United States v. Hassan-Nur Mohamed

BOGGS, Circuit Judge. Hassan-Nur H. Mohamed was on federal supervised release when, allegedly fearing deportation to Somalia, he fled to Canada in March 2017. His term of supervised release was scheduled to end in September 2017. In 2025, he was arrested and convicted in federal court of aggravated re-entry after returning to the United States. 8 U.S.C. §§ 1326(a), (b)(2). The district court revoked his supervised release and sentenced him to nine months of imprisonment based, in part, on treating this new conviction as a supervised-release violation. In March 2026, the Supreme Court held in Rico v. United States, 607 U.S. 609 (2026), that the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 does not authorize an automatic extension of a previously imposed supervised-release term when an individual absconds. For the reasons below, we vacate the district court’s order revok- ing Mohamed’s supervised release and remand for resentencing.

BACKGROUND

Hassan-Nur H. Mohamed is a Somali national who came to the United States on refugee status as a child. Mohamed was originally sentenced in 2007 to 93 months in prison and four years of supervised release for one count of armed bank robbery and use of a firearm during that robbery. During his incarceration, Mohamed received an order of removal from the United States to Soma- lia. However, he was not removed when he was released from prison in September 2013. Instead, he was released on immigration supervision. His supervised-release term commenced on Septem- ber 20, 2013, and was set to expire on September 19, 2017.

On June 6, 2016, a violation report was filed against Mohamed for outstanding child-support obligations and lack of regular employment. The probation office recommended that the terms of Mohamed’s supervised release be modified to require twenty hours of community service per week if Mohamed was not employed on a regular basis. On October 7, 2016, a revocation hearing was held and then continued to allow Mohamed to secure verifiable employment and comply with his child-support orders. Mohamed obtained verifiable employment as a handyman at an apartment complex, and he obtained a contractor’s license that he provided to the probation office.

At Mohamed’s 2017 meeting with immigration authorities, however, he was told his removal would no longer be withheld, and he would either have to return to Somalia or otherwise leave the United States. Mohamed left the United States and went to Canada, where he petitioned for refugee status. However, Mohamed did not seek permission to leave the judicial district. While Mohamed’s probation officer confirmed that Mohamed was in Canada, had made a refugee claim, was released on bond in Canada, and was reporting to the Canadian Immigration Office, Mohamed refused to provide additional information. Consequently, a probation officer filed an amended violation re- port on May 3, 2017 adding two more supervised-release violations: 1) leaving the judicial district without permission of the court or probation officer and 2) failing to answer truthfully all inquiries by the probation officer. These were both Grade C violations. This violation report recommended revocation of Mohamed’s supervised release and a sentence of six months of imprisonment. A warrant issued on May 5, 2017.

On April 7, 2025, Mohamed was arrested in New York and sentenced on October 15, 2025, for aggravated illegal re-entry, in violation of 8 U.S.C. §§ 1326(a) and (b)(2). A supplemental viola- tion report was filed on October 30, 2025, alleging that the April 7, 2025 conduct was a new violation of Mohamed’s supervised release. This charged new violation was a Grade B violation, and the Guidelines imprisonment range was 4–10 months instead of the 3–9 months for the Grade C viola- tions alone. The probation officer recommended that Mohamed’s supervised release be revoked and that he be sentenced to the maximum ten months of imprisonment, clearly raising the recommended sentence because of the 2025 conviction, independent of the higher Guidelines maximum.

On December 22, 2025, the district court held a revocation hearing. Mohamed did not contest any of the facts. But he did object to the treatment of his aggravated re-entry conviction as a super- vised-release violation and alerted the district court that the issue was pending before the Supreme Court. The government suggested “we make it 9 months” instead of the probation-recommended ten months of imprisonment in case Rico v. United States “should impact us somehow,” justifying the sentence “because of the number of violations that [Mohamed]’s got.” R. 22, PageID 84–85. The government did not suggest discounting the 2025 conviction entirely, which would still have made the 9-month sentence within the Guidelines range. The district court sentenced Mohamed to nine months of imprisonment and, when prompted to clarify, stated it was “determining that it’s a Grade B violation, but I’m exercising my discretion to sentence to a term that would be within the sentencing guidelines for a Grade C violation,” Id. at 87, thus still taking the 2025 conviction into account, but simply downgrading its significance to fit within the lower Guidelines range.

