Sentencing — remand

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Sentencing — remand

Where a sentence is vacated and remanded, the district court is not required to conduct a full sentencing hearing.

“[T]he 30-month sentence for violation of supervised release, the sentence we ordered vacated, had not been intended by the judge to extend the defendant’s overall sentence beyond 240 months, but merely to maintain that sentence (if possible) in the event that other parts of the overall sentence fell out. As far as the 240-month sentence was concerned, we did not vacate any part of it; we just wanted to make sure that the judge had intended to give it, which was unclear because of his checking both boxes on the ‘Statement of Reasons’ form. He could just have said in response to our inquiry ‘I meant to go above the top of the guidelines range,’ and then the 240-month sentence would have stood. Or he could just have said ‘I mean to stay within the range,’ and cut the sentence to 235 months. In neither case would a further sentencing hearing have been required, or indeed have served any purpose. Instead the judge conducted a brief hearing that led him to give the defendant a slight additional break. This procedure and the sentence that resulted were entirely consistent with our order of remand.”

Affirmed.

12-3818 U.S. v. Simms

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Clevert, J., Posner, J.