United States of America v. Deshon T. Adams

Deshon Adams pleaded guilty to unlawfully

possessing a firearm as a felon and was sentenced

to 87 months in prison—the top of the range recommended

by the Sentencing Guidelines. Adams asks us to remand his

case for resentencing, arguing that the judge impermissibly

considered unreliable evidence linking him to seven unsolved

shootings when weighing the sentencing factors

under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).

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We reject this argument and affirm. The challenged evidence

consists mainly of summaries of police reports describing

some of the physical evidence from the shootings

and memorializing statements from witnesses, confidential

informants, and jailhouse snitches connecting Adams to the

crimes. It also includes several statements by Adams himself,

who had bragged to police about his involvement in gang

violence, though only in very general terms. The government

also introduced testimony from a police detective

about the reliability of some, though not all, of the confidential

informants.

The judge wisely approached this material with caution

and in the end declined to make any explicit findings on the

subject. Instead, the judge relied on the government’s

presentation only very generally, and only to the extent that

it confirmed what the presentence report had already documented:

Adams is a headstrong young Vice Lords gang

member who began committing crimes at age 14 and immersed

himself in the gang’s subculture of firearms possession

and violence. That careful and limited approach raises

no due-process concerns and was certainly not an abuse of

discretion.

I. Background

In September 2015 Adams was 20 years old and already a

longtime member of the Vice Lords gang in Racine,

Wisconsin, with a lengthy record of criminal convictions as a

juvenile and adult. On September 25 he was walking down

the street with his 15-year-old cousin when a police squad

drove by and made a U-turn. As the officers passed by a

second time, Adams lifted his shirt and said, “Hey, I got

nothin’ on me.” The officers stopped and detained Adams on

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a probation warrant, then retraced his steps to the place

where they first spotted him. There, under the wheelchair

ramp of a house, they found a 9mm semiautomatic handgun

affixed with a high-capacity 30-round magazine. Adams had

ditched the gun under the ramp when he first saw the police

approach. When questioned about it, Adams indicated that

he expected to get a short prison sentence for violating his

probation and a concurrent sentence for possessing the gun,

which he implied would not be a big deal.

Adams was charged with one count of possessing a firearm

as a felon in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g) and

924(a)(2). The case was assigned to Judge Griesbach, and

Adams eventually pleaded guilty. The presentence report

(“PSR”) detailed Adams’s affiliation with the Vice Lords

gang in Racine and his lengthy criminal history as a juvenile

and adult, which included (among other crimes) several

firearms offenses and a battery. Indeed, and as the PSR

documented, before his latest arrest, Adams had been in

juvenile or adult custody almost continuously since the age

of 14. The PSR calculated an offense level of 21 and a

criminal-history category V, yielding a guidelines sentencing

range of 70 to 87 months in prison.

At sentencing Judge Griesbach considered and rejected

Adams’s challenges to the PSR and adopted the probation

officer’s calculation of the advisory range. He then invited

arguments from counsel on the § 3553(a) factors. At this

point the government’s sentencing memorandum came into

play. The prosecutor’s written submission pointed to evidence

linking Adams to as many as seven unsolved gangrelated

shootings in Racine, including a murder and an

attempted murder. Adams contested the reliability of the

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government’s submission, especially to the extent that it

relied on statements from confidential informants. In light of

the dispute, the judge adjourned the hearing and gave the

parties an opportunity to supplement the record.

The government submitted a supplemental sentencing

memorandum, this time summarizing and quoting more

extensively from police reports—including those memorializing

Adams’s own statements, interviews with victims and

witnesses, and physical evidence—and describing in more

detail the statements of confidential and jailhouse informants

connecting Adams to the unsolved crimes. Most of the

shootings stemmed from gang rivalries in Racine.

As relevant here, Adams had been interviewed by police

in connection with at least two of the shootings. In one

interview he admitted to police that younger Vice Lords

members looked up to him as a “shot caller.” In the most

recent interview, conducted after his arrest for the present

offense, he was questioned about two of the shootings, both

of which occurred earlier in September 2015. He told the

police that he couldn’t have been the shooter in either case

because too few rounds had been fired. More specifically, an

officer mentioned that in one of the shootings, eight rounds

had been fired. Adams replied:

Eight rounds still ain’t enough. When you

talkin’ to me, it’s 17 or better. …

You ain’t just talking to anybody man, come

on. 17 or better, I’m talking about, and maybe

an extra clip to make it look like it was a

30 round the whole time it was two clips. No

eight rounds. That ain’t never been my type.

No. 16-2928 5

When the sentencing hearing reconvened, the government

called Detective Klinkhammer of the Racine Police

Department, who testified about the reliability of some,

though not all, of the confidential informants. After direct

and cross-examination of the detective, the judge asked

Adams’s attorney if he wanted to present any evidence.

Counsel said no, he’d rely on argument alone to contest the

government’s presentation.

The parties then presented their arguments on the

§ 3553(a) factors, primarily focusing on the reliability of the

government’s evidence connecting Adams to the seven

shootings. The government ultimately recommended a

within-guidelines sentence of 84 months consecutive to

Adams’s state sentence on his probation revocation. Adams’s

lawyer argued for a below-guidelines sentence of four or five

years concurrent with his client’s probation revocation.

