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Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Marc K. Weathers
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 8, 2010 Decided February 11, 2011

No. 07-3115

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

MARC K. WEATHERS,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 97cr00165-02)

Beverly G. Dyer, Assistant Federal Public Defender, argued

the cause for appellant. With her on the briefs was A. J.

Kramer, Federal Public Defender.

Elizabeth Gabriel, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Ronald C.

Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and Elizabeth Trosman and Angela

G. Schmidt, Assistant U.S. Attorneys. Roy W. McLeese III,

Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an appearance.

Before: TATEL, Circuit Judge, and WILLIAMS and

RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judges.

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Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

RANDOLPH.

RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge: The question is whether

the district court’s written judgment setting forth the defendant’s

sentence contradicted the court’s oral pronouncement of the

sentence or instead clarified it.

While in prison awaiting trial on thirty-some counts of rape

and related offenses, Marc K. Weathers took steps to have the

prosecutor, the rape victims and an informant murdered. See

United States v. Weathers, 186 F.3d 948, 949-51 (D.C. Cir.

1999). For these crimes, he was convicted on two federal and

four D.C. Code counts. At the sentencing hearing in 1997, the

district court ordered Weathers’ sentences on the federal counts

(counts one and four) to run consecutively and his sentences on

the D.C. counts (counts two, three, five and six) to run

consecutively to each other and concurrently with the sentences

on the federal counts. We vacated Weathers’ conviction on

count five and remanded for resentencing. United States v.

Weathers, 493 F.3d 229, 239 (D.C. Cir. 2007).

By the time of the resentencing hearing in 2007, the

Sentencing Guidelines had become advisory only. See United

States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 245 (2005). Weathers urged the

court to give him a sentence below the Guidelines range and to

impose concurrent, rather than consecutive, terms of

imprisonment. After giving Weathers and his counsel the

opportunity to speak, the court explained that it was “going to

impose the sentence that was . . . imposed approximately ten

years ago.” The court went on to describe the sentence it was

ordering. The terms of imprisonment were identical to the

previous sentence, save for the vacated count five. The court

said that the sentences on the two federal counts (one and four)

were to run consecutively to each other and concurrently with

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the sentences on the D.C. counts, as they had in the 1997

sentence. The court did not mention whether the sentences on

the D.C. counts were to run consecutively to each other, as they

had in the original sentence. The written judgment form, signed

a week later, ordered the sentences on the D.C. counts to run

consecutively to each other and concurrently with the federal

sentences.

 Federal law provides that multiple terms of imprisonment

imposed at the same time run concurrently unless the court

orders that they run consecutively. 18 U.S.C. § 3584(a). 

Because the court did not, at the resentencing hearing, say the

D.C. sentences were to run consecutively and because “the

written judgment form is a nullity to the extent it conflicts with

the previously pronounced sentence,” United States v. Booker,

436 F.3d 238, 245 (D.C. Cir. 2006), Weathers reasons that his

sentences on the D.C. counts must run concurrently with each

other. 

If the concern is with accuracy, one wonders why a court’s

oral pronouncement of a sentence would ever take precedence

over its written judgment. It is commonly understood that the

written word is usually more precise than the spoken word. The

writer can be more deliberate and careful in his choice of

language, he can edit his writing before publishing it and he may

have more time to formulate what he wishes to convey. (Of

course there may be no appreciable difference if the speaker is

simply reciting a written text; there is no indication the court

was doing so here.)

Yet the law is settled that the oral sentence controls. See

United States v. Love, 593 F.3d 1, 9 (D.C. Cir. 2010). As a

result of a 2004 amendment, the principle is now reflected in the

Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. See FED. R. CRIM.

P. 35(c). One supporting theory is that the defendant has a right

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to be present at sentencing and that permitting the written

judgment to control would be tantamount to sentencing the

defendant in absentia. See United States v. Villano, 816 F.2d

1448, 1452-53 (10th Cir. 1987) (en banc); see also FED. R.

CRIM. P. 43. Another theory, often repeated, is that the oral

sentence is the actual judgment of the court and the written

judgment is merely evidence of the actual judgment. See, e.g.,

Booker, 436 F.3d at 245; Gilliam v. United States, 269 F.2d 770,

772 (D.C. Cir. 1959); Villano, 816 F.2d at 1452-53; United

States v. Marquez, 506 F.2d 620, 622 (2d Cir. 1974). This

rationale seems more conclusory than analytical. Rule 32(k) of

the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which specifies what

the judgment in a criminal case must contain, plainly

contemplates a written judgment—the “judge must sign the

judgment, and the clerk must enter it.” The written judgment,

then, would seem to be the “actual” judgment, not merely

evidence of it. See also FED. R. APP. P. 4(b)(1)(A) (the

defendant’s notice of appeal must be filed within 14 days of “the

entry of . . . the judgment”); Pollard v. United States, 352 U.S.

354, 360 & n.4 (1957); Richards v. United States, 192 F.2d 602,

603-04 (D.C. Cir. 1951).

Although the written judgment does not control, it is not an

empty formality. The written judgment may clarify ambiguities

in the court’s oral statements. Love, 593 F.3d at 9. “Therefore,

we will not remand for the district court to correct a written

judgment that clarifies—rather than contradicts—the oral

pronouncement of sentence.” Ibid.

So here. Although the district court did not use the word

“consecutively” in pronouncing sentence on the D.C. counts, the

court had stated a moment earlier that it was “going to impose

the sentence that . . . [it] imposed” at Weathers’ first sentencing,

a sentence that included consecutive terms for the D.C.

violations. An ambiguity thus arose. The written judgment did

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not contradict anything the court said, but it did make clear that

the sentences on the D.C. counts were to run consecutively. 

That was entirely consistent with the court’s statement that the

new sentence would be the same as the old one (with the

exception of count five, as everyone understood). And the

combination of the oral sentence and the written judgment

satisfied 18 U.S.C. § 3584(a)’s requirement that the court

affirmatively order consecutive sentences.

Weathers thinks his case is indistinguishable from the en

banc decision of the Tenth Circuit in United States v. Villano. 

But there is an essential difference. The Villano court found that

the written judgment contradicted the spoken judgment. 816

F.2d at at 1451. Here there would be a contradiction only if we

assumed that the spoken judgment made the D.C. sentences run

concurrently. To make that assumption would be to assume

away the question in the case and ignore the district court’s

statement that it was imposing the same sentence as it had

imposed ten years earlier. 

Affirmed.

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