United States Court of Appeals

for the Fifth Circuit ____________

No. 23-50587

____________

United States of America, 

Plaintiff—Appellee,

versus

Manuel De Jesus Orozco-Rangel, 

Defendant—Appellant.

______________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Western District of Texas

USDC No. 2:22-CR-2189-1

______________________________

Before Jones, Smith, and Ho, Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam:*

Manuel Orozco-Rangel pleaded guilty of illegal re-entry. The district 

court sentenced him to 57 months of imprisonment with three years of supervised release (“SR”). Orozco-Rangel appeals only his sentence, averring 

that there is a conflict between the district judge’s oral pronouncement of the 

sentence and the written judgment with respect to the terms of his SR and 

that the written judgment contains a clerical error with respect to the offense 

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* This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

August 7, 2024

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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No. 23-50587

2

of conviction. 

We agree with Orozco-Rangel on both issues. The oral pronouncement conflicted with the written judgment, and the written judgment failed 

to identify the offense of conviction with sufficient specificity. Therefore, we 

remand for the district court to amend the written judgment to conform to 

the oral pronouncement and to correct the clerical error to reflect accurately

the statutory penalty provision. 

I.

Orozco-Rangel was apprehended in Texas after having been deported. 

He stipulated that he had voluntarily reentered without permission to reapply 

for admission and pleaded guilty to one count of illegal reentry in violation of 

8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) and (b)(1) and (2). 

The oral pronouncement stated that “[t]he standard and mandatory 

conditions of supervision are imposed.” Both parties agree that that statement referred to the Western District of Texas’s standing order regarding 

the conditions of SR.

1

 That standing order states, inter alia,

The defendant shall not communicate or interact with someone the defendant knows is engaged in criminal activity. If the 

defendant knows someone has been convicted of a felony, the 

defendant shall not knowingly communicate or interact with 

that person without first getting the permission of the probation 

officer.

. . . .

If the judgment imposes a fine, special assessment, restitution, 

or other criminal monetary penalties, it is a condition of supervision that the defendant shall not incur any new credit charges 

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1 https://www.txwd.uscourts.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Conditions-ofProbation-and-Supervised-Release.pdf. 

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or open additional lines of credit without the approval of the 

probation officer, unless the defendant is in compliance with the 

payment schedule.

Id. at 3 (emphasis added). The written judgment, however, substitutes “court” for “probation officer,” stating,

The defendant shall not communicate or interact with someone the defendant knows is engaged in criminal activity. If the 

defendant knows someone has been convicted of a felony, the 

defendant shall not knowingly communicate or interact with 

that person without first getting the permission of the court.

. . . .

If the judgment imposes a fine, special assessment, restitution, 

or other criminal monetary penalties, it is a condition of supervision that the defendant shall not incur any new credit charges 

or open additional lines of credit without the approval of the 

court, unless the defendant is in compliance with the payment 

schedule.

The written judgment also failed to specify which subsection of § 1326

Orozco-Rangel pleaded to. Aggrieved by those errors, Orozco-Rangel appealed timely, averring that (1) because there is a conflict between the district 

judge’s oral pronouncement and the written judgment, the oral pronouncement controls; and (2) the written judgment contained a clerical error with 

respect to the offense of conviction that must be corrected. 

II. 

We address first Orozco-Rangel’s contention that there is a conflict 

between the oral pronouncement and the written judgment. “When a defendant appeals a court’s failure to pronounce a condition that later appears in 

the judgment, the standard of review is abuse of discretion.” United States v. 

Pelayo-Zamarripa, 81 F.4th 456, 459 (5th Cir. 2023) (internal quotation marks 

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and citation omitted).

Where there are discrepancies between the oral pronouncement and 

the written judgment, the pertinent question “is whether [any] discrepancy 

between the oral pronouncement and the written judgment is [an actual] conflict or merely an ambiguity that can be resolved by reviewing the rest of the 

record.” United States v. Mireles, 471 F.3d 551, 558 (5th Cir. 2006) (citation 

omitted). A conflict occurs “[i]f the written judgment broadens the restrictions or requirements of supervised release from an oral pronouncement,” 

id., or imposes more burdensome conditions, see United States v. Bigelow, 

462 F.3d 378, 383–84 (5th Cir. 2006). There is no conflict, however, if there 

is “no material difference between the oral pronouncement and the written 

judgment.” United States v. Perez-Espinoza, 31 F.4th 988, 989 (5th Cir. 2022).

