United States v. Robert Lee Collins

2 Opinion of the Court 26-10543 check. The district court revoked his supervised release and im- posed an 18-month sentence. On appeal, Collins argues that his revocation sentence is substantively unreasonable. After careful consideration, we affirm.

I.

In 1991, Collins used a stolen firearm to shoot at two police officers. He was convicted in federal court of possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). He faced an enhanced sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act. See id. § 924(e). The district court ultimately imposed a sentence of 315 months' imprisonment followed by a five-year term of supervised release. In December 2022, Collins began serving the term of super- vised release in the Northern District of Georgia. The conditions of his supervised release included that he (1) not commit another crime, (2) remain in the Northern District of Georgia unless he re- ceived permission from the court or his probation officer, and

(3) notify his probation officer within 72 hours of any arrest. In May 2024, a probation officer filed a petition to revoke Collins's supervised release. The petition reported that in March 2024 Collins had been charged in Cherokee County, Geor- gia, with identity fraud and forgery in the third degree. It also de- scribed a separate incident in April 2024 when Collins allegedly went to a bank in Athens, Georgia, which was outside the North- ern District of Georgia, and attempted to cash a check. The bank teller observed Collins acting suspiciously and contacted the indi- vidual who had signed the check, who told her that the check was

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26-10543 Opinion of the Court 3 not valid. Collins was arrested and charged in Athens-Clarke County with forgery in the third degree and deposit account fraud involving $1,500 or more. According to the petition, Collins waited more than a month to report his Athens-Clarke County arrest to his probation officer.

The petition alleged that Collins violated the terms of his su- pervised release when he (1) committed the crimes of forgery and deposit account fraud in Athens-Clarke County, (2) committed the crime of identity fraud in Cherokee County, (3) failed to report his arrest to his probation officer within 72 hours, and (4) left the Northern District of Georgia without permission from the court or his probation officer.

In February 2026, the district court held a revocation hear- ing. By the time of the hearing, Collins had pleaded guilty in the Cherokee County case to identity fraud, received a one-year sen- tence, and completed the sentence. But his criminal case in Athens- Clarke County remained pending.

At the revocation hearing, Collins admitted that he violated the terms of his supervised release when he committed the crime of identity fraud in Cherokee County, failed to inform his proba- tion officer within 72 hours of his arrest in Athens-Clarke County, and traveled outside the Northern District of Georgia without per- mission. He did not contest that he violated the terms of his super- vised release by committing a crime in Athens-Clarke County. The court found that Collins had violated his supervised release.

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4 Opinion of the Court 26-10543 The court then addressed whether to revoke his supervised release. It found that he had committed a Grade B violation¹and was in criminal history category VI, which yielded a Sentencing Guidelines range of 21 to 27 months' imprisonment. The government requested a sentence at the low end of the guidelines range with no term of supervised release to follow. It pointed out that Collins had engaged in new criminal conduct ap- proximately one year into his term of supervised release. Although the new criminal conduct was not violent, the government ex- pressed concern that Collins's lengthy federal sentence had not de- terred him.

Collins requested a nine-month sentence. He emphasized that the crimes that led to his revocation were non-violent. He asked the court to give him credit for the 12 months he served in the Cherokee County case by reducing his sentence from

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26-10543 Opinion of the Court 5 21 months, which was the bottom of his guidelines range, to nine months. He also asked the court to consider that he could still be sentenced in the Athens-Clarke County case.

The court revoked Collins's supervised release and imposed a sentence of 18 months' imprisonment with no supervised release to follow. It expressed concern that after serving a lengthy sentence in his underlying case, Collins committed new crimes while on su- pervised release. The court observed that he did not "seem to have been deterred by the time that [he had] served previously in cus- tody." Doc. 121 at 13.²The court also said that it considered the time he had served on the Cherokee County conviction but would not give him "full credit" for that time. Id. at 12. This is Collins's appeal.

II.

We review for abuse of discretion the substantive reasona- bleness of a sentence upon revocation of supervised release. United States v. King, 57 F.4th 1334, 1337 (11th Cir. 2023).

III.

When a defendant violates a condition of supervised release, a district court generally may extend or revoke his term of super- vised release. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3). If the court revokes supervised release, it may order the defendant to "serve in prison all or part of the term of supervised release authorized by statute for the offense

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6 Opinion of the Court 26-10543 that resulted in such term of supervised release." Id. It also may order him to serve "a term of supervised release after imprison- ment." Id. § 3583(h). When deciding whether to revoke a term of supervised release and impose a custodial sentence, the court con- siders various factors including: the nature and circumstances of the offense; the defendant's history and characteristics; the need to deter criminal conduct, protect the public, and provide the defend- ant with necessary educational or vocational training, medical care, or other correctional treatment; the kind of sentence and the sen- tencing range established by applicable guidelines or policy state- ments; pertinent policy statements; the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities; and the need to provide restitution to victims. Id. §§ 3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(B)-(D), (a)(4)-(7); 3583(e). We will reverse a sentence imposed on revocation of super- vised release for substantive unreasonableness "only if[] we are left with the definite and firm conviction that the district court com- mitted a clear error of judgment in weighing the § 3553(a) factors by arriving at a sentence that lies outside the range of reasonable sentences dictated by the facts of the case." United States v. Trailer,

827 F.3d 933, 936 (11th Cir. 2016) (citation modified). The party challenging the sentence bears the burden of showing that it is un- reasonable. See id.

When imposing a sentence, a court generally has discretion to direct that the sentence will run concurrently to or consecutively with any sentence that has "been imposed in other proceedings, including state proceedings." United States v. Gomez, 955 F.3d 1250,

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26-10543 Opinion of the Court 7 1258 (11th Cir. 2020) (citation modified). A policy statement in the Sentencing Guidelines advises that a district court "generally"

should order a term of imprisonment imposed upon revocation of supervised release to run "consecutively to any sentence of impris- onment that the defendant is serving, whether or not the sentence of imprisonment being served resulted from the conduct that is the basis of the revocation of supervised release." U.S. Sent'g Guide- lines Manual § 7C1.4(b). We have recognized that under the Sen- tencing Guidelines there is a "policy favoring imposition of consec- utive sentences in cases of violation of [supervised] release."

United States v. Flowers, 13 F.3d 395, 397 (11th Cir. 1994). Here, the district court did not abuse its discretion in impos- ing an 18-month sentence. After Collins served an approximately 30-year sentence in the underlying criminal case, he was released from prison and committed additional crimes a little more than a year into his term of supervised release. Under these circum- stances, we are not left with the definite and firm conviction that the district court committed a clear error of judgment in imposing an 18-month custodial sentence.

Collins argues that his sentence was unreasonable because he had already served the 12-month sentence imposed in the Cher- okee County case. But the district court had discretion to order the revocation sentence to run consecutive to the state sentence, even though the state sentence was imposed for conduct that also was the basis for the revocation. See Gomez, 955 F.3d at 1258. Accord-

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8 Opinion of the Court 26-10543 ingly, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discre- tion when it rejected Collins's request to reduce his revocation sen- tence by 12 months to account for his state sentence.

AFFIRMED.

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