Opinion ID: 779834
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Though the District Court's Error was Plain, We Decline to Exercise Our Discretion to Correct the Error

Text: Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b) provides appellate courts with a  limited power to correct errors that were forfeited because [they were] not timely raised in [the] district court. United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 731, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993) (emphasis added). The Supreme Court has recently clarified that we may exercise this discretionary power only where the appellant demonstrates that (1) there is an `error'; (2) the error is `clear or obvious, rather than subject to reasonable dispute'; (3) the error `affected the appellant's substantial rights, which in the ordinary case means' it `affected the outcome of the district court proceedings'; and (4) `the error seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.' United States v. Marcus, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 2159, 2164, 176 L.Ed.2d 1012 (2010) (quoting Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 135, 129 S.Ct. 1423, 173 L.Ed.2d 266 (2009)). [T]he burden of establishing entitlement to relief for plain error is on the defendant claiming it. . . . United States v. Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S. 74, 82, 124 S.Ct. 2333, 159 L.Ed.2d 157 (2004). This assignment of the burden enforce[s] the policies that underpin Rule 52(b) generally, to encourage timely objections and reduce wasteful reversals by demanding strenuous exertion to get relief for unpreserved error. Id. 1. An Erroneous Restitution Order Does Not Automatically Amount to Plain Error As a prefatory matter, we acknowledge that we have previously suggested, without elaboration, that a defendant's failure to object to a restitution order in the district court is no bar to appellate review because improperly ordered restitution constitutes an illegal sentence amounting to plain error. United States v. Thompson, 113 F.3d 13, 15 (2d Cir.1997); see also United States v. Mortimer, 52 F.3d 429, 436 (2d Cir.1995). The rationale for this language, however, ultimately finds its root in the dicta of a since abrogated decision of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, which predated Olano, the leading Supreme Court decision on plain error. See United States v. Vance, 868 F.2d 1167, 1169 (10th Cir.1989), abrogated on other grounds by Hughey v. United States, 495 U.S. 411, 110 S.Ct. 1979, 109 L.Ed.2d 408 (1990). The Supreme Court has since made clear that an appellate court may only notice an unpreserved error if all four prongs of the Olano test are satisfied. See, e.g., Marcus, 130 S.Ct. at 2164; Puckett, 556 U.S. at 135, 129 S.Ct. 1423. Therefore, while it may be true that an improper restitution order is always error that is plainwhich is to say error that is clear or obviousit does not follow that such an error is always plain error as the Supreme Court has explained that term of art. Rather, before an appellate court may exercise its discretion to correct unpreserved error, the defendant-appellant must satisfy the remaining prongs of the Olano testnamely, that the error affected his substantial rights and seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Marcus, 130 S.Ct. at 2164. Here, although we find, in light of the plain meaning of the MVRA and the authorities cited above, that the District Court's error was clear or obvious, we are not satisfied that Zangari has borne his burden on the last two prongs of the Olano test.