At the conclusion of these arguments, Judge Griesbach

undertook a detailed analysis of the § 3553(a) factors. Addressing

the government’s contention that Adams was

implicated in the seven unsolved shootings, the judge specifically

acknowledged the “dangers of relying on confidential

informants [and] jailhouse snitches.” On the other hand, the

judge explained, “much of the evidence here is corroborated”—

some “by third parties” and some “by the

[d]efendant’s own statements.” Ultimately, however, the

judge declined to make specific findings about whether

Adams was involved in any of the shootings. Instead, he

considered the government’s evidence only insofar as it

corroborated a more general proposition about Adams’s

background that was already substantiated by the PSR.

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More particularly, the judge summarized his consideration

of the government’s submission as follows:

Yes, I recognize that there’s certainly a risk in

relying on [the confidential informants]. We’re

not here—and actually I don’t even think I

need to put much weight on the confidential

informants, although I do note that the only

type of information you get here is often from

confidential informants. I’m not going to make

a finding on every one of the incidents the

[g]overnment has presented.

I am satisfied, though, from that evidence,

from the corroboration, from the [d]efendant’s

own words, that he is well involved in the violent

gang culture, including the use of firearms,

and the threatening of people, and using firearms

against people. So I am satisfied that—

but that’s certainly a factor that I have to consider

as well.

Moving to the remaining sentencing factors, the judge

explained that “there’s very little prosocial behavior here. No

real employment of any significance. No educational

achievement of any significance. The [d]efendant has really

gone from supervision, to youth corrections, to probation

and jail, to prison with very little stopping point[] in between.”

Accordingly, the judge found that the need for

deterrence “warrants a significant sentence here.” Finally,

after touching on other aspects of Adams’s background and

the need to protect the public, the judge settled on a sentence

at the top of the guidelines range: 87 months consecutive to

the state probation-revocation sentence.

No. 16-2928 7

II. Discussion

Adams argues that the evidence linking him to the seven

uncharged shootings is unreliable and that the judge impermissibly

relied on it to arrive at the 87-month sentence. In

the alternative, he maintains that he was deprived of an

opportunity to rebut the government’s evidence.

Our analysis is governed by some basic sentencing principles;

all are familiar. First, substantive sentencing review is

quite limited. The sentencing judge has substantial discretion

to weigh the § 3553(a) factors and arrive at an appropriate

sentence; we review the judge’s decision only for abuse

of discretion. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007). We

will set aside a sentence on substantive grounds only if it is

unreasonable, see Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 341

(2007), and a sentence within a properly calculated guidelines

range is presumptively reasonable, see United States v.

Martinez, 650 F.3d 667, 671 (7th Cir. 2011). Finally, a defendant

has a due-process right to be sentenced only on the basis

of reliable information. United States v. Zehm, 217 F.3d 506,

514 (7th Cir. 2000). But in determining what is and isn’t

reliable, the sentencing judge has considerable discretion to

“conduct an inquiry broad in scope, largely unlimited either

as to the kind of information [the judge] may consider, or the

source from which it may come.” Pepper v. United States,

562 U.S. 476, 489 (2011) (quoting United States v. Tucker,

404 U.S. 443, 446 (1972)).

Judge Griesbach held not one but two sentencing hearings

to provide both sides with the opportunity to present

evidence on the question of Adams’s involvement in the

seven shootings identified in the government’s sentencing

memorandum. The government’s supplemental memoran8

No. 16-2928

dum provided more detail about the evidence tying Adams

to the crimes. Together the two submissions summarized—

and in some cases, quoted—information contained in police

reports. Some of these reports recounted statements by

victims, witnesses, confidential informants, and Adams

himself. Although the prosecutor did not submit copies of

the underlying police reports to the court, the government

had earlier provided them to Adams in discovery. Notably,

Adams did not and does not argue that the government

misquoted, exaggerated, or otherwise misrepresented the

contents of the police reports.

The government also presented Detective Klinkhammer’s

testimony about the reliability of at least some of the confidential

informants, and Adams took the opportunity to

cross-examine the detective. Finally, the judge gave Adams

the opportunity to supplement the record and call witnesses

as he wished. He did neither.

In evaluating the reliability and weight of this evidence,

Judge Griesbach specifically acknowledged the shortcomings

of the government’s submission, commenting in particular

about the risk of placing too much stock in statements

from confidential informants and jailhouse snitches. Indeed,

the judge clarified that he didn’t put much weight on the

information provided by the confidential informants and

appears to have concluded that the government’s presentation

had at best only very limited evidentiary value; he

ultimately declined to make any factual findings that Adams

was implicated in any of the seven shootings. Instead, the

judge considered the government’s presentation at a very

high level of generality, concluding only that Adams “is well

involved in the violent gang culture, including the use of

No. 16-2928 9

firearms, and the threatening of people, and using firearms

against people.”

That assessment is fully supported by the PSR and the

recounting of Adams’s own statements as recorded in the

police reports. Adams acknowledged to the PSR writer that

he has been associated with the Vice Lords gang for as long

as he can remember and still considers himself a member of

the gang. The PSR writer also detailed multiple accounts in

which Adams possessed or used a weapon to threaten

others. Moreover, as we’ve already noted, Adams has a long

criminal record that includes juvenile and adult convictions

for weapons offenses and at least one violent crime.

Adams attacks the reliability of the confidential informants,

but he does not take issue with any of his own statements

bragging about his role in the gang and his use of

firearms. And of course he cannot erase his criminal history.

On this record we find nothing improper in the judge’s

cautious and limited consideration of the evidence of the

prior shootings.

In the end, the 87-month within-guidelines sentence is

presumed to be reasonable, and Adams has provided no

good reason to overcome the presumption. And because

Adams had the police reports well in advance and was given

ample time to develop a response, his complaint that he had

an insufficient opportunity to rebut the government’s

presentation is meritless.

AFFIRMED.