# United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 20, 2015 Decided March 25, 2016

No. 14-3055

U NITED S TATES OF A MERICA , A PPELLEE

v.

D WAYNE E. H EAD , A PPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 1:07-pt-00348-1)

Robert S. Becker , appointed by the court, argued the cause and filed the briefs for appellant.

Peter S. Smith , Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Vincent H. Cohen Jr. , Acting U.S. Attorney, and Elizabeth Trosman and John P. Mannarino , Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Before: P ILLARD , Circuit Judge , and S ILBERMAN and S ENTELLE , Senior Circuit Judges

. Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge P ILLARD

.2
Dissenting opinion filed by Senior Circuit Judge S ENTELLE

.

P ILLARD , Circuit Judge : While on supervised release following a prison term for a fe deral drug-dealing conviction, Dwayne Head re-offended, there by violating a condition of his supervised release. The Di strict of Columbia Superior Court sentenced Head to a four-year prison term for that new offense. A federal district j udge then revoked Head’s term of supervised release and im posed a 30-month term of imprisonment that was to run consecutive to the four-year sentence for the D.C. offense. Head argues—and the government agrees—that, in imposing the revocation term as consecutive to rather than concurrent with the new sentence, the district court appears to have erroneous ly invoked the Sentencing Guidelines in effect at the time of sentencing, rather than the Guidelines in effect in 1988 when Head committed the underlying offense. Use of the wrong Guidelines, Head contends, was a violation of the Ex Post Facto Clause’s protection against the retroactive increase of punishment for a completed offense. The government counters that the apparent error made no difference. Because Head failed to present his ex post facto claim to the district court, we review that court’s decision only for plain error. The judge’s error in relying on post-offense Guidelines, in violation of the Ex Post Facto Clause, was plain, so we vacate Head’s post-revocation sentence and remand to the district court for sentencing under the applicable Guidelines.

I.

A.

In response to criminal ch arges of drug dealing in September 1988, Head pled guilty on December 4, 1989, to3
possession with intent to distri bute thirty grams of cocaine base. See United States v. Head , 927 F.2d 1361, 1364, 1374 (6th Cir. 1991). A federal judge in Ohio sentenced Head to 235 months in prison and five y ears of supervised release.

Head was released from prison and began serving his five-year term of supervised release on November 14, 2006. When Head moved to the Dist rict of Columbia in 2007, the district court here took jurisd iction over Head’s supervised release. Throughout 2008 and 2009, Head’s probation officer reported that Head had failed to comply with various conditions of his supervised release, but initially recommended that the court take no action, in part because Head was employed. On April 25, 2010, while on supervised release in the District, Head wa s arrested for assault with a dangerous weapon. He was pr osecuted in District of Columbia Superior Court, convi cted of the lesser charge of felony threats, and sentenced to 48 months in prison.

Because of Head’s convicti on in superior court, the supervised release relating to his decades-old federal conviction was subject to revocation. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583 (d), (e)(3). At a January 2012 status conference, the federal district judge revoked Head’s su pervised releas e with this explanation:

Well, based upon the conviction, the Court revokes your period of supervised re lease in this case. The sentencing commission gui delines actually require that the sentence here—whi ch I’ll give you the minimum under the guidelines, which is 30 months. But the guidelines do require that it be consecutive unless I find a basis for a departure.4
Because of your really poor prior record, I can’t find a basis for departure, so the 30 months will be consecutive.

App. 95. Head did not timely obj ect to the determination that the Guidelines required that the sentence be consecutive rather than concurrent.

B.

The Ex Post Facto Clause, U.S. C ONST ., Art. I, § 9, cl. 3, prohibits, among other things, the application of any law that “changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed,” Calder v. Bull , 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 386, 390 ( 1798), including changes in the law that sufficiently raise the risk of increased punishment, see Peugh v. United States , 133 S. Ct. 2072, 2082 (2013); United States v. Turner , 548 F.3d 1094, 1100 (D.C. Cir. 2008). Federal law generally requires district courts to use the Sentencing Guidelines “in effect on the date the defendant is sentenced,” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(4)(A)(ii), unless doing so would increase punishment or sufficiently enhance the risk of an increas e to amount to impermissible ex post facto law, see Peugh , 133 S. Ct. at 2081. A defendant does “not have to show defin itively that he would have received a lesser sentence had the district court used the [correct] Guidelines.” Turner , 548 F.3d at 1100.

