United States of America v. Terry L. Briggs

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 24-1671
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United States of America
Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
Terry L. Briggs
Defendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the Western District of Missouri - Kansas City
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Submitted: November 18, 2024
Filed: February 21, 2025
[Unpublished]
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Before SHEPHERD, ARNOLD, and ERICKSON, Circuit Judges.
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PER CURIAM.
After serving a term of imprisonment for being a felon in possession of a
firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2), Terry Briggs’s initial
term of supervised release was revoked, and he was sentenced to a further term of
imprisonment and supervised release. When Briggs violated the conditions of his

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second term of supervised release, the district court1 revoked it and sentenced him
to 13 months’ imprisonment with no term of supervision to follow. Briggs appeals,
asserting that his sentence is substantively unreasonable. Having jurisdiction under
28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.
Briggs was originally indicted on one count of being a felon in possession of
a firearm in 2019, and, after he pled guilty, the district court sentenced him to 37
months’ imprisonment followed by 3 years of supervised release. Briggs completed
his sentence of incarceration and began serving his period of supervised release in
early 2022. Beginning in January 2023, the United States Probation Office filed five
violation reports detailing Briggs’s violation of his conditions of supervised release,
which included testing positive for controlled substances, failure to participate in
substance-abuse counseling, failure to complete community service, and a new law
violation stemming from a domestic violence incident with Briggs’s then-girlfriend,
Vera Harris. The district court revoked Briggs’s supervised release based on his
positive drug tests, his failure to participate in substance abuse counseling, and his
failure to complete court-ordered community service, ultimately sentencing Briggs
to 7 months’ imprisonment and a new 14-month term of supervised release.
Briggs completed his additional term of incarceration and began to serve his
second term of supervised release in October 2023. In January 2024, the Probation
Office filed a violation report detailing a positive drug test from Briggs and an
altercation between Briggs and Harris. The district court thereafter modified the
terms of Briggs’s supervised release to include the special condition that he have no
contact with Harris while on supervised release. In February 2024, the Probation
Office filed another violation report, which reported that Briggs had left his
residential re-entry facility without permission. In response, the district court
ordered location monitoring. Later that same month, the Probation Office filed a
final violation report, which alleged four violations of conditions of supervised
1 The Honorable Brian C. Wimes, United States District Judge for the Western
District of Missouri.

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release. The Probation Office alleged that Briggs committed a new law violation,
failed to report contact with law enforcement to his probation officer, failed to follow
the instructions of his probation officer, and had contact with Harris. These alleged
violations all stemmed from a domestic dispute between Briggs and Harris, which
resulted in police involvement and charges against Briggs in Kansas City, Missouri
Municipal Court for domestic assault and larceny.
In March 2024, the district court held a revocation hearing based on the last
violation report; at the hearing, Briggs stipulated to not reporting contact with law
enforcement to his probation officer and to having contact with Harris. The district
court revoked Briggs’s term of supervised release and calculated his United States
Sentencing Guidelines range as 5 to 11 months’ imprisonment. The Government
asked the district court to sentence Briggs to a term of imprisonment at the high end
of the Guidelines range with no supervision to follow, while Briggs sought a
sentence of time served, along with the requirement that he complete the final 8
months of his term of supervised release. In arguing against incarceration, Briggs’s
counsel specifically referenced that, but for one positive drug test in January of 2024,
Briggs had maintained a period of sobriety and at the time of his arrest for the
supervised release violations he had been employed. The district court varied
upward and imposed a sentence of 13 months’ imprisonment, with no supervised
release.
Briggs appeals, asserting that the district court imposed a substantively
unreasonable sentence when it varied upwards and sentenced him to 13 months’
imprisonment. Briggs specifically asserts that the district court gave undue weight
to the fact that Briggs did not comply with a term of supervised release—a factor
present in every revocation case—while not giving proper weight to the undisputed
mitigating factors that Briggs had made progress with his sobriety on his second
term of supervised release and that he had been gainfully employed. “We review
the district court’s revocation sentencing decision under the same
deferential-abuse-of-discretion standard that applies to initial sentencing
proceedings.” United States v. Scherer, 114 F.4th 987, 990 (8th Cir. 2024) (citation

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omitted). “A district court abuses its discretion by failing to consider a relevant
factor, giving significant weight to an irrelevant factor, or committing a clear error
of judgment in weighing the relevant factors by arriving at a sentence outside the
range of choice dictated by the facts of the case.” United States v. Beckwith, 57
F.4th 630, 632 (8th Cir. 2023) (per curiam) (citation omitted).
At revocation, the district court must consider the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors
identified in 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e). United States v. Clark, 998 F.3d 363, 368 (8th
Cir. 2021). Briggs’s challenge to his sentence amounts to no more than
disagreement with how the district court chose to weigh those factors. The district
court heard Briggs’s argument about the progress he had made on supervised release,
his employment history, and his sobriety, but chose to give more weight to the need
to protect the public and the nature and circumstances of the offense and
characteristics of the defendant. “The district court has discretion to rely more
heavily on some sentencing factors than others, and a defendant challenging the
district court’s sentence ‘must show more than the fact that the district court
disagreed with his view of what weight ought to be accorded certain sentencing
factors.’” United States v. Long, 906 F.3d 720, 727 (8th Cir. 2018) (citations
omitted). Further, “[a]lthough the district court is required to consider certain factors
set forth in § 3553(a) in a supervised-release-revocation sentencing, there is no
requirement that the district court make specific findings relating to each of the
factors considered.” Beckwith, 57 F.4th at 632 (citation omitted). Here, the district
court “heard argument from counsel about specific § 3553(a) factors, [so] we may
presume that the court considered those factors.” United States v. Keating, 579 F.3d
891, 893 (8th Cir. 2009).
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
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