Opinion ID: 201728
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The fourth step (public reputation of judicial proceedings)

Text: 81 The only meaningful plain-error question when reviewing a claim like Padilla's involves the fourth step: whether the error so seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings, United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 736, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted), that it cannot stand. The majority dismisses this error as one not of such magnitude or consequence that it would undermine faith in the judicial system were it to stand uncorrected. Ante at ___. I cannot agree. 82 I first note one aspect of the history of this case. In United States v. Meléndez-Santana, 353 F.3d 93 (1st Cir.2003), where a panel of this court first decided that the delegation error at issue here was plain error, the government did not seek a rehearing by the panel or en banc. Since that case, as the majority describes, the government has repeatedly conceded the error in many cases and agreed to a remand for correction without asking for en banc review of the plain-error determination. See, e.g., United States v. Villafane-Jimenez, 410 F.3d 74, 88 (1st Cir.2005); United States v. Ayala-Pizarro, 407 F.3d 25, 29 (1st Cir.2005); United States v. Vega, 398 F.3d 149, 154 (1st Cir.2005). Even when the original panel in this case explicitly invited the government to seek a rehearing en banc, the government declined to do so. See United States v. Padilla, 393 F.3d 256, 261 (1st Cir.2004) (Campbell & Selya, JJ., concurring), vacated, 403 F.3d 780 (1st Cir.2005). At that point, the court sua sponte had to call for a rehearing en banc and order briefing. 83 As a procedural matter, that call was entirely appropriate. If we think we have made a legal error, we have a responsibility to correct it even if the parties are indifferent. Still, the costs of complying with the Meléndez-Santana rule arguably fell on government prosecutors, who had to go back to court and get the sentencing judge to establish the maximum number of drug tests. When the government displays little interest in avoiding this burden, it should warn us that our interest in avoiding it for them may be incompatible with the fourth step of plain-error review. 84 As we have said before, [t]he `fairness, integrity or reputation' plain-error standard is a flexible one and depends significantly on the nature of the error, its context, and the facts of the case. United States v. Gandia-Maysonet, 227 F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir.2000); see also United States v. Hoyle, 237 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir.2001) (same). This kind of delegation error — which leaves the defendant in an impossible position for showing prejudice, yet which is so easy for the prosecution and trial court to fix — meets that standard.
85 The Second Circuit has held that courts have some flexibility in applying the otherwise strict standards of plain-error review when faced with sentencing errors. See United States v. Sofsky, 287 F.3d 122, 125 (2d Cir.2002). We, in turn, have cited Sofsky for that proposition. See United States v. Cortes-Claudio, 312 F.3d 17, 24 (1st Cir.2002). One of the principle reasons for Sofsky's conclusion was the relative ease of the burden of correction: 86 [N]oticing unobjected-to errors that occur at trial precipitates an entire new trial that could have been avoided by a timely objection, whereas correcting a sentencing error results in, at most, only a remand for resentencing, or, as in this case, for a modification of the allegedly erroneous condition of supervised release. 87 287 F.3d at 125. Here, of course, Padilla makes the same modest request for a modification in the conditions of his supervised release, and the same principle applies. 88 We have demonstrated our fidelity to this principle recently in our treatment of unpreserved Booker error. For instance, in United States v. Antonakopoulos, we began with a classic statement of the third prong. To show prejudice, we said that a defendant must point to circumstances creating a reasonable probability that the district court would impose a different sentence more favorable to [him] under the new `advisory Guidelines' Booker regime. 399 F.3d 68, 75 (1st Cir.2005). Soon thereafter, we also said in United States v. Heldeman that we were [g]uided by traditional plain error doctrine. 402 F.3d 220, 224 (1st Cir.2005). Yet we acknowledged that, due to the special circumstances of unpreserved Booker error, we are inclined not to be overly demanding as to proof of probability where, either in the existing record or by plausible proffer, there is reasonable indication that the district judge might well have reached a different result under advisory guidelines. Id. We added that, 89 [a]fter all, it will be easy enough for the district judge on remand to say no with a minimum expenditure of effort if the sentence imposed under the pre- Booker guidelines regime is also the one that the judge would have imposed under the more relaxed post-Booker framework. 90 Id.; see also United States v. Wilkerson, 411 F.3d 1, 8 (1st Cir.2005) (one reason for remand is that it would be easy enough for [the district judge] to say no with a minimum expenditure of effort). Although Heldeman did not explicitly consider the fourth step of plain-error review in its analysis, I understand our consideration of the burden of correcting the error as particularly relevant to the fourth step. To the extent that Heldeman did not consider the fourth step at all, it shows that we have been sensitive to context in the application of plain-error doctrine-indeed, quite recently, and in an instance where institutional concerns about the burden of error correction were important to the plain-error analysis. 91 In short, in the sentencing context, we have been able to adapt traditional plain-error review to unusual circumstances that the doctrine, and the Supreme Court's explication of it, have not anticipated. We continue to cite both Antonakopoulos and Heldeman as our guides in this area of law. See, e.g., United States v. Lewis, 406 F.3d 11, 21 (1st Cir.2005).
92 We should show that same flexibility here. The fourth step requires us to focus on the larger, institutional consequences of the error (as expressed by the phrase the public reputation of judicial proceedings), not only on the consequences of the error for the defendant before us. Here, those institutional concerns should include the importance of courts following explicit rules that Congress has prescribed. Of course courts will sometimes go astray, 6 as in this case. However, when the burden of getting it right is so minimal, the obligation to make the correction is that much greater. We are not confronted here with the prospect of redoing trials, or plea proceedings, or even sentencing hearings. Instead, at most, the sentencing judge, with input from the prosecution and defense counsel, has to correct the improper delegation of authority to a probation officer and set the maximum number of drug tests. 93 Congress has said, for reasons that may not be fully apparent to us, that judges rather than probation officers should set the maximum number of drug tests. We acknowledged that uncertainty about Congress's rationale in Meléndez-Santana itself: Legislative history does not reveal why Congress chose to go in a different direction from a policy permitting judges to delegate such decisions. United States v. Meléndez-Santana, 353 F.3d 93, 106 (1st Cir.2003). The majority views Congress's commitment of these kinds of decisions to the courts as merely statutory and, in the final analysis, not particularly important. I acknowledge that, before 1994, probation officers had the discretion to set the maximum number of drug tests. Still, Congress has made a decision to alter that practice, and we should respect that choice by correcting the error that undermines it. 94 With a minimal expenditure of judicial resources, we can show that respect and thereby avoid a misapplication of the plain-error doctrine which, rather than preserving the integrity of plain-error review, repudiates our recent willingness to apply that doctrine flexibly in the sentencing context. Such flexibility does not threaten to open the floodgates of easy error correction, and burdensome retrials and resentencing, as the majority may fear. We will retain our ability to distinguish between types of error and the contexts in which they occur. The integrity of plain-error review does not suffer from its sensible application.