Archive | supervised release

Tuesday, January 17th, 2023

The government’s use of a former cellmate’s testimony to introduce a defendant’s statements about his planned trial strategy didn’t violate the Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel where the witness wasn’t a government informant when the defendant confided in him. Also, a federal probation officer’s warrantless search of the home and car of a person “serving a term of supervised release” didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment because the probation officer needed only a “reasonable suspicion” to search, not a warrant or probable cause. United States v. Chandler, No. 18-1841, 56 F.4th 27 (2d Cir. [Dec. 27,] 2022) (C.J.J.’s Lynch, Carney, and Sullivan).

This appeal addresses a Fourth Amendment claim raised in the context of a Probation Officer’s search of the home and car of  “an individual serving a term of supervised release.” The Circuit concludes that the searches were valid because the Probation Officer had a “reasonable suspicion” that the defendant was committing crimes.

The case also addresses the scope of a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel “when the government presents a witness to whom the defendant has volunteered his thoughts about defense strategy and who, after learning the defendant’s thoughts, agrees to testify for the government.” Here, the government witness was a person who shared a jail cell with the defendant, during a two-week period of pretrial detention, and later became a government informant. Because the witness “was not a government informant when Chandler spoke to him about Chandler’s expected trial strategy, the government did not …


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Categories: Fourth Amendment, reasonable suspicion, Sixth Amendment, supervised release

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Tuesday, March 15th, 2022

District court can’t delegate inpatient treatment decision, but Hobbs Act restitution order stands.

In a March 14, 2022 summary order, the Second Circuit reiterated the limits of a district court’s authority to delegate decisions about supervised release to the Probation Department. In United States v. Ely, No. 17-3081-cr, the court imposed a special condition of release requiring the defendant to complete “outpatient and/or inpatient drug treatment.” This wording left it to the Probation Department to decide which. But because inpatient treatment “entails a significantly greater restriction on a defendant’s liberty than outpatient treatment,” the district court was not permitted to delegate this decision to Probation. The Circuit accordingly vacated this portion of the defendant’s sentence.

In the same order, the Circuit declined to find that the district court plainly erred by imposing restitution under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA) for a Hobbs Act robbery conspiracy. As relevant here, the MVRA mandates restitution for any “crime of violence,” as defined in 18 …


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Categories: delegation, restitution, supervised release

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Wednesday, May 26th, 2021

Twenty-year term of supervised release neither procedurally nor substantively unreasonable

In United States v. Joseph Williams, No. 20-1021 (2d Cir. May 26, 2021), a Panel of the Court (Pooler, Sullivan, and Park) ruled in a per curiam opinion that Williams’s 20-year term of supervised release, to follow a 160-month term of imprisonment, was neither procedurally nor substantively unreasonable on plain-error review. Williams argued principally that the term of supervised release was procedurally faulty because the district court violated 18 U.S.C. § 3553(c), requiring a sentencing court to “state in open court the reasons for its imposition of the particular sentence . . . .” Specifically, while the court the explained the basis for the chosen term of imprisonment (and discussed the § 3553(a) factors in so doing), it “did not separately explain the factors [in] imposing the term of supervised release.” Op. 4.

The Court found “no procedural error in the district court’s failure to separately explain the basis …


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Categories: plain error, supervised release

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Tuesday, May 25th, 2021

Circuit strikes a special condition of supervised release requiring the defendant to participate in a “restorative justice program” as vague and as delegating judicial authority to the Probation Office

In United States v. Patrick W. Carlineo, 2d Cir. No. 20-1020 (May 25, 2021), a Panel of the Court (Parker, Lohier, and Menashi) invalidated a special condition of supervised release requiring the defendant to “participate in a program known as the Partners in Restorative Initiatives” as too vague and as delegating too much authority to the Probation Office. Judge Parker’s opinion does not invalidate all such conditions. Rather, the takeaway is that if a district judge wishes to impose a restorative-justice-related condition of supervision, the judge must specify the details of the program — preferably one vetted by the Probation Office — and indicate specifically what the defendant must do to satisfy the condition and avoid violation.

Carlineo pleaded guilty to threatening Congresswoman Ihlan Omar and to possessing a gun after a felony conviction. Before sentencing, the district court received an unsolicited letter “from Will Bontrager, who identified himself …

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Wednesday, August 26th, 2020

Reliability challenge to a new testing technique, “computerized voice stress analyzer,” to verify compliance with supervised release, is not ripe for review until supervision begins.

In United States v. Birkedahl, No. 19-2304 (2d Cir. Aug. 25, 2020), the Second Circuit (Sullivan, joined by Park and Nardini)) rejected a challenge to a special condition of supervised release requiring testing by “computerized voice stress analyzer (CVSA)” to verify the defendant’s compliance with conditions in a child pornography possession case. Birkedahl had contested the scientific reliability of this technique and asked for a hearing, which was denied. The Court of Appeals held that the challenge was not “ripe” for review because the technology was rapidly evolving and could advance in the year before it would be used in Birkedahl’s supervision. Since Birkedahl will not be harmed by the test until it is used to monitor his supervised release, the Court held that he may challenge it when his supervision begins and will not be disadvantaged by the Court’s foregoing review until that time.

The court also rejected …


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Categories: ripeness, supervised release

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Tuesday, February 11th, 2020

Second Circuit Rules That No Statement of Reasons Is Required For a VOSR Sentence.