The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 authorizes a sentencing court to impose as “a part of the sentence a requirement that the defendant be placed on a term of supervised release after impris onment.” 18 U.S.C. § 3583(a). During supervised release, the o ffender is required to abide by certain conditions, including th at he not commit another federal, state, or local crime. Id. § 3583(d). If the court finds that an offender has violated a condition of his supervised5
release, the court may “revoke” the term of supervised release and require the offender to serve all or part of that term in prison. Id. § 3583(e)(3). A sentence imposed upon revocation of supervised rel ease is not punishment for the violation of the supe rvised-release condition, but “part of the penalty for the initial offense.” Johnson v. United States , 529 U.S. 694, 700 (2000).

The Sentencing Commission a dded section 7B1.3(f)—the policy statement at issue here—as part of a November 1, 1990, revision that replaced in its entirety the chapter of the Guidelines that applies to violations of probation or supervised release. U NITED S TATES S ENTENCING C OMMISSION , G UIDELINES M ANUAL app. C, amend. 362 (1990). Before 1990, the Sentencing Guidelines were silent as to whether a revocation term of imprisonment was to be served consecutive to, or concurrently with, any other
sentence. See U NITED S TATES S ENTENCING C OMMISSION , G UIDELINES M ANUAL ch.7 (October 1987, effective June 15, 1988). As added in 1990, section 7B1.3(f) reads:

Any term of imprisonment imposed upon the revocation of probation or supervised release shall be ordered to be served consecutively to any sentence of imprisonment that the defe ndant is serving, whether or not the sentence of im prisonment being served resulted from the conduct that is the basis of the revocation of probation or supervised release.

USSG § 7B1.3(f) (1990). The revised Guidelines thus newly directed that a term of impr isonment imposed on revocation of supervised release be ordere d to run consecutively to any other prison term.6

II.

We have jurisdiction over Head ’s appeal of the district court’s sentencing order under 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a). Because Head did not raise an ex post facto claim before the district court, that challenge is forfe ited, so subject to plain-error review. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b); United States v. Olano

, 507 U.S. 725, 731-32 (1993). Under Olano ’s four-pronged framework for assessing whether a court may correct an error not timely raised in the district court, we hold that the district court’s reliance on the incorrect Guidelines was (1) legal error that (2) was plain, (3) affected the defendant’s “substantial rights,” and (4) seriously affected the “fairness, integrity or public reputation of the j udicial proceedings.” Id. at 732. We accordingly exercise our discreti on to identify and correct the

error.

A.

The government acknowledges that it “is a reasonable inference” that the judge who se ntenced Head was referring to the then-current, 2011 Guidelines policy statement in section 7B1.3(f). Gov’t Br. 16, n.10. At sentencing, the judge did not expressly cite a particular version or section of the Guidelines, but his reference to what the Guidelines “require” tracked section 7B1.3(f)’s provision that a revocation sentence “shall be ordered to be served consecutively” to the sentence for the new criminal offense. See USSG § 7B1.3 (1990); see also USSG § 7B1.3 (2011) (same). As noted above, the Guidelines in effect when Head committed the underlying offense included no requirement or presumption of consecutive prison terms upon revocation of supervised release. See USSG ch. 7 (1988). Unconstrained by section 7B1.3(f), the district court had discretion under the 1988 Guidelines and the general guidance offered by 18 U.S.C. §§7
3553(a), 3583(e), and 3584 to impose either a consecutive or
concurrent sentence. See United States v. Ayers , 795 F.3d 168, 172 (D.C. Cir. 2015); see also United States v. Dees , 467 F.3d 847, 852 (3d Cir. 2006) ( holding, in agreement with Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, Eighth, Ni nth, and Eleventh Circuits, that courts’ general sentencing discretion under 18 U.S.C. § 3584 authorizes district courts revoking supervised release to impose consecutive or concurre nt sentences). Reliance on section 7B1.3(f) here created at least a “substantial risk” that Head’s sentence was more severe than it would have been had the court sentenced him under the Guidelines in effect at the time of his offense. Turner , 548 F.3d at 1100; see Peugh , 133 S. Ct. at 2084.

