United States v. Sandusky

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: October 29, 2024
• Docket: 23-2926
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS OCT 29 2024

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 23-2926 Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. 2:12-cr-00548-PA-1 v. MEMORANDUM* AARON SANDUSKY, Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Percy Anderson, District Judge, Presiding Submitted May 13, 2024** Pasadena, California

Before: COLLINS, H.A. THOMAS, and JOHNSTONE, Circuit Judges.

Aaron Sandusky appeals the district court’s denial of his motion for early

termination of supervised release under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(1). We have

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review for abuse of discretion, see United

States v. Ponce, 22 F.4th 1045, 1046 (9th Cir. 2022), and we affirm.

The district court did not apply an incorrect legal standard in evaluating

Sandusky’s motion. Under the applicable statute, the district court may terminate a

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes that this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). supervised-release term if, after considering a specified subset of the sentencing

factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), “it is satisfied that such action is warranted by the

conduct of the defendant released and the interest of justice.” 18 U.S.C.

§ 3583(e)(1). The district court correctly recited this standard and expressly

considered the specified § 3553(a) factors. The district court’s passing citations of

United States v. Lussier, 104 F.3d 32 (2d Cir. 1997), for certain specific

propositions did not contravene our holding that “Lussier ‘[did] not require new or

changed circumstances relating to the defendant in order to modify conditions of

release.’” United States v. Sandusky, No. 22-50194, 2023 WL 3034264, at *1 (9th

Cir. Apr. 21, 2023) (alteration in original) (citation omitted).

In evaluating the “nature and circumstances” of Sandusky’s offense and the

need to “afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct,” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1),

(a)(2)(B), the district court properly considered the details of Sandusky’s marijuana

distribution, the harms caused by that offense, and the need to protect against

possible recidivism. While Sandusky disputes the weight the district court gave to

these considerations, “mere disagreement does not amount to an abuse of

discretion.” United States v. Dunn, 728 F.3d 1151, 1159 (9th Cir. 2013).

The district court also properly considered “the need to avoid unwarranted

sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found

guilty of similar conduct.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6). Sandusky notes that our prior

2 ruling stated that the legal standard employed by the district court in denying the

early-termination motion of one of Sandusky’s codefendants confirmed our view

that the district court’s first ruling on Sandusky’s motion likewise applied the

wrong legal standard, see Sandusky, 2023 WL 3034264, at *1, and Sandusky

argues that our prior ruling therefore compels the view that this factor favors early

termination. That is wrong. The denial of that one codefendant’s early-

termination motion was never appealed or set aside, and our limited reference to it

in Sandusky’s prior appeal did not disturb its finality. Moreover, three other

codefendants who received shorter prison sentences were also sentenced to five

years of supervised release, and those defendants never sought early termination of

supervised release. The district court properly considered that granting Sandusky’s

motion would treat a more culpable defendant as less in need of supervision than

less culpable codefendants.1

AFFIRMED.

1 Because we affirm the district court’s decision, we do not reach Sandusky’s request to have his case reassigned to a different district court judge. We reject, as unsupported, Sandusky’s suggestion that the district court exhibited bias towards him.