In United States v. Smith, __ F.3d __ , 2020 WL 521612 (Feb. 3, 2020) (Wesley, Chin, Sullivan), the Court of Appeals held that no Statement of Reasons (“SOR”) need be filed for a sentence imposed in a VOSR, even if it is above the Guidelines range, because the Sentencing Commission has not provided an SOR form for a VOSR. The Court overruled its prior precedent holding that a Statement of Reasons was required for a VOSR sentence, e.g. United States v. Aldeen, 792 F.3d 247, 251-52 (2d Cir. 2015); United States v. Sindima, 488 F.3d 81, 85 (2d Cir. 2007), after a “mini-en banc” procedure of circulating the opinion to all active members of the Court. The Second Circuit reasoned that the prior rule was based on an earlier version of the 18 U.S.C. §3553(c)(2) which was amended in 2010. Unlike the former statute, which required


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Categories: sentencing, statement of reasons, supervised release

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Tuesday, October 29th, 2019

Circuit Strikes Supervised Release Condition Based on Variation from Pronounced Sentence

A criminal defendant has the right to be present at the pronouncement of sentence. “Therefore, after a sentence has been pronounced, the written judgment may clarify the terms of the spoken sentence, but may not add to them.” If there is a substantive difference between the spoken and written versions of a sentence, the spoken version ordinarily controls.

Based on this rule, in United States v. Dodd, 18-2320 (2d Cir. Oct. 28, 2019), the Second Circuit ordered the district court to strike a condition of supervised release that the court had added to the written judgment, but which it had not imposed orally at sentencing. The condition prohibited the defendant from maintaining or opening any bank or financial accounts without approval from his probation officer. Because the condition had not been part of the oral sentence, on appeal the government conceded that it must be vacated.

In the same …


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Categories: sentencing, supervised release, Uncategorized

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Monday, August 19th, 2019

Second Circuit Vacates Excessive Community Service Condition

Today in United States v. Parkins, No. 18-1019 (2d Cir. Aug. 19, 2019), the Second Circuit—for the second time—reversed a district court’s imposition of more than 400 hours of community service as a special condition of supervised release.

Back in 2017, the defendant was sentenced to time served and three years of supervised release for his role in bank and health care fraud conspiracies. As a special condition of supervised release, the district court imposed 300 hours of community service per year, for a total of 900 hours.

The defendant appealed, arguing that this amount of community service violated 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d) because it was not reasonably related to any legitimate statutory purpose of supervised released; it involved a greater deprivation of liberty than reasonably necessary; and it was inconsistent with Sentencing Guidelines Section 5F1.3 Application Note 1, which states that community service “generally should not be imposed …


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Categories: sentencing, supervised release

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Monday, June 3rd, 2019

Pretrial detention later credited against a term of imprisonment imposed upon conviction tolls period of supervised release under § 3624(e)

Section 3624(e) of Title 18 of the U.S.C. provides that “[a] term of supervised release does not run during any period in which the person is imprisoned in connection with a conviction for a Federal, State, or local crime unless the imprisonment is for a period of less than 30 consecutive days.” The question sometimes arises as to whether pretrial detention similarly tolls the term of supervised release. Although pretrial detention is not, on first look, a “period in which the person is imprisoned in connection with a conviction” for a crime, things look murkier when considered retrospectively. This is because courts often, upon the defendant’s subsequent conviction for the offense for which he was detained pretrial, credit that period of detention against the term of imprisonment ultimately imposed. Indeed, § 3585(b) requires such credit in federal cases.

Today the Supreme Court ruled in Mont v. United States, Sup. Ct. …

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Wednesday, May 8th, 2019

Circuit Vacates Special Condition of Supervised Release

The Second Circuit today vacated a special condition of supervised release and remanded for further proceedings. In United States v. Smith, which you can read here, the Circuit relied on its recent decision in United States v. Betts, 886 F.3d 198, 202 (2d Cir. 2018). In Betts, the Court held that “A District Court is required to make an individualized assessment when determining whether to impose a special condition of supervised release, and to state on the record the reason for imposing it.” Where the district court does not give the reason, the special condition can survive appeal “only if the district court’s reasoning is ‘self-evident in the record.'” Opinion at 3 (quoting Betts). In Smith, the district court imposed a special condition that prohibited Smith from consuming alcohol, but made no individualized assessment in determining whether to impose that condition. The district court’s comment …


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Categories: supervised release, Uncategorized

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Friday, November 9th, 2018

Judge Weinstein on Alcohol-Related Supervised Release Violations

Judge Weinstein issued an opinion this week terminating the supervised release of a defendant who violated a standard condition of release by consuming alcohol while in a drug treatment program. See United States v. Thomas, No. 15-cr-382, DE 575 (Nov. 6, 2018), available here. The opinion builds on Judge Weinstein’s more extensive opinion in United States v. Trotter concerning violations of supervised release for marijuana use. As Judge Weinstein urged in Trotter, practitioners should move to modify or terminate supervised release where the defendant’s only violations consist of minor infractions. (Indeed, Judge Weinstein suggests in Trotter that practitioners should move for termination of supervised release in all cases where the defendant has completed one year of supervision.)

As is customary with Judge Weinstein, the opinion’s introduction provides an excellent synopsis of its analysis:

The instant memorandum considers [an] important issue in supervised release: what to do with


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Categories: sentencing, sentencing findings, supervised release

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