrict a defendant’s associational rights on several

occasions. But, in those cases, the associational restrictions were narrowly tailored

to specific risk factors based on the defendants’ criminal history. See, e.g., Malone

v. United States, 502 F.2d 554, 555-57 (9th Cir. 1974); United States v. Romero,

676 F.2d 406, 407 (9th Cir. 1982); United States v. Ross, 476 F.3d 719, 721-22

(9th Cir. 2007).

This case involves a far broader associational restriction, analogous to the

one we rejected in United States v. Napulou, 593 F.3d 1041, 1045 (9th Cir. 2010).

In Napulou, we held that a condition prohibiting a defendant from associating with

anyone with a misdemeanor conviction was overbroad. Id. The crux of our

decision was that “a person with a past record may be entirely law-abiding today.”

Id. (quoting United States v. Furukawa, 596 F.2d 921, 922-23 (9th Cir. 1979)).

Certainly, many people with felony convictions are capable of rehabilitation and

may become law-abiding citizens. Neither the government nor the district court

suggest otherwise. Thus, much like the group of all people with any misdemeanor

conviction, a group of all people with any felony conviction sweeps more broadly

2 here than a group of “old haunts and associates” or other more tailored groups, like

“persons who have been convicted of drug offenses.” Id. at 1045-46.2

As applied here, the felon association ban is overbroad. The district court

found that “hanging out with people who are felons” was not helping Reynolds.

To be sure, Reynolds has an extensive criminal history. Even so, nearly all of his

offenses are related to controlled substances and substance use. And while the

instant offense involved an association with a person with a felony conviction, a

five-year restriction on associating, communicating, and interacting with such a

large class of people is, in my view, a significant deprivation of liberty. This

restriction sweeps broadly, including any person with a felony conviction for any

offense from any point in time, and prohibiting not only associations but any

interaction with them. As applied here, this group would include people close to

Reynolds, like his immediate family, and could easily include friends, neighbors, a

boss or coworker, or a sponsor in a support group. See Wolf Child, 699 F.3d at

1101. Practically speaking, Reynolds would have to “obtain prior written approval

from his probation officer before, for instance, . . . meeting a close family member

2 Napulou observed that misdemeanors encompass a wide range of minor offenses in support of its conclusion, but the decision did not turn on a distinction between misdemeanor and felony convictions. See id. at 1045-46 (relying instead on a distinction between past criminality and present criminality). In any event, felonies also range widely in severity and in many cases, may be minor. See Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 14 (1985) (recognizing that “today the distinction [between felonies and misdemeanors] is minor and often arbitrary”). 3 or friend for coffee, or going to an AA meeting or [another] function with others

seeking to improve their own lives.” Id. He “might even find himself prohibited

from joining his coworkers in the lunch-room or at a social activity sponsored by

his employer.” Id. This would be the case even if the relevant felony conviction

involved an offense completely unrelated to Reynolds’s past offenses, the person

had not been charged with or convicted of a crime in decades, or the person was a

mentor in an accredited drug-treatment or rehabilitation program.

Because this restriction is overbroad as applied to Reynolds, its imposition

was an abuse of discretion. The “district court seems not to have considered the

possibility that less restrictive limitations with more relevant and narrowly limited

conditions might have alleviated some of its concerns.” Id. The district court

could have perhaps “craft[ed] alternative language that achieves the legitimate

purposes of supervised release without sweeping too broadly.” See United States

v. Johnson, 626 F.3d 1085, 1091 (9th Cir. 2010). For example, the district court

could have considered limiting Reynolds from associating, communicating, or

interacting with individuals with felony convictions less than five years or ten

years old, individuals with certain felony drug or firearm convictions, individuals

with more than one felony conviction (i.e., those who have a history of recidivism),

individuals with felony convictions who are also on supervised release or

probation, or individuals with felony convictions outside the context of a

4 designated rehabilitative program. Any one of these conditions would have

prohibited Reynolds’s association with the man who contributed to Reynolds’s

instant conviction.

Furthermore, in addition to the felon association ban, the district court

imposed more than thirty other conditions of supervision on Reynolds, diminishing

the need for such a sweeping prohibition. For example, Reynolds must report to

his probation officer as instructed; participate in drug testing and treatment; not

possess or use controlled substances; not own, possess, or have access to a firearm

or ammunition; subject himself to suspicionless searches; abstain from the use of

all alcoholic beverages; and not communicate or interact with anyone he knows is

engaged in criminal activity.

Given the numerous less restrictive alternatives to the felon association ban,

the comprehensive scope of the other conditions of supervised release, and the link

between Reynolds’ criminal history and substance use, I fail to see how a

prohibition on associating, communicating, and interacting with any person

Reynolds knows has been convicted of any felony at any time is not a “greater

deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary.” 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d). The

district court thus abused its discretion in imposing the condition.

Finally, the majority hold that the associational ban is not overbroad in part

because Reynolds’s probation officer can make exceptions to the prohibition. We

5 have held, however, that a probation officer’s discretion to grant exceptions cannot

save an otherwise overbroad condition. See United States v. LaCoste, 821 F.3d

1187, 1192 (9th Cir. 2016). As we explained in LaCoste, if the imposition of a

condition without exceptions is impermissibly overbroad, the imposition of the

condition with “open-ended discretion to the probation officer to authorize needed

exceptions” remains impermissibly overbroad. 821 F.3d at 1192. Napulou

confirms this conclusion. There, we held that the associational ban on people with

misdemeanors was overbroad “even though special permission may be obtained to

associate with a particular individual.” Napulou, 594 F.3d at 1046; see also Wolf

Child, 699 F.3d at 1095, 1100.

I recognize that the standard condition at issue here has been imposed on

criminal defendants with little issue for decades. A condition’s longevity and

acceptance among judges does not, however, obviate the need to comply with

statutory requirements in each individual case. Because the felon association ban

is overbroad as applied to Reynolds, I respectfully dissent.