United States v. Moon Seals.
No. 24-1028. 8/28/2026. D.Colo. Judge Tymkovich. Probation Violation—US Sentencing Guidelines—Resentencing Procedure.
August 28, 2026
Moon Seals pleaded guilty to six counts of threatening members of Congress and their families and six counts of sending those threats in interstate communication. His presentence report calculated a guidelines range of 33 to 41 months’ imprisonment, which did not qualify him for a probation sentence. However, the government, probation office, and Moon Seals argued for the district court to vary from the US Sentencing Guidelines (USSG) and impose probation, and the court sentenced Moon Seals to five years’ probation. Days later, Moon Seals violated his probation by threatening a former federal official. The probation office requested that the court revoke Moon Seals’s probation, and Moon Seals was arrested and admitted to the probation violations. The court revoked his probation sentence and, in accordance with the two-step procedure outlined in United States v. Moore (Moore I), 30 F.4th 1021 (10th Cir. 2022), resentenced Moon Seals to 36 months’ imprisonment.
Moon Seals’s sentence was affirmed on appeal. He then petitioned for rehearing en banc, raising his preserved argument that Moore I was wrongly decided. The Tenth Circuit granted the petition to decide whether Moore I correctly held that resentencing after probation revocation requires the court to first sentence the defendant for the underlying conduct according to Chapter 5 of the USSG Manual and then sentence the defendant for the probation violation according to Chapter 7 of the USSG Manual. Under Moore I, a court must resentence a defendant after revoking probation by (1) imposing a sentence for the originally charged crime based only on the defendant’s pre-probation conduct, with reference to Chapter 5; and (2) sentencing the defendant for the probation violation based only on the defendant’s post-probation conduct, with reference to Chapter 7. Based on the relevant statutory text and following other circuits, the majority concluded that after a court revokes probation, 18 USC § 3553(a)(4) requires the resentencing court to consider the recommended sentence under Chapter 7 of the USSG Manual for the offender’s probation violation. As with any sentence, the court may vary upward according to the § 3553(a) factors, and in making this determination, the court should consider Chapter 5’s recommended sentence for the offender’s original offense. The majority thus rejected Moore I’s two-step sentencing procedure in favor of a one-step framework. Accordingly, the district court was required to take Chapter 7’s recommended range as its starting point, which it did not.
The sentence was reversed and the case was remanded for resentencing.