{"id":14438,"date":"2011-08-20T15:50:05","date_gmt":"2011-08-20T20:50:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=14438"},"modified":"2011-08-20T15:50:05","modified_gmt":"2011-08-20T20:50:05","slug":"judge-must-explain-new-sentencing-decision-after-revocation-of-supervised-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2011\/08\/judge-must-explain-new-sentencing-decision-after-revocation-of-supervised-release\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Must Explain New Sentencing Decision After Revocation of Supervised Release"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As I described\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lifesentencesblog.com\/?p=2686\">here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lifesentencesblog.com\/?p=46\">here<\/a>, the Seventh Circuit has an interesting line of cases that attempt to establish some minimal standards for the way that district judges explain their sentences. \u00a0Add to that line the court\u2019s decision last week in<em>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ca7.uscourts.gov\/fdocs\/docs.fwx?submit=showbr&amp;shofile=10-3543_001.pdf\">United States v. Robertson<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(No. 10-3543). \u00a0I think that\u00a0<em>Robertson\u00a0<\/em>is the court\u2019s first decision to apply the explanation requirement to a resentencing that occurred after revocation of a defendant\u2019s supervised release.<\/p>\n<p>That the explanation requirement would apply here is perhaps not a given, since, as the court observed, the district judge has even more discretion in this setting than in an original sentencing. \u00a0(4) \u00a0The court ruled, however, that the district judge must indeed \u201csay\u00a0<em>something\u00a0<\/em>that enables the appellate court to infer that he considered both [the recommendations of the sentencing guidelines and the statutory sentencing factors].\u201d \u00a0(4)<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0<em>Robertson<\/em>, the guidelines recommended a term of 12-18 months following the defendant\u2019s revocation for growing marijuana, but the district judge instead imposed a sentence of 34 months. \u00a0Here is the \u201cexplanation\u201d for the sentence that the Seventh Circuit found inadequate:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The judge didn\u2019t give a reason for the 34-month term, and made just four, brief remarks that might supply clues to his thinking. The first is that he was \u201cbaffled\u201d that the defendant would continue growing marijuana after spending eight years in prison for that crime. The second remark, which followed immediately and merely repeated the first in different words was: \u201cwhy did\u00a0you even consider doing this again?\u201d The defendant replied that he had grown marijuana because \u201che just liked the way the plant looked\u201d and he \u201cliked to smoke it,\u201d whereupon the judge asked him sarcastically whether he had \u201cever thought about growing gardenias or something legal versus growing marijuana\u201d and added (this was his fourth remark) \u201cyou could have grown roses.\u201d Without further explanation the judge stated: \u201cwith respect to the revocation, the Court is going to sentence you to 34 months.\u201d \u00a0(2-3)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sending a man to prison for nearly three years surely requires more of an explanation than a couple of sarcastic observations about his horticultural preferences. \u00a0The Seventh Circuit properly vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing.<\/p>\n<p>Cross posted at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lifesentencesblog.com\/?p=3017\">Life Sentences Blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I described\u00a0here\u00a0and\u00a0here, the Seventh Circuit has an interesting line of cases that attempt to establish some minimal standards for the way that district judges explain their sentences. \u00a0Add to that line the court\u2019s decision last week in\u00a0United States v. Robertson\u00a0(No. 10-3543). \u00a0I think that\u00a0Robertson\u00a0is the court\u2019s first decision to apply the explanation requirement to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,74,122,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-law-process","category-federal-sentencing","category-public","category-seventh-circuit","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}