This appeal followed. While the appeal was pending, the Supreme Court ruled in Rico v. United States, holding that the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 does not authorize an automatic extension of supervised release when an individual absconds. 607 U.S. at 616–17.

ANALYSIS

A defendant’s sentence must be procedurally reasonable. United States v. Xu, 114 F.4th 829, 844 (6th Cir. 2024). “Procedural reasonableness focuses on the method that the district court used to arrive at the length of a sentence.” United States v. Hoyle, 148 F.4th 396, 405 (6th Cir. 2025). For a sentence to be procedurally reasonable, “[t]he court must properly calculate the guide- lines range, treat that range as advisory, consider the sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), refrain from considering impermissible factors, select the sentence based on facts that are not clearly erroneous, and adequately explain why it chose the sentence.” United States v. Rayyan, 885 F.3d 436, 440 (6th Cir. 2018). A district court’s reliance on an impermissible factor is a procedural error. Ibid. We review the procedural reasonableness of a sentence for abuse of discretion. Hoyle, 148 F.4th at 405.

Mohamed contends that his sentence is procedurally unreasonable for two reasons: first, because the district court erred in considering his 2025 conviction as a supervised-release viola- tion, and second, because the district court failed to adequately explain its reasoning. A. The district court erred in treating Mohamed’s 2025 conviction as a supervised-release violation because his term of supervised release expired in 2017.

Mohamed first argues that his sentence is procedurally unreasonable because the district court impermissibly treated his 2025 conviction as a supervised-release violation. In Rico v. United States, the Supreme Court held that “a court may adjudicate only matters arising before the expi- ration of the defendant’s term of supervised release.” 607 U.S. 609, 616 (2026) (citation modified). Rico, like Mohamed, had her supervised release revoked for more than one violation: two independent Grade C violations—failure to report to her probation officer and arrest for evading police and driving without a license—and one Grade A violation, a new drug offense. Id. at 613. But that Grade A violation “occurred after her pre-existing term of federal supervised release ex- pired.” Id. at 614. And “[b]ecause the Sentencing Reform Act does not authorize the rule” that “an absconding defendant’s term of supervised release does not expire when a court has directed but continues to run so long as the defendant remains out of contact with his probation officer,” the Court held that the district court erred in treating the Grade A violation as a supervised-release violation. Id. at 615, 622. The Ninth Circuit subsequently vacated and remanded to the district court for resentencing. United States v. Rico, No. 24-2662, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 12130 (9th Cir. Apr. 27, 2026) (order).

Mohamed’s story is similar. Mohamed’s term of supervised release had expired more than seven years before the underlying conduct for his 2025 conviction. Consequently, the district court erred in treating this new conviction as a supervised-release violation. The court did treat the con- viction as a violation, simply considering it as a lower-level violation. Therefore, by considering this conviction to be a supervised-release violation in imposing a sentence, it improperly “calcu- late[d] the guidelines range,” “consider[ed] impermissible factors,” and “select[ed] the sentence based on facts that are . . . clearly erroneous.” Rayyan, 885 F.3d at 440. In light of Rico v. United States, the district court erred in calculating the Guidelines range.

B. The district court’s error was not harmless.

The government argues in the alternative that Rico v. United States should not impact this case because any error was harmless, as the district court would have imposed the same sentence regardless of the error. It is true that “[i]f the record shows that the district court would have im- posed its sentence regardless of the Guidelines range, then an error in calculating the Guidelines range is harmless.” United States v. Morrison, 852 F.3d 488, 491 (6th Cir. 2017). But “[n]othing . . . supports a requirement that a defendant seeking appellate review of an unpreserved Guidelines error make some further showing of prejudice beyond the fact that the erroneous, and higher, Guidelines range set the wrong framework for the sentencing proceedings . . . even if the ultimate sentence falls within both the correct and incorrect range.” Molina-Martinez v. United States, 578 U.S. 189, 198 (2016). When a defendant is sentenced under an incorrect Guidelines range— whether or not the defendant’s ultimate sentence falls within the correct range—the error itself can, and most often will, be sufficient to show a reasonable probability of a different outcome absent the error. Ibid. “The burden is on the government” to establish the requisite confidence that “the district court would have imposed the same sentence had the Guidelines . . . been properly calculated.” United States v. Gates, 48 F.4th 463, 471 (6th Cir. 2022) (quoting United States v. Rosales, 990 F.3d 989, 1000 (6th Cir. 2021)).

