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United Statesv.Moore

CourtUnited States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
Docket No.20-11215; 20-11216
DecidedJanuary 13, 2022
Reporter22 F.4th 1258
JudgesNewsom, Branch, and Lagoa, Circuit Judges.
Tags
CriminalCriminal ProcedureSentencingDue ProcessAppellate ProcedureDissentVacatur
Case Summary

After his 2007 conviction for possessing unregistered destructive devices, Anthony Moore received the statutory maximum of 120 months in prison followed by 36 months’ supervised release. After three release violations, the district court imposed 6, 18, and 18 months in prison; at the third revocation it also imposed 18 more months of supervised release and a consecutive six-month criminal-contempt sentence after Moore repeatedly interrupted the hearing. The Eleventh Circuit held that the 18-month post-revocation supervision term was unauthorized: Moore had already served 42 months in prison on earlier revocations, exceeding the original 36-month supervised-release term. It vacated that term under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(h). The court affirmed the 18-month imprisonment term, rejecting Moore’s constitutional challenge on plain-error review because neither the statute nor controlling precedent clearly barred aggregate imprisonment beyond the combined statutory maximum. It also held that the upward-variance revocation sentence was reasonable, found no plain error in imposing summary contempt without an opportunity to allocute, and declined to reduce the six-month contempt term. Judge Lagoa concurred in part and in the result, reasoning that no controlling precedent made the aggregate-imprisonment issue plain error. Judge Newsom dissented from that ruling and would have vacated the final six months as exceeding the combined 13-year maximum; both judges otherwise concurred in the judgment.

Opinion

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