United States of America v. Steven Earl Adkins

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 24-3185
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United States of America
Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
Steven Earl Adkins
Defendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the Southern District of Iowa - Western
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Submitted: September 19, 2025
Filed: December 16, 2025
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Before SMITH, GRUENDER, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.
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SHEPHERD, Circuit Judge.
After Steven Earl Adkins pled guilty to one count of transportation of a minor
with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and one count of being a felon in
possession of a firearm, the district court1 sentenced him to 292 months’
1 The Honorable Stephanie M. Rose, Chief Judge, United States District Court
for the Southern District of Iowa.

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imprisonment on the transportation count and 180 months’ imprisonment on the
firearm count, with the sentences running concurrently. Adkins appeals, asserting
that the district court erroneously denied his motion to withdraw his guilty plea to
the transportation count—filed after sentencing—in which he asserted that he
learned for the first time at sentencing that the minor victim was missing and would
have been unavailable to the prosecution had Adkins gone to trial. Adkins also
asserts that the district court committed procedural error and imposed a substantively
unreasonable sentence with respect to the firearm count. Having jurisdiction under
28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.
I.
Adkins was charged in a four-count indictment with being a felon in
possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(8), two
counts of transportation of a minor with the intent to engage in prostitution, in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a), and one count of possession of child pornography,
in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B), (b)(2). The charges stemmed from
Adkins’s involvement with a 16-year old runaway, whom Adkins connected with
through Craigslist, a website the minor had been using to request rides in various
states. Adkins picked the minor up from a truck stop in Nebraska and took her to
his home in Neola, Iowa, where the minor was to reside with Adkins in exchange
for $1,000 a month. Adkins and the minor engaged in a sexual relationship, which
continued after the minor revealed to Adkins that she was 16 years old.
Several months into this arrangement, FBI investigators, who had been
investigating the minor’s whereabouts, found Adkins and the minor together.
Pursuant to a search warrant, the FBI investigators searched Adkins’s residence.
Law enforcement seized various electronic devices, which had files containing child
sexual abuse material, as well as 16 firearms, including shotguns, rifles, and
handguns, along with ammunition. Adkins later admitted to having a sexual
relationship with the minor, to taking her across state lines, and to being aware that
she suffered from mental health issues that caused her to act younger than her age.

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Adkins ultimately pled guilty, pursuant to a plea agreement, to the
felon-in-possession count and one transportation count, in exchange for dismissal of
the second transportation count and the possession of child pornography count. At
sentencing, the district court heard testimony from FBI Special Agent Buckley
Wright, who provided general details about the investigation and the evidence
gathered against Adkins. During his testimony, Agent Wright explained that the
minor involved had been interviewed by law enforcement, but that as of the date of
the sentencing hearing, he was unaware of her whereabouts as she was an active
runaway. The district court then calculated the United States Sentencing Guidelines
range to be 292 to 365 months’ imprisonment and ultimately imposed a sentence of
292 months for the transportation count and 180 months for the felon in possession
count, with the sentences running concurrently.
Thirteen days after sentencing, Adkins filed a motion to withdraw his guilty
plea, to vacate the guilty plea, sentence, and judgment, and for a new trial and a
request for a hearing. Adkins asserted that he learned for the first time during
sentencing that the minor’s whereabouts were unknown to the Government, and that
this qualified as exculpatory evidence which the Government was constitutionally
bound to disclose to him and bound to disclose under orders in the case. However,
in his motion, Adkins noted that two separate public releases were issued by police
departments in Colorado and California regarding the minor’s runaway status before
his guilty plea. The district court denied the motion, finding that Adkins did not
identify any Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure under which he was seeking relief
and concluding that Rule 11(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure deprived
the court of the authority to consider the motion because it limits post-sentencing
challenges to a plea to direct appeals or collateral attacks. In the alternative, the
district court concluded that the minor’s unavailability did not amount to materially
exculpatory evidence. This appeal follows.

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II.
Adkins first asserts that the district court erred when it denied his
post-sentencing motion and did so without a hearing. Adkins argues that the district
court erred “by failing to closely examine the issues set forth” in the motion, in which
Adkins demonstrated the Government committed a Brady2 violation and violated
district court orders in the case by withholding information that the minor was an
unavailable witness, which precluded him from presenting an affirmative defense.
“We review both the denial of a motion to withdraw [a guilty plea] and the refusal
to hold a hearing under the abuse of discretion standard.” United States v. Morrison,
967 F.2d 264, 268 (8th Cir. 1992).
The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Adkins’s motion
without a hearing because Rule 11(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure
explicitly provides that the only mechanism for challenging a guilty plea
post-sentencing is through a direct appeal or collateral attack, not a motion to
withdraw the guilty plea. Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(e) (“After the court imposes sentence,
the defendant may not withdraw a plea of guilty or nolo contendere, and the plea
may be set aside only on direct appeal or collateral attack.”). Further, to the extent
Adkins’s motion sought a new trial, such relief is unavailable because he pled guilty
and no trial was held. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 33; United States v. Graciani, 61 F.3d
70, 78 (1st Cir. 1995) (“By its express terms, Rule 33 is confined to those situations
in which a trial has been had.”). Adkins thus sought relief that the district court was
unable to give, and the district court did not err in denying the motion.
To the extent Adkins raises the Brady issue as a separate and distinct issue on
direct appeal, he fares no better. It is not altogether clear that such a claim is
cognizable because Adkins entered a guilty plea. See United States v. Ruiz, 536
2 Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963) (holding that “suppression by the
prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process
where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the
good faith or bad faith of the prosecution”).

