United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
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No. 10-2820
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United States of America, *
*
Appellee, *
* Appeal from the United States
v. * District Court for the
* Western District of Arkansas.
Bobby Lynn Springston, *
*
Appellant. *
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Submitted: May 9, 2011
Filed: August 18, 2011
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Before MURPHY, BEAM, and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges.
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COLLOTON, Circuit Judge.
Bobby Lynn Springston entered a conditional guilty plea to one count of failing
to register as a sex offender, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2250. The district court
sentenced him to 36 months’ imprisonment and 10 years’ supervised release.
Springston appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment,
and three special conditions of supervised release imposed by the district court. We
affirm Springston’s conviction, vacate the challenged special conditions of supervised
release, and remand for further proceedings.
Springston was convicted of sexual assault in 1986 in a Texas state court. As
a result of the conviction, he was required under Texas law to register as a sex
offender for the rest of his life, and he signed a notification form to that effect on
February 11, 2008. But in February 2009, Arkansas law enforcement officers learned
that Springston was living in Arkansas, and that he was subject to arrest for failure to
register as a sex offender based on outstanding warrants from Texas. Following
Springston’s arrest on the Texas warrants, an official with the Arkansas sex offender
registry determined that Springston had not registered as required as a sex offender
in Arkansas.
A federal grand jury returned a one-count indictment charging Springston with
knowingly failing to register as a sex offender in Arkansas, as required under the Sex
Offender Registration and Notification Act (“SORNA”), after traveling in interstate
commerce. The district court denied Springston’s motion to dismiss the indictment,
and he entered a conditional plea of guilty. The district court sentenced Springston
to 36 months’ imprisonment, to be served consecutively to two undischarged Texas
state-court sentences, and 10 years’ supervised release with special conditions.
Springston objected at the sentencing hearing to four of the special conditions of
supervised release, but the district court overruled Springston’s objections.
On appeal, Springston challenges the denial of his motion to dismiss the
indictment. He argues that Congress exceeded its power under the Commerce Clause
in enacting 42 U.S.C. § 16913, which requires that a sex offender register in the
jurisdiction in which he resides, and 18 U.S.C. § 2250, which makes failure to register
a federal offense. He also contends that, as a matter of law, he could not have
knowingly failed to register under SORNA, because he was not notified of SORNA’s
registration requirement. And he argues that because he was not so notified,
application of SORNA to his conduct violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth
Amendment. Finally, he asserts that SORNA violates the non-delegation doctrine by
authorizing the Attorney General to determine its scope. Springston concedes,
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however, that the foregoing arguments are foreclosed by our precedent. See United
States v Zuniga, 579 F.3d 845, 850-51 (8th Cir. 2009) (per curiam), cert. denied, 130
S. Ct. 3384 (2010) (defendant in Springston’s position lacks standing to challenge
SORNA under the non-delegation doctrine); United States v. Baccam, 562 F.3d 1197,
1198-1200 (8th Cir. 2009) (notice of state registration requirements satisfies the
“knowingly” element); United States v. Howell, 552 F.3d 709, 717 (8th Cir. 2009)
(§ 16913 is constitutional under the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper
Clause); United States v. May, 535 F.3d 912, 921 (8th Cir. 2008) (notice of state
registration requirements satisfies due process); id. at 921-22 (§ 2250 is constitutional
under the Commerce Clause). Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s denial of the
motion to dismiss the indictment.
Springston also renews challenges to three of the special conditions of his
supervised release: special condition 2, which prohibits him from having
unsupervised contact with minors; special condition 3, which provides that he may not
access the Internet without prior approval from the probation office and may not have
Internet access at his residence; and special condition 6, which requires that he submit
to mental health testing or treatment with an emphasis on sex offender treatment, as
deemed necessary and directed by a probation officer. We review the special
conditions for abuse of discretion. United States v. Durham, 618 F.3d 921, 933 (8th
Cir. 2010).
