蜜桃视频

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday limited what factors district judges may consider when sentencing defendants for violating the terms of supervised release, vacating the Sixth Circuit's findings that allowed lower courts to undertake the same analysis for revocation proceedings as primary sentencings.

In a 7-2 decision, the justices held that courts may not take into account the "retributive considerations" — the need for the sentence to reflect the seriousness of the offense, promote respect for the law and provide just punishment — which are among the so-called 3553(a) factors that federal judges must weigh when sentencing defendants in the first instance.

Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said supervised release isn't a punishment in lieu of incarceration, but instead "fulfills rehabilitative ends" and "provides individuals with postconfinement assistance."

"So when a defendant violates a condition of supervised release, it makes sense that a court must consider the forward-looking ends of sentencing (deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation), but may not consider the backward-looking purpose of retribution," Justice Barrett said.

In the appeal of Esteras v. U.S. and two associated cases, Edgardo Esteras, Timothy Jaimez and Toriano Leaks argued that trial courts wrongly included 3553(a)'s retributive factors when sentencing for supervised release infractions, since those factors are omitted from the statute outlining the relevant sentencing considerations.

In the main case, Esteras pled guilty in 2018 to conspiring to distribute heroin and was sentenced to a year in prison, followed by six years of supervised release. After being arrested for domestic violence three years into the supervised release term, the district judge revoked Esteras' release and sentenced him to two years imprisonment, explaining that one of the reasons was to "promote respect for the law."

The Sixth Circuit affirmed their convictions, joining four other appeals courts in finding that judges can take into account all the 3553(a) factors in sentences for violating supervised release, and adding to a deep circuit split.

Justice Barrett said that since Congress set out 10 3553(a) factors that courts must consider for general sentencing purposes, but only named some of those factors to be taken into account when sentencing defendants for violations of supervised release, "and supervised release only," the natural conclusion is that lawmakers didn't want courts to consider the absent factors.

"This is a distinction with a difference. And Congress's decision to exclude retribution from the calculus also comports with supervised release's role in the criminal justice scheme," Justice Barrett said.

The government had argued that the statute governing what factors must be considered by a judge conducting a supervised release sentencing doesn't prohibit consideration of other factors, as Esteras and the others contend.

Moreover, the nonretributive considerations that supervised release sentencing courts may consider are too intertwined with some of the other 3553(a) factors, prosecutors said. For example, separating the listed factor of affording adequate deterrence from the unlisted factor of promoting respect for the law raises feasibility problems.

The majority noted in the ruling that if Congress had wanted to let judges, if they so choose, consider the retributive sentencing factors in supervised release sentencing, why did it exclude them from the list of considerations that are germane to a revocation proceeding?

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, said that while Section 3583(e), the supervised release statute at issue, sets out mandatory factors that must be considered at revocation sentencings, that doesn't mean there are no other permissible factors district courts may consider.

"The enumeration of things that must be done generally does not suggest that no other things may be done," Justice Alito said.

The dissent maintains that the majority's decision is unworkable, noting that one of the retributive factors now deemed unlawful for judges to consider, the seriousness of the offense, is inextricably linked to the mandatory factor of the nature and circumstances of the offense.

Moreover, asking district court judges to comb their minds to ensure that no consideration of anything retributive impacts their sentencing decisions is a bridge too far, Justice Alito said.

"Imposing such a soul-searching obligation as a requirement that may be enforced in litigation is utterly impractical," the dissent said.

Not so, Justice Barrett countered in a majority opinion footnote, citing how some trial evidence is routinely admitted for a limited purpose, with a limiting instruction.

"We routinely require judges and juries to attend to some considerations while ignoring others," Justice Barrett said.

Justice Barrett was joined in the majority opinion by Justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Elena Kagan and Brett Kavanaugh. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson filed concurring opinions.

Counsel for Esteras and a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Northern Ohio both declined to comment.

The justices' ruling could affect thousands of cases each year, the petitioners have said, pointing to research by the U.S. Sentencing Commission finding 108,000 federal supervision violations from 2013 to 2017, with 86% of those resulting in a new prison term.

The government is represented by U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer.

Esteras, Jaimez and Leaks are represented by Stephen Newman, Christian Grostic, Lori Riga, Jeffrey Lazarus, Catherine Adinaro Shusky, Matthew Gay, Calland Ferraro and Aleesha Kazi of the Federal Public Defender's Office for the Northern District of Ohio, and Joseph Medici and Kevin Schad of the Federal Public Defender's Office for the Southern District of Ohio.

The case is Esteras et al. v U.S., case number 23-7483, in the U.S. Supreme Court.

–Editing by Robert Rudinger and Emily Kokoll.

Update: This article has been updated with more information from the ruling.