In this case, as in Molina-Martinez, the sentence falls within both Guidelines ranges. The district court stated that it was “determining that it’s a Grade B violation” but “exercising [its] discretion to sentence to a term that would be within the sentencing guidelines for a Grade C vio- lation.” R. 22, PageID 87. It also stated that “that this would be the appropriate sentence, whether this is a Grade B or a Grade C violation.” Id. at PageID 85. The government argues that this is enough to establish that the district court would have imposed the same sentence even without the error. In support, it cites two cases, United States v. Cox, No. 21-5222, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 36066 (6th Cir. Dec. 2, 2021), and United States v. Householder, 137 F.4th 454, 485 (6th Cir. 2025). But neither Cox nor Householder is comparable to this case. In Householder, the Guidelines calculation was “academic” because “the Guidelines range would be ‘at or above’ the statutory maximum” regardless. 137 F.4th at 485. And in Cox, the district court’s explanation “establish[ed] that the sentence was based on factors independent of the Guidelines.” 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 36066 at *5 (citing United States v. Schock, 862 F.3d 563, 569 (6th Cir. 2017)) (citation modified).

Here, the Guidelines calculation was not merely academic, and it was also not clearly based on something other than the Guidelines range. While the district court stated “that this would be the appropriate sentence, whether this is a Grade B or a Grade C violation,” its only stated support for this conclusion was that “the violations are . . . serious.” R. 22, PageID 85. And in considering the seriousness of “the violations,” the district court included the April 5, 2025 re-entry and sub- sequent conviction. But Mohamed’s 2025 conviction was not a supervised-release violation at all. Therefore, the passing statement that “this would be the appropriate sentence, whether this is a Grade B or a Grade C violation” is not enough to overcome the need for confidence that, even without considering Mohamed’s new conviction to be a supervised-release violation at all, the district court would have imposed the same sentence. At a minimum, the district court apparently acted as though Mohamed had five Grade C violations (even treating the 2025 conviction as only a Grade C violation), rather than having only four Grade C violations, the correct view under the law after Rico.

Although the ultimate sentence is reasonable, the district court did appear to consider Mo- hamed’s 2025 conviction to be a supervised-release violation and to consider that violation in de- termining his sentence. The Supreme Court has made it clear that this is an error. And because that error was implicated in the district court’s justification for the sentence it imposed, we cannot say with confidence that the sentence imposed would be the same. Even though the district court’s ultimate action appears a quite reasonable resolution given the uncertainty as to the future outcome in Rico, the error is not harmless even if it resulted in only a small difference in the sentencing range. C. The district court’s brief explanation of its consideration of Mohamed’s mitigation argu- ment was not reversible error.

Mohamed additionally objects to the procedural reasonableness of his sentence on the grounds that the district court did not adequately explain its reasoning. “The sentencing judge should set forth enough to satisfy the appellate court that he has considered the parties’ arguments and has a reasoned basis for exercising his own legal decisionmaking authority.” Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 356 (2007). And “[w]here the defendant or prosecutor presents nonfrivolous reasons for imposing a different sentence . . . the judge will normally go further and explain why he has rejected those arguments.” Id. at 357.

The court stated that it had “conducted an individualized assessment of the facts of this case as required and concludes that the violations are . . . serious, and they do call upon the Court to impose a sentence that is sufficiently severe but no more severe than necessary to accomplish all of the statutory sentencing factors, and the Court has indeed considered those factors.” R. 22, PageID 85. Mohamed subsequently made a Bostic objection to the sentence on the grounds that “the Court has not specifically addressed [the mitigating circumstances Mohamed put into the record].” Id. at 87. The district court confirmed it had “considered those as well in arriving at the sentence that [it] just announced.” Ibid. Here, the district court “listened to each argument” and there is “[n]othing in the record [that] suggests that the court did not listen to, consider and under- stand every argument [Mohamed] made.” United States v. Vonner, 516 F.3d 382, 387–88 (6th Cir. 2008) (en banc) (citation modified); R. 22, PageID 87. Therefore, the district court’s consideration of Mohamed’s mitigation arguments did not constitute procedural error.

CONCLUSION

For the reasons above, the judgment of the district court is VACATED and REMANDED for resentencing consistent with this opinion.