United States v. Tony Thomas

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
• Decided: July 28, 2022
• Docket: 21-3061
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit ___________________________

No. 21-3061 ___________________________

United States of America

Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Tony B. Thomas

Defendant - Appellant ____________

Appeal from United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri - Kansas City ____________

Submitted: April 11, 2022 Filed: July 28, 2022 [Unpublished] ____________

Before SHEPHERD, ERICKSON, and STRAS, Circuit Judges. ____________

PER CURIAM.

After Tony Thomas violated the conditions of supervised release, the district court1 varied upward and sentenced him to 24 months in prison. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3). Although he argues that the sentence is too long, we affirm.

1 The Honorable Stephen R. Bough, United States District Judge for the Western District of Missouri. We conclude that the sentence is substantively reasonable. See United States v. Miller, 557 F.3d 910, 915–16 (8th Cir. 2009) (reviewing the reasonableness of a revocation sentence for an abuse of discretion). The record establishes that the district court sufficiently considered the statutory sentencing factors, see 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e), and did not rely on an improper factor or commit a clear error of judgment. See United States v. Larison, 432 F.3d 921, 923–24 (8th Cir. 2006). Among other things, it considered Thomas’s mental-health problems and professed desire to change, but simply placed greater weight on his “pattern of noncompliant behavior” and the “seriousness of [his] offenses.” See United States v. Kocher, 932 F.3d 661, 664 (8th Cir. 2019) (affirming an upward variance for a “recidivist violator of supervised[-]release conditions” (quotation marks omitted)). Just because Thomas would have weighed these factors differently does not mean the court abused its discretion. See United States v. Hall, 825 F.3d 373, 375 (8th Cir. 2016) (per curiam).

We accordingly affirm the judgment of the district court. ______________________________

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