A district court has broad discretion to impose special conditions of supervised
release, so long as each condition complies with the requirements set forth in 18
U.S.C. § 3583(d). United States v. Davis, 452 F.3d 991, 994 (8th Cir. 2006). Section
3583(d) first requires that a special condition must be reasonably related to the nature
and circumstances of the offense of conviction, the defendant’s history and
characteristics, the deterrence of criminal conduct, the protection of the public from
further crimes of the defendant, and the defendant’s educational, vocational, medical,
or other correctional needs. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)(1); see id. § 3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(B)-
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(D). A special condition need not be related to all the factors; the factors are to be
weighed independently. United States v. Camp, 410 F.3d 1042, 1046 (8th Cir. 2005).
Second, a special condition also must involve no greater deprivation of liberty than
is reasonably necessary to deter criminal conduct, to protect the public from further
crimes of the defendant, and to provide for the defendant’s educational, vocational,
medical, and other correctional needs. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)(2); see id.
§ 3553(a)(2)(B)-(D). Finally, a special condition must be consistent with any
pertinent policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission. Id. § 3583(d)(3).
In fashioning a special condition of supervised release, a court “must make an
individualized inquiry into the facts and circumstances underlying a case and make
sufficient findings on the record so as ‘to ensure that the special condition satisfies the
statutory requirements.’” United States v. Wiedower, 634 F.3d 490, 493 (8th Cir.
2011) (quoting United States v. Curry, 627 F.3d 312, 315 (8th Cir. 2010) (per
curiam)).
Springston argues that the district court abused its discretion by imposing
special conditions 2, 3, and 6, because they do not comply with any of the
requirements in § 3583 and are not supported by particularized findings. The
government concedes that the district court erred by imposing special condition 3, and
we agree. The record, as the government describes it, is “devoid of evidence that
[Springston] has ever used a computer for any purpose.” We therefore vacate special
condition 3.
We likewise conclude that the district court abused its discretion by imposing
special conditions 2 and 6 without adequate explanation. The court’s only statement
regarding the need for those special conditions came in response to Springston’s
objections at the sentencing hearing. At that point, the court said that “Mr.
Springston’s history as a sex offender justifies all of those conditions.”
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Our cases say that a court may impose a special condition on the ground that
it is related to a defendant’s prior offense, see United States v. Smart, 472 F.3d 556,
559 (8th Cir. 2006), but that a court “may not impose a special condition on all those
found guilty of a particular offense.” Davis, 452 F.3d at 995. The court must
“conduct an inquiry ‘on an individualized basis,’ looking at the specific facts of the
defendant’s criminal history and his particular offenses,” and make “a particularized
showing of the need for the condition in each case.” United States v. Kelly, 625 F.3d
516, 520 (8th Cir. 2010) (quoting Davis, 452 F.3d at 995). We applied this
proposition in United States v. Bender, 566 F.3d 748 (8th Cir. 2009), where the
district court explained that it imposed a special condition barring the defendant from
possessing sexually stimulating material because “sex offenders need to have a very
tight rein,” and because “a sex offender doesn’t have any business looking at Playboy
magazine.” Id. at 752. This court held that because the district court considered the
defendant as “part of a class” of persons convicted of sex offenses, its findings in
support of the special condition were “not sufficiently particularized to the defendant.”
Id.
At some point, there must be a limit to the need for an individualized inquiry,
because certain characteristics may justify corresponding conditions for virtually all
offenders with such characteristics, but the court’s discussion here was insufficient.
The court said during the sentencing hearing that there was “no indication” that
Springston will “get into any further sex-related offenses,” and then made no findings
particular to Springston regarding the need for the conditions. Springston’s prior
offense did not involve a minor, and there was nothing in the record suggesting that
Springston was a risk to reoffend against adults. The court simply did not explain
why it believed that Springston’s twenty-five-year-old conviction justified the
conditions. See United States v. Scott, 270 F.3d 632, 634, 636 (8th Cir. 2001). It may
be that similar special conditions could be justified in a case involving failure to
register as a sex offender, such as when there is reason to believe that the failure to
register evidences recalcitrance and an ongoing proclivity to commit sexual crimes,
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but the district court expressly stated that this is not such a case. We therefore vacate
special conditions 2 and 6.
* * *
We affirm the judgment of conviction, vacate special conditions 2, 3, and 6, and
remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
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