United States v. Melton

In 2009, Defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute oxycodone, 21 U.S.C. 846, and was sentenced to 10 months of imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release, with conditions prohibiting him from committing another crime and from possessing, using, or distributing any controlled substance. He was required to attend substance abuse treatment and submit to periodic drug and alcohol testing. Within months of being released, Defendant violated those terms. He stopped attending substance abuse treatment, admitted to his probation officer that he used a controlled substance, and was arrested and found guilty of two counts of trafficking in a controlled substance. After serving his time in state prison for the trafficking offenses, Defendant admitted, in open court, to the violations of conditions of supervised release. The court imposed an 18-month term of imprisonment plus an additional three years of supervised release. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, rejecting arguments that his admission that he violated conditions was involuntary because the magistrate judge did not conduct a complete Rule 11 colloquy, which would have informed Defendant of his full sentencing exposure and that the custodial sentence and additional supervised release are substantively unreasonable as longer than necessary to satisfy the purposes of sentencing. View "United States v. Melton" on Justia Law