United States v. Urrutia-Contreras, No. 14-50113 (9th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseDefendant pleaded guilty to illegal re-entry and was on supervised release at the time he attempted to re-enter the United States illegally. Defendant subsequently pleaded guilty to attempted illegal re-entry. The court imposed a sentence of fifteen months for violating the terms of supervised release to run consecutively to the twelve months imposed for attempted illegal re-entry. Defendant appealed the sentence imposed for violating the terms of his supervised release. A panel of the Ninth Circuit vacated the sentence imposed for violating the terms of supervised release and remanded for resentencing, holding (1) Fed. R. Crim. P. 32, which requires the district court to solicit the government’s position with respect to sentencing, should be used to “fill in the gap” in Fed. R. Crim. P. 32.1, which is silent with respect to the question of whether the government must be given an opportunity to make a statement regarding revocation sentencing; and (2) the district court in this case erred by failing to give the government an opportunity to make such a statement during the sentencing portion of Defendant’s revocation proceeding, and the error was not harmless.
Court Description: Criminal Law. Vacating a sentence imposed for violation of the terms of supervised release and remanding for resentencing, the panel held that Fed. R. Crim. P. 32, which requires the district court to solicit the government’s position with respect to sentencing, should be used to “fill in the gap” in Fed. R. Crim. P. 32.1, which is silent as to whether the government must be given an opportunity to make a statement with respect to revocation sentencing. The panel held that the district court erred by failing to give the government an opportunity to make such a statement during the sentencing portion of the defendant’s revocation proceeding, and that the error was not harmless.
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