Argued September 24, 2024 Decided December 20, 2024

No. 24-3011

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, APPELLEE

v.

JAMES LITTLE, APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 1:21-cr-00315-1)

Joshua B. Carpenter, Appellate Chief, Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Western District of North Carolina, argued the cause and filed the briefs for appellant.

Reuven Dashevsky, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Matthew M. Graves, U.S. Attorney, and Chrisellen R. Kolb, Nicholas P. Coleman, and Patrick Holvey, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Before: WALKER and PAN, Circuit Judges, and EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge. 2 Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PAN.

PAN, Circuit Judge: James Little pleaded guilty to one count of Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building, in violation of 40 U.S.C. § 5104(e)(2)(G). The district court sentenced him to 60 days’ imprisonment, followed by three years of probation. In a prior appeal, Little successfully challenged that sentence. We agreed with him that the applicable statutes did not authorize a “split sentence” that included both imprisonment and probation for the commission of a single violation. See United States v. Little, 78 F.4th 453 (D.C. Cir. 2023). We therefore vacated his sentence and remanded his case to the district court. The district court resentenced Little to 150 days in prison, with credit for the 60 days in prison he had already served, and an additional credit of 30 days for the time he had spent on probation. Little claims that his new sentence violates the Double Jeopardy Clause. We disagree and affirm.

I.

A.

On January 6, 2021, James Little took part in the riot at the United States Capitol. He roamed the third-floor Senate Gallery, taking photographs and sending messages to his family and friends. In those messages, he said things like: “We just took over the Capital [sic],” and “We are stopping treason! Stealing elections is treason! We’re not going to take it anymore!” J.A. 33. Little ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building, in violation of 40 U.S.C. § 5104(e)(2)(G). That crime carries a maximum punishment of six months in prison or five years of probation. 40 U.S.C. § 5109(b); 18 U.S.C. § 3561(c)(2). The district court sentenced Little to 60 days in prison followed by three years of probation. The court 3 reasoned that “some term of imprisonment is essential in these cases now to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for the law and to provide just punishment for the offense.” J.A. 149. In addition, because the court did “not have confidence that the same [conduct] would not happen in the next election cycle,” it imposed a probation term so that Little “[would] not be without court supervision during the next election cycle.” J.A. 150.

Little appealed his sentence, arguing that the district court erred by imposing both a term of imprisonment and a term of probation. We agreed with Little that the relevant statutes — 18 U.S.C. §§ 3551(b) and 3561 — authorize a sentence of either probation or imprisonment for a single violation, but not both. United States v. Little (Little I), 78 F.4th 453, 454–56 (D.C. Cir. 2023).1 We thus vacated Little’s sentence and remanded his case to the district court for resentencing. Id. at 461.

B.

By the time the case was remanded, Little was in the midst of serving the originally imposed sentence: He had finished serving the term of imprisonment and was in the middle of his