Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
John Moldovan was convicted in the Northern District of Texas (No. 3:21-CR-201-1) and placed on supervised release. The district court subsequently revoked that supervision and sentenced him to 10 months of imprisonment under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(g), which mandates revocation and reimprisonment upon certain violations.
Moldovan appealed, arguing that § 3583(g) is unconstitutional because it compels revocation and a term of imprisonment without a jury trial or proof beyond a reasonable doubt. He grounded the argument in United States v. Haymond, 588 U.S. 634 (2019), in which a plurality of the Supreme Court held that a different subsection of § 3583 requiring mandatory minimum reimprisonment for certain sex-offense violations triggered Sixth Amendment jury-trial protections.
Moldovan candidly acknowledged that his constitutional challenge was foreclosed by prior Fifth Circuit precedent. The Government responded with an unopposed motion seeking summary affirmance, or in the alternative an extension of time to file its brief.
The Court’s Holding
A per curiam panel of Chief Judge Elrod and Circuit Judges Stewart and Higginson granted the Government’s motion and summarily affirmed the district court’s judgment. The court held that Moldovan’s sole argument on appeal — that § 3583(g) is unconstitutional under Haymond — is squarely foreclosed by United States v. Garner, 969 F.3d 550 (5th Cir. 2020).
In Garner, the Fifth Circuit had already considered and rejected the contention that Haymond rendered § 3583(g) unconstitutional, concluding that the subsection does not implicate the jury-trial concerns identified by the Supreme Court. Because no intervening authority disturbed Garner, the panel found summary affirmance appropriate under Groendyke Transportation, Inc. v. Davis, 406 F.2d 1158, 1162 (5th Cir. 1969). The Government’s alternative motion for a briefing extension was denied as moot.
Key Takeaways
- The Fifth Circuit reaffirmed that 18 U.S.C. § 3583(g) — mandating revocation of supervised release and reimprisonment for specified violations — does not violate the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial or the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard under Haymond.
- Circuit precedent in United States v. Garner (5th Cir. 2020) remains controlling and forecloses § 3583(g) constitutional challenges in the Fifth Circuit.
- Where a defendant’s only appellate argument is directly foreclosed by binding circuit authority, summary affirmance is the appropriate disposition.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the Fifth Circuit’s settled position that the mandatory revocation provisions of § 3583(g) survive Sixth Amendment scrutiny, providing prosecutors and defense counsel with clear guidance on the viability of Haymond-based challenges to supervised-release revocations in the circuit. Defendants seeking to relitigate this issue will need to pursue en banc review or await a conflicting circuit split that might prompt Supreme Court intervention.
The case also illustrates the practical consequence of well-established circuit precedent: even a constitutional argument with some theoretical grounding in Supreme Court plurality opinions can be resolved without full briefing when binding authority squarely controls, streamlining appellate dockets and reducing litigation costs.