Jessica Reznicek received an eight-year federal sentence in June 2021 after pleading guilty to conspiring to damage an energy facility. The case concerned damage to the Dakota Access Pipeline during 2016 and 2017.
The district court applied a terrorism enhancement that increased the advisory sentencing range from 37–46 months to 210–240 months, then imposed a lower sentence of 96 months. Reznicek challenged the enhancement and the length of the sentence.
On June 6, 2022, the Eighth Circuit affirmed. It did not decide that the disputed enhancement was correctly applied. Instead, it held that any error was harmless because the sentencing judge had expressly said she would impose the same sentence without it.
That distinction matters: the appeals court upheld the sentence without resolving Reznicek’s central objection to the terrorism designation. The judgment also included restitution and three years of supervised release.
