When is a Special Supervised Release Condition Appropriate?

United States v. Blake Childress

 

In 2012, Blake Childress pled guilty to being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. At the time of sentencing, he had a pending state incest charge. After his federal sentencing, he was tried and convicted on the incest charge.  However, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the incest conviction and remanded for a new trial.  He pled to a reduced charge of aggravated assault.  Based on his guilty plea, the federal district court held a hearing on the probation officer’s petition to modify Childress’s supervised release order.   The district court subsequently added two modifications to his special conditions of supervised release, including a psychosexual assessment.   Blake Childress appealed the modification that required him to submit to a psychosexual assessment because he was merely convicted of aggravated assault.

The Sixth Circuit reviewed the imposition of the special supervised release condition from a procedural and substantive dimension.  The procedural dimension requires the district court to state in open court at sentencing the reasons and rationale for the imposition of the special condition.  This dimension was not challenged by Childress. 

From the substantive dimension, the condition must be reasonably related to the factors applicable to supervised release as detailed in 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)(1) and must involve no greater deprivation of liberty than reasonably necessary to comply with the sentencing purposes. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)(2).  Finally, the special condition must be consistent with any pertinent policy statement. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)(3). 

Childress challenged the condition from the substantive dimension and disagreed with the district court’s conclusion that the psychosexual assessment was reasonably related to “the history and characteristics of the defendant.”  However, the Sixth Circuit upheld the district court’s conclusion that his history and characteristics warranted imposing a sex-offender evaluation.  The Sixth Circuit relied on United States v. Carter, 463 F.3d 526 (6th Cir. 2006) and held that “the question is not whether the title of the offense denotes a sexual offense but whether the defendant ‘actually committed the offense…in a sexual manner.’”