By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//January 30, 2015//
U.S. Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit
Criminal
Criminal Procedure – Appeal
A prisoner cannot challenge his designation as a career offender through FRCP 36.
“Williams contends on appeal that Fed. R. Crim. P. 36 allows courts to correct clerical errors at any time, but his sentence is not a clerical error; the judgment accurately carries out the district judge’s decision. Rule 36 permits a district court to ensure that the record accurately reflects judicial decisions but does not authorize a challenge to the substance of those decisions. See United States v. McHugh, 528 F.3d 538 (7th Cir. 2008). Nor does the presentence report contain a clerical error. Whether the author of the report accurately understood the nature of one of Williams’s older convictions (which affects whether he is a career offender) is a substantive matter. Defendants who disagree with the contents of a PSR must object before or at sentencing; only if a timely objection is made must a district judge state on the record (if the issue affects the sentence) whether the PSR is correct. Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(f)(1), (i)(3). Williams raised the issue indirectly at sentencing but did not ask for a correction under Rule 32 and did not pursue the matter on appeal. It is far too late to revisit this subject.”
Dismissed.
14-3570 U.S. v. Williams
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Gettleman, J., Per Curiam.