Criminal Procedure — sentencing after remand

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United States Court of Appeals

Criminal

Criminal Procedure — sentencing after remand

When a case is generally remanded to the district court for re-sentencing, the district court may entertain new arguments as necessary to effectuate its sentencing intent, but it is not obligated to consider any new evidence or arguments beyond that relevant to the issues raised on appeal.

“Allowing a district court to freely balance already and properly raised arguments to preserve or revise its sentencing objectives does not equate to carte blanche for defendants to raise new arguments unrelated to the issues raised on appeal. To the contrary, the only new evidence that the Supreme Court considered and approved of is that of a defendant’s postsentencing rehabilitation. Id. at 1236 (‘We hold that when a defendant’s sentence has been set aside on appeal, a district court at resentencing may consider evidence of the defendant’s postsentencing rehabilitation . . . .’). Barnes and Taylor attempt to expand the Pepper Court’s holdings so that, upon general remand, a defendant enjoys a manifest right to raise new issues. We decline the invitation to do so. See, e.g., United States v. White, 406 F.3d 827, 831-32 (7th Cir. 2005) (‘Our case law has characterized the scope of the remand issue using two analogies: (1) that upon remand the district court is presented with a “clean slate” or (2) the district court may “unbundle the sentencing package.” There is no meaningful distinction in this phraseology.’).”

Affirmed.

11-1261 & 11-1602 U.S. v. Barnes

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, Springmann, J., Flaum, J.