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Defendant pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography. The district court imposed a sentence at the bottom of the guidelines range but ordered it to run consecutive to an earlier-imposed sentence following the revocation of defendant’s supervised release. On appeal, defendant argued that his sentence punished the same conduct as his revocation sentence, in violation of the prohibition on double jeopardy.
Where defendant’s combined sentence for revocation and his new conviction was under the statutory maximum sentence for his original conviction, any ruling by the court changing double jeopardy precedent in the context of revocation proceedings did not mean that defendant’s sentence rose to the level of plain error.
Judgment is affirmed.
U.S. v. Watters (MLW No. 74398/Case No. 18-2237 – 10 pages) (U.S. Court of Appeals, 8th Circuit, Melloy, J.) Appealed from U.S. District Court, Northern District of Iowa, Reade, J. (John D. Jacobsen of Cedar Rapids, IA for appellant) (Mark Tremmel, AUSA, of Cedar Rapids, IA for appellee)
