United States of America v. Dominic Jackson

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 23-3422
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United States of America
Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
Dominic Jackson
Defendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Arkansas
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Submitted: September 23, 2024
Filed: December 26, 2024
[Unpublished]
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Before GRUENDER, KELLY, and GRASZ, Circuit Judges.
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PER CURIAM.
Dominic Jackson served a 180-month sentence for drug-distribution offenses
and began an eight-year term of supervised release in March 2020. In October 2023,
the district court1 held a revocation hearing, found that Jackson had violated his
1 The Honorable Brian S. Miller, United States District Judge for the Eastern
District of Arkansas.

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supervised release conditions, and sentenced him to 57 months of imprisonment and
five years of supervised release. Jackson appeals, arguing that insufficient evidence
supported the district court’s findings.
I.
In its revocation petition, the government alleged that Jackson violated his
supervised release conditions in several ways: assaulting his ex-girlfriend and
damaging her car window; pointing a gun at a passenger in his car; possessing
various controlled substances; failing to report to his probation officer twice; failing
to report for drug testing seven times; and failing five drug tests, one of which
reported the presence of marijuana, amphetamine, and oxycodone. Jackson admitted
to breaking the car window, failing to report to his probation officer and failing to
report for drug testing, and submitting positive drug tests. Jackson denied all other
allegations.
At the October 2023 revocation hearing, the government called Jackson’s ex-
girlfriend, Sarah Bates.2 Bates testified that Jackson used a two-by-four to hit her on
the nose, the side of her face, and the back of her head, then smashed her car’s back
window and threatened to kill her. She reported the incident to officers at the hospital
where she worked, who took photographs. Those photographs, admitted into
evidence, showed Bates with blood on her face and shirt and a cut on her chin, as
well as her car’s broken back window. Michael Gladness, one of the responding
officers at Bates’s workplace, testified that he was called to the hospital lobby, where
he found Bates visibly distraught, with “blood on her” and a contusion on her chin.
She told him that Jackson had tried to slash her car’s tires and break its side window,
but when neither attempt succeeded, he retrieved a two-by-four, which he used to
hit her and smash her car window. In addition, Bates testified that a few days before
the two-by-four incident, Jackson had choked her, and she had bruised herself
2 We use the pseudonym “Sarah Bates” to protect the identity of Jackson’s ex-
girlfriend. See United States v. Daye, 4 F.4th 698, 700 n.3 (8th Cir. 2021) (per
curiam).

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fending him off. A photograph of Bates’s bruised arm was admitted without
objection.
During the revocation hearing, Jackson highlighted some inconsistencies in
Bates’s account. For example, Bates testified that her glasses broke and fell off when
Jackson hit her face, but Officer Gladness testified that Bates’s glasses were not
broken when he met with her after the incident. Bates claimed that she had thrown a
cup of water on Jackson, but she never shared this detail with Officer Gladness. She
testified that Jackson “did not put his hand in [her] face,” but she told Officer
Gladness that Jackson had smeared blood on her face. Bates also gave arguably
inconsistent testimony as to the order in which Jackson hit her, her car’s side
window, and its back window. Finally, Officer Gladness admitted that Bates’s
injuries appeared less severe than one might expect from having been hit repeatedly
with a two-by-four.
As to the allegation that Jackson possessed controlled substances, the
government called two witnesses. Officer Thomas Shahan testified that his task force
went to Jackson’s apartment to arrest him on a federal warrant. According to Shahan,
when officers first visited Jackson’s residence on August 3, 2023, they found a
woman and man at the apartment, but not Jackson. They returned on August 8 and
found an eviction notice, dated August 3, posted on the door. The notice, addressed
to Jackson, demanded that he vacate the apartment within three days due to his
and/or his occupants’ or guests’ actions endangering others residing in the complex
or present on the property. Again, Jackson was not at the apartment.3
Task force officer Jack Hendon also testified, explaining that when officers
entered the vacated apartment on August 8, they found large quantities of drugs in
the master bedroom and closet, and elsewhere. The drugs included marijuana,
methamphetamine, and oxycodone, as well as a small amount of cocaine. Officers
3 A friend of Jackson’s testified at the revocation hearing that Jackson had
stayed with her from August 3 until August 10.

