Pleas & Sentencing – Mandatory Minimum/Statutory Maximum

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Criminal

7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and POSNER and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

Pleas & Sentencing – Mandatory Minimum/Statutory Maximum

No. 14-2701 United States of America v. Gloria Harper

Sentence imposed by District court judge ordered to be revised for numerous problematic statements and failure to provide reasons for imposition of certain conditions of supervised release.

“Supervised release is mandatory for certain crimes, see, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 3583(k); 21 U.S.C. § 841(b), but not for the ones the defendant in this case was convicted of. And when as in this case some of the conditions are discretionary the sentencing judge must give a reason for the imposition of each such condition that he or she imposes. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 3583(c), (d)(1)–(3); United States v. Thompson, supra, 777 F.3d at 373. The judge didn’t do that. Moreover, the written judgment imposes 13 conditions of supervised release that she didn’t mention at the sentencing hearing. That was a mistake; the entire sentence is the sentence stated orally by the judge at the sentencing hearing. Fed. R. Crim. P. 35(c); United States v. Kappes, supra, 782 F.3d at 862; United States v. Alburay, 415 F.3d 782, 788 (7th Cir. 2005). Several of the written conditions in the judgment, moreover, have been criticized in recent decisions of ours. United States v. Sandidge, 784 F.3d 1055, 1068–69 (7th Cir. 2015); United States v. Thompson, supra, 777 F.3d at 376–80.”

Reversed and Remanded

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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.