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U.S. 622, 633 (2002) (“[T]he Constitution does not require the Government to
disclose material impeachment evidence prior to entering a plea agreement with a
criminal defendant.”); see also United States v. Conroy, 567 F.3d 174, 179 (5th Cir.
2009) (per curiam) (“The issue in Ruiz was whether prosecutors are required to
disclose impeachment information before the defendant enters a plea agreement.
The Supreme Court held that the withholding of material impeachment information
does not render a guilty plea involuntary. [Defendant] argues that the limitation of
the Court’s discussion to impeachment evidence implies that exculpatory evidence
is different and must be turned over before entry of a plea. Ruiz never makes such
a distinction nor can this proposition be implied from its discussion.” (citations
omitted)); but see McCann v. Mangialardi, 337 F.3d 782, 788 (7th Cir. 2003)
(opining that, because Ruiz distinguishes between exculpatory and impeachment
evidence, “it is highly likely that the Supreme Court would find a violation of the
Due Process Clause if prosecutors . . . have knowledge of a criminal defendant’s
factual innocence but fail to disclose such information to a defendant before he enters
into a guilty plea”).
Assuming without deciding that Adkins may maintain his Brady challenge
after a guilty plea, he “must establish that the government (1) suppressed evidence;
(2) that was favorable to him; and (3) material to the outcome of the trial.” United
States v. Smart, 60 F.4th 1084, 1095 (8th Cir. 2023). Adkins falls at the first hurdle.
We have explained that “[t]he government does not suppress evidence in violation
of Brady by failing to disclose evidence to which the defendant had access through
other channels.” United States v. Zuazo, 243 F.3d 428, 431 (8th Cir. 2001). “There
is no Brady violation if ‘the defendant[s], using reasonable diligence, could have
obtained the information’ themselves.” United States v. Jones, 160 F.3d 473, 479
(8th Cir. 1998) (alteration in original) (citation omitted). Here, Adkins stated in his
own post-sentencing motion that the victim’s runaway status was the subject of
public press releases that were issued prior to the date he entered his guilty plea.
Had Adkins used reasonable diligence, this information would have been available
to him. Thus, Adkins’s own statements defeat any claim that the Government
suppressed evidence in violation of Brady. See, e.g., United States v. Jones, 34 F.3d

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596, 600 (8th Cir. 1994) (“When information is readily available to the defendant, it
is not Brady material, and the prosecution does not violate Brady by not discovering
and disclosing the information.”).
III.
Adkins next asserts that his sentence on the firearm count is both procedurally
flawed and substantively unreasonable. Adkins asserts that the district court failed
to properly calculate his Guidelines range and imposed an “unusually harsh sentence
without sufficient justification.” “We review a district court’s sentence in two steps,
first reviewing for significant procedural error, and second, if there is no significant
procedural error, we review for substantive reasonableness.” United States v. Ayres,
929 F.3d 581, 582-83 (8th Cir. 2019). Where, as here, a defendant fails to object to
an alleged procedural error, we review for plain error. United States v. Wise, 17
F.4th 785, 788 (8th Cir. 2021). Further, we consider the substantive reasonableness
of a sentence under an abuse-of-discretion standard of review. Id. at 789.
However, we need not consider Adkins’s specific contentions because his
arguments are foreclosed by the concurrent sentence doctrine. “The concurrent
sentence doctrine allows courts to decline to review the validity of a concurrent
conviction or sentence when a ruling in the defendant’s favor ‘would not reduce the
time he is required to serve’ or otherwise ‘prejudice him in any way.’” Eason v.
United States, 912 F.3d 1122, 1123 (8th Cir. 2019) (citation omitted). Thus, “where
a defendant seeks to challenge the legality of a sentence that was imposed for a valid
conviction, . . . [and] the challenged sentence runs concurrently with a valid sentence
of an equal or greater duration,” a court may decline to review the sentence. United
States v. Jefferson, 60 F.4th 433, 436 (8th Cir. 2023) (citation omitted). Here,
Adkins was sentenced to 180 months on the firearm count, which is completely
subsumed by the concurrent 292-month sentence for the transportation count.
Because ruling in Adkins’s favor on his challenge to his 180-month sentence “would
not reduce the time he is required to serve,” we decline to consider the merits of his
claim. See Eason, 912 F.3d at 1123 (citation omitted).

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IV.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
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