United States of America v. Jason Bryan Martin

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
JASON BRYAN MARTIN,
Defendant-Appellant.
No. 16-30077
D.C. No.
4:12-cr-00061-BMM-1
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Montana
Brian M. Morris, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted December 16, 2016**
San Francisco, California
Before: BYBEE and N.R. SMITH, Circuit Judges, and KOBAYASHI,*** District
Judge.
FILED
DEC 20 2016
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
*** The Honorable Leslie E. Kobayashi, United States District Judge for
the District of Hawaii, sitting by designation.

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Jason B. Martin appeals the district court’s revocation of his supervised
release and imposition of a five-month sentence. We review Martin’s
constitutional challenges, which are made for the first time on this appeal, for plain
error, see United States v. Johnson, 626 F.3d 1085, 1088 (9th Cir. 2010), and
Martin’s challenge to the length of his sentence for abuse of discretion, see United
States v. Miqbel, 444 F.3d 1173, 1176 (9th Cir. 2006).
1. Martin first argues that Special Condition No. 1 of his supervised
release was so vague that it violated his due process rights. See United States v.
Hugs, 384 F.3d 762, 768 (9th Cir. 2004) (stating that due process prohibits courts
from imposing a condition of supervised release that is “so vague that men of
common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its
application” (citation omitted)). But nothing about Special Condition No. 1 was
unconstitutionally vague. Martin knew full well that in order to comply with
Special Condition No. 1 he had to follow all rules of the Great Falls Pre-Release
Center (“Center”)—rules that were both intuitive and known to Martin. The
Center’s only arguably non-brightline rule that Martin violated required him not to
endanger the safety of the Center’s staff through aggressive actions. But, contrary
to Martin’s assertions, reasonable people would agree on the range of aggressive
conduct that endangers others. If Martin thought that his behavior was not
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dangerous and apprehensive, then he should have explained during the revocation
hearing exactly why the Center’s interpretation of its rule was unreasonable.
2. Martin next suggests that Special Condition No. 1 improperly
delegated judicial authority to the Center’s administrators by permitting them to
decide when the Center’s rules were violated. The district court committed no
error—much less plain error—in leaving it up to the professional administrators to
supervise Martin’s compliance with the program’s requirements. See United States
v. Fellows, 157 F.3d 1197, 1204 (9th Cir. 1998). If the district court were required
to monitor Martin’s progress itself, the pre-release program would lose its efficacy
and rehabilitative appeal.
3. Finally, Martin claims that the district court’s five-month sentence
was unreasonable because it inhibited Martin’s rehabilitation. Not so. As even
Martin recognizes, his violation of Special Condition No. 1 placed him in a
Sentencing Guidelines range of five to seven months. The district court did not
abuse its discretion when it imposed a sentence on the low end of the Guidelines
range after carefully weighing all factors relevant to Martin’s offense. See United
States v. Carty, 520 F.3d 984, 994 (9th Cir. 2008).
AFFIRMED.
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