United States v. Shannon

United States v. Shannon

Opinion

 [*346]  ORDER

This appeal presents our fourth occasion to consider a challenge by Ralph Shannon to his life term of supervised release. Now he appeals the denial of a motion to terminate his supervision altogether. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(1). Because the district judge properly considered the statutory factors in denying the motion, we affirm the judgment.

After federal authorities discovered more than 400 encrypted images of child pornography on Shannon's computers and hard drives, he pleaded guilty to one violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4). The district judge sentenced him to 46 months' imprisonment and a life term of supervised release (the recommended term of supervision). Shannon appealed, and we upheld his sentence. United States v. Shannon, 518 F.3d 494 (7th Cir. 2008) ("Shannon I").

Shannon was released from prison in August 2010, and a year later his [**2]  probation officer petitioned to revoke his supervised release. The officer alleged that Shannon had downloaded child pornography and possessed a webcam without permission. The government withdrew the first allegation because it could not prove that the persons depicted in the photos were minors; Shannon admitted the second allegation. The district judge revoked his supervised release, sentenced him to 28 days' imprisonment, and imposed another life term of supervised release. Shannon appealed, arguing that the district judge did not adequately justify a new condition  [*347]  prohibiting him from viewing even legal pornography. We agreed, United States v. Shannon, 743 F.3d 496 (7th Cir. 2014), and on remand the judge removed the problematic condition.

In May 2015, Shannon's probation officer again petitioned to revoke his supervised release. This time the officer accused Shannon of downloading child pornography, possessing external storage devices, refusing to open an encrypted file, uninstalling required monitoring software, and installing software to "scrub" his hard drive. Again the government withdrew the first allegation because it could not prove that the photos depicted minors. The district judge, after hearing testimony from Shannon and [**3]  his probation officer about the remaining allegations, declined to revoke Shannon's supervised release. But she warned Shannon that he would face revocation if he continued his "game playing" and she added a condition requiring Shannon to notify his probation officer before using certain electronic devices. On appeal we upheld the new condition. United States v. Shannon, 851 F.3d 740 (7th Cir. 2017).

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