Where an actual conflict exists, the oral pronouncement of sentence 

controls, and “the appropriate remedy is remand to the district court to 

amend the written judgment to conform to the oral sentence.” Mireles, 

471 F.3d at 557–88 (citation omitted).

The government concedes, as it must, that there was a discrepancy 

between the oral pronouncement and the written judgment concerning the 

conditions of SR. The oral pronouncement incorporated by reference the 

Western District’s standing order and required Orozco-Rangel to obtain permission from a probation officer before communicating with a known convicted felon or opening a new line of credit. The written judgment, however, 

required Orozco-Rangel to obtain permission from the court before doing 

either of those things. Therefore, there was indisputably a “discrepancy 

between the oral pronouncement and the written judgment.” Mireles, 

471 F.3d at 558. 

The government avers that that discrepancy was not an actual conflict 

requiring remand because there is substantively no difference between namCase: 23-50587 Document: 67-1 Page: 4 Date Filed: 08/07/2024
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ing the court as the relevant party, as distinguished from the probation officer, as the court has the ultimate authority over the conditions of SR. But 

requiring Orozco-Rangel to go directly to the court for the required permissions, rather than using a probation officer as an intermediary, “impos[es] a 

more burdensome requirement.” Bigelow, 462 F.3d at 383. The written judgment requires Orozco-Rangel, during the three years of SR, to draft and file 

a motion with the district court (and pay the associated fees) every time he 

wants to communicate with a felon or open a new line of credit. The oral 

pronouncement, in contrast, only required him to contact his probation officer, a more informal process. Therefore, “the written judgment conflicts 

with the oral pronouncement by imposing a more burdensome requirement,” 

and “the [written] judgement’s requir[ement] . . . must be conformed to” 

the oral pronouncement. Id. at 383–84. 

III. 

We address next Orozco-Rangel’s contention that the written judgment contained a clerical error with respect to the offense of conviction. The 

written judgment failed to specify the precise sections in 8 U.S.C. § 1326 of 

which Orozco-Rangel was convicted. The court cited only § 1326 generally 

and did not specify that Orozco-Rangel pleaded to and was convicted of 

unlawful reentry under § 1326(a) and (b)(1) and (2). Contrary to the government’s assertions, our court has repeatedly remanded for the limited purpose 

of specifying the precise sections or subsections of conviction.2 We follow 

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2 See, e.g., United States v. Huerta-Rodriguez, 64 F.4th 270, 272–73 (5th Cir. 2023) 

(“Huerta was properly sentenced under § 1326(b)(2). However, because the judgment 

below lists only the generic illegal-reentry statute rather than the precise provision under 

which Huerta was sentenced, we Reform the judgment to reflect that Huerta was 

sentenced under § 1326(b)(2) and Affirm the judgment as reformed.”); United States v. 

De La Cruz-Arias, No. 22-11134, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 19673, at *1-2 (5th Cir. July 31, 

2023) (per curiam) (unpublished) (“The record reflects a clerical error in the written 

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the lead of those prior panels and remand for the district court to correct the 

judgment by specifying the exact section of conviction.3

 * * * * *

For the reasons explained, we Remand for the district court to 

amend the written judgment to conform to the oral pronouncement and to 

correct the clerical error so that the written judgment accurately reflects the 

specific statutory provision of which Orozco-Rangel was convicted. 

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judgment; though the judgment identifies the statute of conviction as 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a), 

the record indicates that De La Cruz-Arias was convicted and sentenced pursuant to 

§ 1326(a) and (b)(1).”).

3 The government avers that plain-error review applies because Orozco-Rangel 

could have asked the district court to correct the error under Federal Rule of Criminal 

Procedure 36. But we “ha[ve] previously reviewed clerical errors for the first time on 

appeal without resolving the standard of review.” United States v. Podio, 672 F. App’x 487, 

488 (5th Cir. 2017) (per curiam) (collecting cases). Indeed, in United States v. Cooper, the 

case the government relies on to support application of plain-error review, we remanded 

for correction of a clerical error without applying a particular standard of review even 

though we reviewed one of the defendant’s merits contentions for plain error. See 979 F.3d 

1084, 1089–90 (5th Cir. 2020). 

The day may come where a case requires us to resolve definitively and explicitly 

whether plain-error review applies where a defendant raises a clerical error on appeal that 

could have been raised before the district court via a Rule 36 motion. For now, however,

we follow what is implicit in several published opinions and explicit in numerous unpublished ones, and remand for correction of the clerical error without articulating a particular 

standard of review. 

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