We appreciate the possibility that, in referring to what the Guidelines “require,” the di strict judge simply spoke inartfully. The district judge commented on the lack of “basis for departure,” which the governme nt reads to suggest that he appreciated he had some disc retion. App. 95. And the judge noted Head’s “really poor prio r record” in violation of the terms of supervised release, which might justify the same length of sentence in any event. Perhaps he assumed that he had authority to avoid the consecutiveness requirement, but decided not to. Id

. 1

1 The term “departure” typically refers to the imposition of a sentence outside the Guidelines’ numerical range. We need not decide here in what circumstances a district court might depart from section 7B1.3(f)’s requirement of consecutive sentencing, where that requirement applies. We go no further than to observe that, unlike a fully discretionary choice, a consecutiveness requirement subject to departure would seem to contain a default bias in favor of the requirement. As the Supreme Court has explained, grounds for departure are relatively narrow and “unavailable” in most cases because “the [Sentencing] Commis sion will have adequately taken8
But it is also possible that the judge felt constrained by section 7B1.3(f) to give the l onger sentence—at least in the absence of a departure-worthy reason. Had the judge appreciated the full scope of his discretion, he might have deemed a concurrent sentence “sufficient, but not greater than necessary.” 18 U.S.C. 3553(a). He might, for example, have chosen a concurrent sentence because, by the time of the revocation sentencing, Head had al ready served the entirety of his five-year term of supervised release. 2

On the limited record, we ca nnot say with confidence that the district judge appreciated the full range of discretion the applicable law afforded. He did not mention “discretion,” nor did he explain how he might have taken into account the statutory factors that a judge must consider in exercising discretion in sentencing. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 3583(e); 3553(a).

The government contends that there is no ex post facto defect in Head’s sentence, or that any error was surely inconsequential, for two princi pal reasons. It characterizes the court as having made the re quisite discreti onary decision unaffected by its apparent invocation of the wrong Guidelines, and contends that the court would have reached the same sentence under the older Guidelines.

all relevant factors into account, and no departure will be legally permissible.” United States v. Booker , 543 U.S. 220, 234 (2005); see Turner , 548 F.3d at 1099 (noting that “judges are more likely to sentence within the Guidelines in order to avoid the increased scrutiny that is likely to result from imposing a sentence outside the Guidelines”).
2 The fact that Head completed the term of supervised release did not moot the revocation because the violation triggering revocation occurred during the term of supervised release. In such circumstances, 18 U.S.C. § 3583(i) allows a court reasonable time to adjudicate the revocation of supervised release.9
The government describes the court’s order as “ultimately driven by” a discretionary judicial determination that Head’s record merited a consecutive sentence. See Gov’t Br. 18. If the court in fact imposed the term of imprisonment consecutively as a matter of discretion not hemmed in by section 7B1.3(f)’s consecutiveness rule, the government argues, it acted consistently with the Guidelines in effect at the time of the offense—and thereby avoided ex post facto application of the later Guidelines. See Gov’t Br. 17-18. True enough.

Our difficulty is that we are constrained by the limited record statements of the court’s reasons for the sentence it imposed. Under our decision in Turner , we must consider how discretion is exercised “in practice” in th e particular case; only in that way can we discern whether limits on the exercise of discretion “actually ‘create[] a significant risk of prolonging [an inmate’s] incar ceration.’” 548 F.3d at 1100 (quoting Fletcher v. Reilly , 433 F.3d 867, 876-77 (D.C. Cir. 2006)) (alterations in original ). In apparent erroneous reference to section 7B1.3(f) , the judge said that the guidelines “require” consecutive sentences. App. 95. It is not evident on the record that the judge’s decision making was equivalent for ex post facto purposes to the discretionary choice between consecutive an d concurrent sentencing, guided by the full range of sent encing factors made relevant by 18 U.S.C. 3553(a).

