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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
ERIC SEARS,
Defendant-Appellant. |
No. 21-3545 |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio at Cleveland.
No. 1:20-cr-00824-1—Benita Y. Pearson, District Judge.
Decided and Filed: April 26, 2022
Before: SILER, GIBBONS, and STRANCH, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge. The district court revoked Eric Sears’s
supervised release for a second time and sentenced him to a consecutive term of eighteen months
of imprisonment. Sears appeals his sentence, arguing that it was procedurally unreasonable
because the district court miscalculated his supervised release Guidelines range by exceeding the
maximum length permitted by 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3). He also contends that the new term of
supervised release is substantively unreasonable because of its consecutive nature. We hold that
under § 3583(e)(3), prior time served for violations of supervised release is not credited toward
and does not limit the statutory maximum that a court may impose for subsequent violations of
supervised release. Furthermore, the district court articulated its balancing of the relevant
sentencing factors and imposed a sentence at the low-end of Sears’s Guidelines range. Sears’s
sentence was procedurally and substantively reasonable, and accordingly we affirm. |
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
DENZELL RUSSELL,
Defendant-Appellant. |
No. 20-3756 |
On Petition for Rehearing En Banc.
United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio at Cleveland;
No. 1:19-cr-00786-2—James S. Gwin, District Judge.
Decided and Filed: April 26, 2022
Before: McKEAGUE, NALBANDIAN, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
ORDER
_________________________
The court received a petition for rehearing en banc. The original panel has reviewed the
petition for rehearing and concludes that the issues raised in the petition were fully considered
upon the original submission and decision of the case. The petition then was circulated to the full
court. No judge has requested a vote on the suggestion for rehearing en banc.
Therefore, the petition is denied. |
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RYAN BOSHAW,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
MIDLAND BREWING COMPANY; DONNA REYNOLDS;
DAVE KEPLER,
Defendants-Appellees. |
No. 21-1365 |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan at Bay City.
No. 1:19-cv-13656—Thomas L. Ludington, District Judge.
Argued: October 20, 2021
Decided and Filed: April 26, 2022
Before: BATCHELDER, LARSEN, and READLER, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
CHAD A. READLER, Circuit Judge. Midland Brewing Company hired Ryan Boshaw to
work as a server. Midland soon promoted Boshaw, three times in all, ultimately to the second-highest ranking position in its restaurant. But before long, trouble was brewing for Boshaw.
Following a series of missteps, he was fired roughly one year after joining Midland. Boshaw
sued Midland, its owner, and his supervisor, alleging that they discriminated and retaliated
against him, primarily due to his sexual orientation, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964 and Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA). The district court granted
defendants’ motion for summary judgment on all claims. We affirm. |
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
MANUEL ESTRADA-GONZALEZ,
Defendant-Appellant. |
No. 22-3001 |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio at Cleveland.
No. 1:21-cr-00390-1—John R. Adams, District Judge.
Decided and Filed: April 26, 2022
Before: ROGERS, KETHLEDGE, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
MURPHY, Circuit Judge. Suppose a prosecutor told a district court that “a sentence at
the top of a defendant’s guidelines range was at least appropriate under the relevant sentencing
factors, if not required by them.” The court would likely understand the prosecutor to be arguing
that such a sentence was legally permissible and perhaps even legally compelled. Now suppose
that the prosecutor told the court that “a sentence at least at the top of the defendant’s guidelines
range was appropriate.” The court would likely take the prosecutor to be arguing that such a
sentence was the minimally acceptable one and that an above-guidelines sentence might also be
justified.
This case requires us to consider which of these two ideas the prosecutor
conveyed during Manuel Estrada-Gonzalez’s sentencing for illegally reentering the country.
Estrada-Gonzalez claims that the prosecutor impliedly recommended an above-guidelines
sentence by stating that a sentence at the “high end of the sentencing guideline range would be at
the least appropriate in this case.” Sent. Tr., R.29, PageID 140. He thus argues that the
prosecutor breached the parties’ plea agreement, which barred her from “suggest[ing] in any
way” that the court should vary above the guidelines range. Agreement, R.16, PageID 67. Yet
the district court that heard this ambiguous statement in real time rejected Estrada-Gonzalez’s
reading of it, finding instead that the prosecutor had been advocating only “for a sentence at the
high range of the guidelines.” Sent. Tr., R.29, PageID 146. And while our precedent instructs us
to review the ultimate question whether a prosecutor’s conduct breached a plea agreement de
novo, see United States v. Warren, 8 F.4th 444, 448 (6th Cir. 2021), we clarify in this case that
we must review any subsidiary findings about the historical facts under the deferential clear-error
standard. What the prosecutor expressed with her statement is that type of fact question.
Because the district court did not clearly err in its resolution of the question, the government did
not breach the plea agreement. We thus affirm. |
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IN RE: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Petitioner |
No. 21-1318 |
On Petition for Writ of Mandamus.
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit.
No. 2:19-cr-20840-1—David M. Lawson, District Judge.
Argued: October 21, 2021
Decided and Filed: April 26, 2022
Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge, BATCHELDER and LARSEN, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
ALICE M. BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge. Before us is a petition from the United States
for a writ of mandamus directed to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of
Michigan. The petition poses questions about a district court’s authority to comment on pending
plea-bargain agreements and to reject an agreement once it is finalized.
At a pretrial hearing, the district court informed the United States and the Defendant that
it had a longstanding “practice” of rejecting plea agreements with certain plea-bargaining terms.
The parties thereafter negotiated a plea agreement in private and decided to include the very
terms that the court had stated that it disfavored. The court rejected the agreement, and the
United States filed this petition, claiming that the court violated Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of
Criminal Procedure and abused its discretion. We AGREE and GRANT the petition. |
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
ANDREW ALLEN MEEK,
Defendant-Appellant. |
No. 21-3588 |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio at Youngstown.
No. 4:20-cr-00269-1—Sara E. Lioi, District Judge.
Decided and Filed: April 26, 2022
Before: GUY, THAPAR, and READLER, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
CHAD A. READLER, Circuit Judge. Andrew Meek appeals his 87-month sentence for
two child pornography offenses. He says that the district court erred by withholding a two-level
reduction in his offense level under U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2(b)(1), and by imposing a $5,000 special
assessment for each count of conviction. We disagree and affirm Meek’s sentence. |
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