United States of America v. Claude Rogers

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted May 4, 2023
Decided May 5, 2023
Before
ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge
JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge
DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge
No. 22-2705
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
CLAUDE ROGERS,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Southern District of Illinois.
No. 14-cr-30018-NJR
Nancy J. Rosenstengel,
Chief Judge.
O R D E R
The district court revoked Claude Rogers’s supervised release and imposed an
additional 8 months’ imprisonment and 12 months’ supervised release. Rogers appeals,
but his appointed counsel asserts that the appeal is frivolous and moves to withdraw.
See Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 744 (1967). We are not obligated to apply the
Anders safeguards in all cases of revoked release, see United States v. Wheeler, 814 F.3d
856, 857 (7th Cir. 2016), but we do so in an abundance of caution. See United States v.
Brown, 823 F.3d 392, 394 (7th Cir. 2016). Counsel’s brief explains the nature of the case
and raises potential issues that an appeal like this would be expected to involve.
Because his analysis appears thorough, and Rogers has not responded to counsel’s
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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No. 22-2705 Page 2
motion, see C IR . R. 51(b), we limit our review to the subjects that counsel discusses.
See United States v. Bey, 748 F.3d 774, 776 (7th Cir. 2014).
In the underlying case, Rogers pleaded guilty to two counts of distribution of a
controlled substance (cocaine base). See 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C). The district court
sentenced him to 151 months’ imprisonment and 3 years’ supervised release, based on
an offense level of 29 and a criminal history category of VI. He began his term of
supervised release in December 2020, after the district court granted his motion for
compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c). Just over a year later, in February 2022,
Rogers’s probation officer petitioned the court to revoke his supervision. According to
the officer, Rogers had committed crimes—illegal occupancy and retail theft over
$300—and had violated eight administrative conditions of his supervision, including
failure to report to the probation office and to participate in a mental-health-treatment
program. The U.S. Probation Office classified Rogers’s retail-theft offense as a Grade B
violation and the rest (the illegal-occupancy offense and the administrative violations)
as Grade C. See U.S.S.G. § 7B1.1. Rogers was arrested on the petition and released on
bond pending a revocation hearing.
At the revocation hearing, defense counsel told the court that the government
had agreed to drop (and the court later dismissed) the retail-theft offense—the only
Grade B violation—in exchange for Rogers’s admission to the remaining Grade C
violations. After placing Rogers under oath to determine whether he was admitting to
his violations voluntarily, the court concluded that Rogers was competent to
understand the proceeding. It also discussed, and Rogers confirmed that he understood,
the rights Rogers was giving up and the possible penalties that he faced. The court then
accepted the description of violation conduct that the Probation Office had submitted,
and Rogers admitted that the government could prove these allegations by a
preponderance of the evidence.
After hearing arguments from both parties, the court revoked supervision and
sentenced Rogers. It acknowledged that Rogers had been a “model inmate” and
obtained a job while on bond. But it emphasized that his criminal history category of VI
was “concerning” and that his multiple Grade C violations and use of cocaine while on
bond showed “a lack of willingness … to do anything that [he was] supposed to do” on
supervision. The court revoked his supervision and, after weighing the factors under
18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), it found that “a low-end guideline sentence” was appropriate and
imposed 8 months’ reimprisonment—within the range of 8 to 14 months in the
Guidelines—followed by 12 months of supervised release. The court also imposed the

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No. 22-2705 Page 3
government’s proposed supervised-release condition of home detention, but it reduced
the term from 180 days (which the government requested) to 60 days.
Counsel informs us that Rogers wants to challenge the reasonableness of his
sentence, including the 60-day home-detention condition, but not the revocation of his
supervised release. Thus, counsel appropriately does not assess the validity of the
revocation. See United States v. Wheaton, 610 F.3d 389, 390 (7th Cir. 2010).
In his Anders brief, counsel considers whether Rogers could raise a non-frivolous
argument that the sentence he received was “plainly unreasonable.” See United States v.
Childs, 39 F.4th 941, 945 (7th Cir. 2022) (citation omitted). First, counsel examines
whether Rogers could plausibly argue that the court procedurally erred in calculating
or imposing the sentence, and rightly concludes that he could not. Counsel notes that
the court correctly determined the range of imprisonment under § 7B1.1(a)(3) and
§ 7B1.4(a) as 8 to 14 months, because Rogers’s most serious offense was a Grade C
violation (as the alleged Grade B violation was dismissed) and his criminal history
category was VI. And each component of the sentence was less than the relevant
statutory maximum of two years’ imprisonment, see 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e), and a life term
of supervised release, see id. § 3583(h). Further, the sentence was not based on any
constitutionally impermissible factors. Therefore, we agree that it would be pointless to
raise any procedural error in Rogers’s sentence on appeal.
We also agree with counsel that a challenge to the substantive reasonableness of
Rogers’s sentence would be frivolous. We presume that a sentence within the applicable
guidelines range is reasonable. United States v. Griffith, 913 F.3d 683, 689 (7th Cir. 2019).
And counsel rightly concludes that, because the court adequately justified the prison
term under the applicable § 3553(a) factors, Rogers could not rebut the presumption:
The court favorably acknowledged Rogers’s admission to his violations, noting that
they were of a less-serious grade. But it reasonably emphasized the need to provide
“adequate deterrence” given Rogers’s unwillingness to comply with his release
conditions, his lengthy criminal history, and the need to protect the public based on his
cocaine use while on bond.
The court also adequately supported the term of supervised release. It
acknowledged Rogers’s success in obtaining employment during his supervision term,
but it reasonably explained that an additional 12-month period was necessary because
he had failed to comply with many of the release conditions. We thus agree that Rogers
cannot raise any non-frivolous argument that the sentence was “plainly unreasonable.”
See Childs, 39 F.4th at 945.

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No. 22-2705 Page 4
Finally, counsel examines whether Rogers could reasonably challenge the 60-day
home-supervision condition of his sentence, and rightly concludes that he could not.
We would review the court’s imposition of a supervised-release condition for abuse of
discretion. United States v. Musso, 643 F.3d 566, 571 (7th Cir. 2011). And we would agree
with counsel’s assessment that the court acted well within its discretion by requiring
Rogers to submit to home confinement under 18 U.S.C. § 3563(b)(19): The court noted
Rogers’s previous lack of compliance with the supervision conditions, including his
failures to report to the probation office and make himself available to the officer. From
this, it permissibly concluded that a home-confinement period of 60 days was
appropriate.
Therefore, we GRANT counsel’s motion to withdraw and DISMISS the appeal.

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