A misapplication of revised Sentencing Guidelines would not necessarily violate the Ex Post Facto Clause or require resentencing if the record were clear that “the District Court would have imposed the same sentence under the older, more lenient Guidelines that it im posed under the newer, more punitive ones,” Peugh , 133 S. Ct. at 2088 n.8; see Gov’t Br. 16-19. But, for the reasons just discussed, the record here10

does not make that clear. Instead, as the government acknowledges, the dist rict judge appears to have been under the misconception that he was constrained by section 7B1.3(f). See App. 95. An erroneous belief that a harsher sentencing requirement disp laced an otherwise broadly discretionary choice creates th e kind of risk of increased punishment against which the Ex Post Facto Clause protects. See Peugh , 133 S. Ct at 2082. We re mand for resentencing so as not to pretermit the trial judge ’s role in exer cising the full discretion the law provides.

B.

The three other Olano factors also support vacatur and remand for resentencing here: The ex post facto violation was plain, it affected Head’s substant ial rights, and it impaired the integrity of the sentencing proceeding. 507 U.S. at 732.

The district court’s error was “plain.” Olano , 507 U.S. at 734. In this circuit, one circ umstance in which an error may be plain is “if, at the time it was made, a clear precedent in the Supreme Court or this circu it established its erroneous character.” United States v. Terrell , 696 F.3d 1257, 1260 (D.C. Cir. 2012); see In re Sealed Case , 573 F.3d 844, 851 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (holding that an error can be plain even in the absence of binding case law where it violates an “absolutely clear” legal norm) . In January 2012, when the district court revoked Head’s supervised release and ordered him imprisoned, precedent from th is circuit established that sentencing a defendant under Guid elines other th an those in effect at the time of the offense that “created a substantial risk that [the] sentence [would be] mo re severe” was a violation of the Ex Post Facto Clause. See Turner , 548 F.3d at 1100.

Application of the wrong Guidelines affected Head’s “substantial rights.” Olano , 507 U.S. at 734 (quoting Fed. R.11
Crim. P. 52(b)). In the senten cing context, an error affects a defendant’s substantial rights where there is “a reasonable likelihood that the sentencing co urt’s obvious errors affected his sentence.” United States v. Saro , 24 F.3d 283, 288 (D.C. Cir. 1994). The circuit courts are in broad agreement that, even under plain-error review, the use of the wrong Guidelines, resulting in the risk of an increased sentence, “should be presumed to affect the defendant’s substantial rights.” See United States v. Syme , 276 F.3d 131, 158 (3d Cir. 2002) (quoting United States v. Knight , 266 F.3d 203, 207 (3d. Cir. 2001); see also, e.g

., United States v. Davis , 397 F.3d 340, 349-50 (6th Cir. 2005) (c ollecting cases from the Second, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits). To the extent that the district j udge may have understood the 2011 Guidelines to require consecutive sentencing here, that created a risk of a longer term of incarceration than Head would have received under the 1988 Guidelines—a risk sufficient to violate the Ex Post Facto Clause, see Peugh , 133 S. Ct. at 2084, and impair Head’s substa ntial rights, Saro , 24 F.3d at 288.

On plain-error review, a court of appeals should remedy any error that “seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judi cial proceedings.” Puckett v. United States , 556 U.S. 129, 135 (2009) (quoting Olano , 507 U.S. at 736). We exercise that discretion here because, as a practical matter, the district court’s e rror may have extended Head’s incarceration by nearly three years. Application of the wrong Guidelines, apparently resulting in a substantially increased sentence, warrants vacation of the sentence. See, e.g.

, United States v. John , 597 F.3d 263, 285-86 (5th Cir. 2010); United States v. Davis , 397 F.3d 340, 349 (6th Cir. 2005). Our decision accords with that of several courts conducting plainerror review that have found similar sentencing increases, or risks of increases, to be sufficiently significant to call for12

reversal. See

, e.g. , United States v. Myers , 772 F.3d 213, 219 (5th Cir. 2014); United States v. Woodard , 744 F.3d 488, 497 (7th Cir. 2014); United States v. John , 597 F.3d 263, 286 (5th Cir. 2010); Davis , 397 F.3d at 345-49; United States v. Comstock , 154 F.3d 845, 850 (8th Cir. 1998); United States v. Orr , 68 F.3d 1247, 1252 (10th Cir. 1995). We hold that there is on this limited record the “r equisite degree of risk,” Peugh

, 133 S. Ct. at 2082, that the dist rict court’s decision stemmed from ex post facto application of a Gu ideline adopted after Head committed the offense to require resentencing.

