United States v. Clark, No. 14-10735 (5th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseDefendant appealed the district court's 2014 amended judgment reflecting the dismissal in 1998 of one of five counts of which defendant was convicted and sentenced, without conducting a resentencing hearing and enabling defendant to rely on the Supreme Court’s decisions in Apprendi v. New Jersey, and Alleyne v. United States, to challenge his two mandatory life sentences. The court concluded that, because the entry of the amended judgment was not the imposition of a new sentence, and the sentence modification did not make the sentence more onerous, defendant’s presence was not required under Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 43, and defendant was not entitled to a hearing at which he was present, represented by counsel, and had the opportunity to be heard. United States v. Hadden, like the case here, addressed whether resentencing was required after a 18 U.S.C. 924(c) conviction and consecutive sentence were vacated and the other counts and sentences were left undisturbed. The court further concluded that the district court was not obligated to resentence defendant on the basis that the sentencing package had become unbundled. Because defendant’s convictions and sentences became final before Apprendi and Alleyne were decided, the law of the case doctrine precluded him from relying on them to challenge his sentences on other counts of which he had been convicted. Defendant was not entitled to a resentencing hearing before the district court entered the amended judgment so that he could make Apprendi- and Alleyne-based challenges to the sentences on other counts. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.