United States v. Delano, No. 19-5103 (10th Cir. 2020)
Annotate this CaseDefendant-Appellant Johnny Delano was convicted in 1993 of armed bank robbery, sentenced to 262 months in prison, and ordered to pay $11,558 in restitution. The restitution was ordered pursuant to the Victim and Witness Protection Act of 1982 (“VWPA”). After Delano was released from prison, he began serving a five-year term of supervised release. Delano’s supervised release was revoked in 2017 and he was sentenced to serve an additional twenty-seven months’ incarceration. He was also ordered to pay the unpaid balance of the restitution imposed in 1993. Delano challenged the restitution portion of his current sentence, arguing his obligation to pay restitution under the VWPA expired twenty years after his original sentence was imposed and the plain language of the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (“MVRA”) precluded the district court from reviving or reimposing restitution. The Tenth Circuit concluded, in light of the plain language of the MVRA, Congress clearly stated that the MVRA had only prospective application. The district court’s error was therefore plain, and the Court reversed the part of Delano’s sentence ordering him to pay restitution in the amount of $5,159.59.
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