General Appeal – Court Error

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Terry Smith

Case No.: 14-3744; 14-3721

Officials: POSNER and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges, and PALLMEYER, District Judge

Practice Area: General Appeal – Court Error

Judge errs by failing to state standard conditions of supervised release at sentencing.

“The judge devoted the bulk of his sentencing statement to recounting cases in which defendants had been sentenced for crimes comparable to Smith’s. In one case, United States v. DiSantis, 565 F.3d 354 (7th Cir. 2009), a police officer had struck a bystander who was filming a traffic stop by the officer, hitting the man on the head and face with the man’s camera, then throwing the camera on the ground and stomping on it, and finally patting the man down and—for good measure, as it were—squeezing his genitals. For this brutal and bizarre behavior, the officer was sentenced to 66 months in prison. It’s not obvious to us that his behavior was more brutal than that visited by Smith on his victims, particularly when we note that Smith had assaulted two persons in separate incidents and had a history of violence; no such history is mentioned in Judge Lawrence’s discussion of the camera case.”

Conviction Affirmed.

Sentence vacated and remanded for resentencing

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.