Opinion ID: 3065861
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: “Demonstrably made the basis for the sentence”

Text: [8] In determining whether a defendant has shown that unreliable information was “demonstrably made the basis for [his] sentence,” we “read the record and decide whether reliance on [the] information . . . probably did occur.” United States v. Corral, 172 F.3d 714, 716 (9th Cir. 1998). Seevers’ allegations were plainly a factor in the district court’s sentencing decision. At the outset of the hearing, the district judge said, “As the defendant has properly and correctly gleaned, the Court was concerned about the transcript that the government provided in the matter of the United States v. Shane Ziska.” He further stated, after describing the nature of the assaults for which McGowan was convicted, that the UNITED STATES v. MCGOWAN 955 “[b]igger problem is the problem raised by Mr. Seevers. That is unforgivable.” Most important, in the course of explaining why he had chosen to impose the sentence he did, the district judge explicitly found that Seevers’ claims were reliable. Under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32, a sentencing court “must — for any . . . controverted matter — rule on the dispute or determine that a ruling is unnecessary either because the matter will not affect sentencing, or because the court will not consider the matter in sentencing.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(i)(3)(B); see also United States v. Carter, 219 F.3d 863, 867 (9th Cir. 2000) (If a sentencing court “chooses not to rely upon a disputed factual statement . . . it must clearly state that the disputed fact was not taken into account.”). The district judge neither stated that a ruling was unnecessary nor that the disputed fact was not taken into account. That he instead complied with his obligation under Rule 32 by making a ruling that Seevers’ claims were reliable leaves little room to doubt that Seevers’ unsupported claims affected the sentence imposed.4