Paul Allen King pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced to 21 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. The terms of his release prohibited the illegal use of controlled substances. While on supervised release, King used cocaine on multiple occasions between September 2024 and July 2025. Upon a petition by his probation officer to revoke, King admitted to the violations. The district court found the violations proven and, departing below the standard guideline range, imposed a three-month sentence of imprisonment and 18 months of additional supervision. King appealed the revocation and the sentence, but his appointed counsel filed an Anders brief arguing that no nonfrivolous issues existed for appeal.
The panel conducted a plenary review of the entire record to determine if the appeal was wholly frivolous, as required by Anders v. California. The court first addressed the revocation itself. Because King admitted to using cocaine on multiple dates, the court found no basis to contest the finding of a violation. Second, regarding the sentence, the court noted that King had specifically requested the three-month term imposed by the district court, and the sentence was based on a proper calculation of the advisory guidelines. Therefore, there was no merit to contesting the sentence. King attempted to raise issues of judicial bias and improper profiling in his response to the Anders brief, claiming the judge made improper comments characterizing him as a drug dealer. The court reviewed the hearing transcript and found the judge's comments were merely warnings that trafficking carries heavier penalties than simple use, and the judge explicitly stated he was not conducting an investigation into trafficking. The court concluded that neither the issues raised by counsel nor those raised by King had any arguable merit.
The appeal is dismissed without addressing the merits of the underlying drug use or the sentence. The district court's revocation and sentence stand. The case is remanded to the district court with instructions to close the appeal. The decision reinforces the procedural requirement for appointed counsel to conduct a conscientious examination of the record before seeking to withdraw under Anders, and it confirms that a defendant's own admissions can preclude frivolous appeals.
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