* * *

We have carefully considered Head’s several other claims and find no further error. Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3742(f), we vacate the distri ct court’s January 20, 2012, order and remand with instructio ns to re-sentence Head in light of the Sentencing Guidelines in effect at the time of his offense.

So ordered.S E N TE L L E , Senior Circuit Judge
, dissenting: W hile I

rec og nize that the majority corr ec t l y demonstrates that the di s t ri ct court technica lly err ed in the wording supporting its
sentenc e, I cannot join a

n opinion that vacates and rema nds the trial court’s decision o s t ensibly under plain err or revie w. I ndeed, I fea r that this circuit is drifting towa rd a jurisprude nce in which there is no d istinction betwee n revie wing for “plain

err or” and simp l y reviewing to deter mine whether the district
court err ed. See United States v. Brown
, 808 F.3d 865 (D.C. Cir. 2015).

The majority acknow ledg es that appellant “fa iled to prese nt” his ex post facto “ar g ument to the district court.” Maj. Op. at 2. I t further

acknow ledg es that we will ther efor e revie w the court’s “dec is i o n o n l y for plain err or.” I would note the
context of that review arises from a sentenc ing proce eding in which the district cour

t stated:

Well, based upon the conviction, the Court revoke s y our period of supervised rele ase in this case

. The [S ]entencing [C ]om mission g uidelines actua lly require that the sentenc e here —whi ch I ’ll g ive y ou the minimum under the
g uid el i n es , which is 30 months. But the g uidelines do require that it be consec utiv e unless I find a basis for depar ture.

Be cause of y our rea lly poor prior rec ord, I can’ t find a basis for de parture , so the 30 months will be consecutive.

App. 95.

I f we are in fac t revie wing this proce eding under the plain

err or standard, then we aff irm unless we conclude that the district court co mmitt ed (1) leg al err or that (2) was plain, (3) aff ec t ed the defe ndant’s “substantial rig hts,” and (4) seriously2

aff ecte d the “fa irness, integ rity or public reputation of the judicial proce eding s.” United States v. Ol a no , 507 U.S. 725, 731–32 (1993) ( quoted at Maj. Op. 8)

.

The leg al err or element is no differ ent than leg al err or under revie w other than plai n err or, except that we do not notice it unless it mee ts the total criter ia applicable under the plain err or standard. The majority
, afte r a thoroug h scholarly plunge into the history of the applicable g uidelines, conclude s that while the
sentenc ing judge corr ectly stated the require ments of the curr ent gu i delines as to consec utive or concur rent sentenc ing, t h e version in eff

ect in 1988 at the time of the defe ndant’s commission of his first offe nse (for which the curr ent revoc ation is punishment), unlike the g uidelines in eff ect at the time of the

revoc ation, g ave the district judge discretion to s en t ence

concur rently rathe r than consec utively

. Whil e I am not at all

cer tain that this err or satisfies any common definition of “plain,” I acknow ledg e that it is err or. Howeve r, when the judge ’s record rec itation g oes on to make plain that he knew that he could depar

t a nd enter a concur

rent sentenc e but w as unwilling
to do so beca

use of the seriousness of the defe ndant’s rec ord, the chanc es that th i s er ror (whe ther or not plain) aff ecte d the defe ndant’s substantial r ights seem to me exceeding small a nd,
at best, theore tical. L ikewise, the entry of a sentenc e that by the majority ’s acknow ledg ment could be enter ed based o n the judge ’s di scre tion even under the old g uidelines, and would be require d to be enter ed under the curr ent g uidelines, hardly seems to me to seriously aff

ect the “fa irness, integ rity or public reputa tion of the judicial proce eding s.”

There fore
, I respe ctfully dissent from what appea rs to me to be a c onclusion not warr anted unde r plain er ror r eview.