Background
Deangelo Smith began supervised release in June 2024 after serving a prison sentence for three armed robberies. Within months, he twice tested positive for marijuana and was found carrying a firearm during a traffic stop. He pleaded guilty in a separate case to possessing a firearm as a felon.
While detained, Smith possessed a homemade shiv, assaulted inmates, disobeyed correctional officers, attempted to smuggle drugs into the facility, and participated with three other detainees in an August 2025 attack that resulted in another detainee’s death. The judge handling the firearm case relied partly on that conduct to vary upward from a 41-to-51-month guidelines range and impose 96 months.
A different judge later sentenced Smith for violating supervised release through his firearm possession, association with people engaged in criminal activity, and illicit drug use. That judge varied upward from the advisory range of six to 12 months and imposed 24 months, consecutive to the firearm sentence, followed by five years of supervised release. Smith appealed the revocation sentence as procedurally and substantively unreasonable.
The Court’s Holding
The Sixth Circuit affirmed. It held that the revocation court did not engage in impermissible double counting by considering Smith’s role in the fatal detention assault even though the judge in the firearm case had considered the same conduct. Congress permits courts sentencing both substantive offenses and supervised-release violations to consider a defendant’s history and characteristics, and the two proceedings punished distinct wrongs through separate sanctions.
The court also held that the 24-month revocation sentence was substantively reasonable despite doubling the top of the advisory range. The district court did not rely exclusively on the fatal assault; it considered Smith’s armed-robbery history, repeated supervised-release violations, firearm possession, and broader pattern of violent and disruptive conduct in custody.
The district court sufficiently explained that the upward variance and consecutive sentence were needed to deter Smith and protect the public and people near him. It also properly considered the Sentencing Guidelines policy statement favoring consecutive imprisonment upon revocation.
Key Takeaways
- A court may consider the same conduct in separate sentencings for a substantive offense and a supervised-release violation without impermissibly double counting it.
- A supervised-release violation is a wrong distinct from the new criminal offense underlying that violation and may receive a separate sanction.
- A substantial upward variance may be reasonable when the district court gives compelling, case-specific reasons tied to deterrence, public protection, and the defendant’s history and characteristics.
Why It Matters
The decision confirms that prior consideration of misconduct in a substantive criminal sentence does not prevent a revocation court from considering that conduct independently under the applicable statutory sentencing factors. Defendants therefore cannot establish impermissible double counting merely because two separate sentencing courts relied on overlapping facts.
The opinion also illustrates the explanation needed to sustain a large upward variance in a revocation case: the sentencing judge should address the defendant’s broader history, the seriousness and pattern of the conduct, the danger posed to others, and the statutory purposes served by an above-guidelines, consecutive sentence.