Background
Hassan-Nur H. Mohamed began a four-year term of supervised release in September 2013 after serving a federal sentence for armed bank robbery and using a firearm during the robbery. In 2017, after immigration authorities told him that his removal to Somalia would no longer be withheld, Mohamed went to Canada and sought refugee status without obtaining permission to leave his judicial district. Before his supervised-release term expired in September 2017, probation officers alleged several Grade C violations, and a warrant issued.
Mohamed returned to the United States and was arrested in 2025. He was convicted of aggravated illegal re-entry, and probation treated that offense as a new Grade B supervised-release violation. The district court revoked his supervised release and imposed nine months in prison. Although the court selected a sentence within the range applicable to Grade C violations, it expressly classified the 2025 conviction as a Grade B violation and considered that conviction when determining the sentence.
While Mohamed’s appeal was pending, the Supreme Court held in Rico v. United States that absconding does not automatically extend a term of supervised release and that a court may adjudicate only violations arising before the term expires.
The Court’s Holding
The Sixth Circuit held that the district court procedurally erred by treating Mohamed’s 2025 illegal-reentry conviction as a supervised-release violation. Mohamed’s supervised release had expired more than seven years before the conduct underlying that conviction, and the Supreme Court’s decision in Rico foreclosed treating his absence as automatically extending the term. The error affected both the Guidelines calculation and the factors the district court considered at sentencing.
The error was not harmless, even though the nine-month sentence fell within the Guidelines ranges for both Grade B and Grade C violations. The district court’s statement that it would impose the same sentence under either classification did not establish that it would have done so without treating the 2025 conviction as a supervised-release violation at all. Because that conviction figured in the court’s assessment of the number and seriousness of Mohamed’s violations, the Sixth Circuit could not confidently conclude that the sentence would have been unchanged.
The court rejected Mohamed’s separate contention that the district court inadequately addressed his mitigation arguments. The record showed that the district court heard and considered those arguments, and its brief explanation did not independently constitute reversible procedural error. The Sixth Circuit nevertheless vacated the judgment and remanded for resentencing consistent with its opinion.
Key Takeaways
- Absconding does not automatically extend a federal supervised-release term beyond its scheduled expiration.
- Conduct occurring after supervised release expires cannot be treated as a supervised-release violation, even when a warrant based on earlier violations remains outstanding.
- A Guidelines error is not harmless merely because the imposed sentence also falls within the correct range; the government must show that the district court would have imposed the same sentence without relying on the improper factor.
Why It Matters
The decision applies the Supreme Court’s ruling in Rico to revocation proceedings involving both timely and post-expiration conduct. Courts may adjudicate violations committed before supervised release expired, but they may not enlarge the set of violations by treating absconding as having paused or extended the supervision period.
The opinion also underscores that a district court’s alternative-sentence statement may not establish harmlessness when its reasoning still relies on conduct that cannot legally qualify as a supervised-release violation.