Opinion ID: 617629
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Authority to Impose Restitution

Text: We review de novo questions of law involving the district court's authority to order restitution. United States v. Webber, 536 F.3d 584, 601 (7th Cir.2008). The government properly acknowledges that restitution is not permitted pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3663 or 18 U.S.C. § 3663A for offenses that fall within Title 26 of United States Code. [4] However, a district court may impose restitution for Title 26 offenses as a condition of probation, see 18 U.S.C. § 3563(b)(2), or as a condition of supervised release, see 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d). Section 3583(d), the Supervised Release Statute, provides in relevant part: The court may order, as a further condition of supervised release, ... any condition set forth as a discretionary condition of probation in section 3563(b) and any other condition it considers to be appropriate.... See also U.S.S.G. § 5E1.1(a)(2) (In the case of an identifiable victim, the court shall ... impose a term of probation or supervised release with a condition requiring restitution for the full amount of the victim's loss, if the offense is not an offense for which restitution is authorized under 18 U.S.C. § 3663(a)(1) but otherwise meets the criteria for an order of restitution under that section.); United States v. Batson, 608 F.3d 630, 635 (9th Cir.2010) (The Supervised Release Statute, together with the Probation Statute, unambiguously authorizes federal courts to order restitution as a condition of supervised release for any criminal offense, including one under Title 26, for which supervised release is properly imposed.); United States v. Nolen, 523 F.3d 331, 333 (5th Cir.2008) ([R]estitution may be imposed if done so as a condition of supervised release in a criminal tax case, even in the absence of a prior definitive determination or adjudication of the amount of taxes owed, and if limited to losses from the crime of conviction.). Thus, it is clear that district courts possess the authority to impose restitution for tax offenses as a condition of supervised release. It is less than clear, however, whether the district court in this case actually did impose restitution as a condition of supervised release, rather than as an independent component of the sentence. The district court indicated some confusion as to its authority to order restitution during the sentencing hearing, and the PSR erroneously stated that restitution could be ordered pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3663(a)(3). Throughout the sentencing hearing, the government requested that the district court impose restitution and noted that the court's only authority for doing so was as a condition of probation or supervised release. Thus, although the district court did not expressly state the legal basis for its order of restitution, it had been made aware of the limits to its authority. The court linked the order of restitution to the sentence of supervised release on two occasions but stopped short of directly identifying restitution as a condition of supervised release. For example, during the sentencing hearing, Judge Reagan stated, Restitution shall be paid ... immediately. If you can't pay it immediately, payment will be due during imprisonment. If it is not paid during imprisonment, it will be a condition of supervised release. In the Supervised Release judgment form, the court referenced the order of restitution in a subsection labeled Special Conditions of Supervision but primarily in terms of how it would be collected. Because a district court can only impose restitution as a condition of supervised release, a defendant cannot be required to pay restitution until his period of supervised release begins. We are therefore troubled by the district court's oral and written statements that require immediate payment of restitution. Hassebrock has apparently heeded the district court's order and has started to make payments. The district court reaffirmed its requirement of immediate payment when it denied Hassebrock's motion to stay restitution pending appeal. When presented with a very similar situation, the Fourth Circuit determined that a remand was necessary. United States v. Dean, 64 F.3d 660, 1995 WL 493006, at  (4th Cir.1995) (per curiam) (unpublished table decision). In Dean, the Fourth Circuit concluded (and the government conceded) that the district court's restitution order making payment due immediately indicated that the district court must have ordered restitution pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3663(a), rather than § 3583(d) or § 3563(b)(3). The Fourth Circuit held that the restitution order was without statutory authorization and remanded to allow the district court to consider the issue of restitution as a condition of supervised release. Id. The district court's immediacy requirement, along with its failure to explicitly label restitution as a condition of supervised release, leads us to the same conclusion in this case. The Second Circuit, however, decided not to remand when confronted with a sentence in which the district court did not clearly set forth the basis for its order of restitution. See United States v. Bruno, 234 F.3d 1263, 2000 WL 1715254, at -4 (2d Cir.2000) (unpublished table decision). The Second Circuit noted that the district court had not cited to any statutory authority for its order, that the PSR did not reference § 3663(a), and that the judgment form listed restitution as one of the Additional Supervised Release Terms. Id. Despite acknowledging that the district court's oral statement may have been ambiguous, the Second Circuit found no reason to believe that the court was not imposing restitution as a special condition of supervised release. Id. at . By contrast, the record in the present case is not simply ambiguous but also conflicting, which does gives us reason to believe that the court did not impose restitution as a condition of supervised release. For Title 26 offenses, a district court is only authorized to impose restitution as a condition of probation or as a condition of supervised release. Given that the government carefully explained the court's authority, it seems likely that the court was aware that it could only impose restitution as a condition of supervised release. But because a degree of uncertainty remains, we remand for the limited purpose of allowing the district court to clarify the statutory basis for its order of restitution. The district court does not have the authority to impose restitution pursuant to § 3663, nor does it have the authority to require immediate payment when imposing restitution as a condition of supervised release. The district court does, however, have the authority to reimpose the same restitution order, provided that the court clarifies that it is imposing restitution pursuant to § 3583(d).