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also found unopened mail addressed to Jackson and an empty pill bottle with
Jackson’s name on it in a jacket in the bedroom closet.
The district court found the government had proven by a preponderance of the
evidence that Jackson (1) assaulted Bates; and (2) possessed controlled substances.4
Both were grade A violations under United States Sentencing Guideline § 7B1.1(a).5
The court calculated a Guidelines range of 46 to 57 months and imposed a 57-month
sentence plus five years of supervised release. Jackson’s sole argument on appeal is
that the district court erred in finding he had committed grade A violations under the
Guidelines.
II.
“A district court may revoke supervised release if the government proves by
a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant violated a condition of supervised
release.” Daye, 4 F.4th at 700 (per curiam) (citation omitted). We review the district
court’s revocation decision for abuse of discretion and its factual findings for clear
error. United States v. Carothers, 337 F.3d 1017, 1019 (8th Cir. 2003). We find clear
error only when “we are ‘left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has
4 The district court found the government failed to prove the alleged violation
involving Jackson pointing a gun at a passenger in his car, because the passenger,
who was the sole witness to testify in support of this violation, admitted at the
hearing that Jackson did not in fact threaten or point a gun at him.
5 See Ark. Code Ann. § 5-13-301(a)(1)(A), (a)(2) (prohibiting threats “to cause
death or serious physical injury . . . to another person” as a Class D felony); id. § 5-
13-202(a)(2), (b)(2) (defining second-degree battery as intentionally causing
“physical injury to another person by means of a deadly weapon other than a
firearm,” which is a Class D felony); id. § 5-4-401(a)(5) (punishment for Class D
felony is up to six years’ imprisonment); 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A)(viii)
(noting that possession with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of
methamphetamine mixture carries sentence of at least ten years’ imprisonment).

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been committed.’” United States v. Finley, 612 F.3d 998, 1002 (8th Cir. 2010)
(quoting Perkins v. Grimes, 161 F.3d 1127, 1130 (8th Cir. 1998)).
Starting with the alleged assault, the district court credited Bates’s testimony.
That credibility determination is “virtually unreviewable on appeal.” Carothers, 337
F.3d at 1019 (quoting United States v. Hernandez, 281 F.3d 746, 748 (8th Cir.
2002)). Nor was Bates’s account so “internally inconsistent,” “implausible on its
face,” or contradicted by extrinsic evidence “that a reasonable fact-finder would not
credit it.” United States v. Harper, 787 F.3d 910, 914 (8th Cir. 2015) (quoting United
States v. Heath, 58 F.3d 1271, 1275 (8th Cir. 1995)). To the contrary, photographs
showed Bates with blood on her face and shirt, a cut on her chin, and a mark on her
nose. We find no clear error in the court’s estimation that, inconsistencies in Bates’s
testimony aside, it was more likely than not that Jackson assaulted her. See Daye, 4
F.4th at 700–01 (holding district court did not clearly err by crediting witness’s past
statements, which contradicted witness’s testimony at the revocation hearing, to find
violation); United States v. Frosch, 758 F.3d 1012, 1013–14 (8th Cir. 2014) (per
curiam) (affirming district court’s revocation where court credited both a woman’s
testimony that defendant physically assaulted her, along with photographs of bruises
on her body and evidence from the scene).
Whether the government met its burden of proving that Jackson possessed
controlled substances at his apartment is a closer call. However, Jackson challenges
only the district court’s findings that he committed grade A violations. Jackson’s
advisory Guidelines range remains the same regardless of whether the government
established both or only one of the violations. He received a sentence within the
applicable range, and he makes no argument about that sentence. Under these
circumstances, we need not decide whether there is sufficient evidence in the record
to conclude that he possessed controlled substances as alleged in the petition to
revoke. See United States v. Salsberry, 825 F.3d 499, 502 (8th Cir. 2016).
We affirm the judgment of the district court.
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