United States v. Medina-Mora, No. 14-1420 (7th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseWhen sentenced in 2009 for unlawful reentry by an alien, 8 U.S.C. 1326, Medina-Mora was serving undischarged terms in an Illinois state prison on a drug charge and a weapons charge. In open court, the judge said that Medina-Mora was “committed to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons to be imprisoned for a concurrent term of 77 months on Count One.” In its written judgment, however, the court said nothing about a “concurrent” sentence. The Bureau of Prisons has used the written judgment to measure Medina-Mora’s imprisonment and has treated his federal sentence as consecutive to the state sentences, so he did not begin earning credit toward his federal sentence until he finished his state sentences. Medina-Mora moved, under FRCP 36, to correct a clerical error in the written judgment. The judge denied the motion, concluding that his “use of the word ‘concurrent’ when imposing the sentence was in error.” The Seventh Circuit reversed. When a court pronounces sentence orally, that is the defendant’s sentence, if the oral pronouncement is unambiguous.
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