Opinion ID: 3206400
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Recent Case Law on Supervised Release

Text: Before 2014, our court applied standards of waiver and forfeiture to issues concerning supervised release. See, e.g., United States v. Silvious, 512 F.3d 364, 371 (7th Cir. 2008) (over‐ broad conditions of supervised release were not plain errors requiring correction despite lack of objection); United States v. No. 14‐3635 5 McKissic, 428 F.3d 719, 726 (7th Cir. 2005) (finding no plain er‐ ror where supervised release condition was imposed without sufficient notice); United States v. Tejada, 476 F.3d 471, 475–76 (7th Cir. 2007) (finding no plain error in supervised release condition for drug testing). In a series of opinions beginning in 2014, our court has taken supervised release out of the shadows and focused spotlights upon its substance and procedures. See Kappes, 782 F.3d at 835 n.1 (collecting cases); Thompson, 777 F.3d 368; Siegel, 753 F.3d 705. In that line of cases, we have required more from district judges by way of explanations of super‐ vised release terms and conditions than had been customary. We have also offered district judges a great deal of advice in the form of suggested best practices. In that same line of cases, we have not always followed our earlier precedents regarding waiver and plain error. Before addressing Lewis’s claims on appeal and the waiver and forfeiture issues, we lay out the relevant landscape as shaped by our recent cases. First, supervised release is an important part of a federal criminal sentence. It is mandated in many sentences and is imposed in the vast majority of sentences for more than one year in prison. Kappes, 782 F.3d at 837 (supervised release im‐ posed in 99% of cases where it is not mandatory but prison sentence exceeds one year). When it is managed well, super‐ vised release can serve the complementary goals of protecting the public and rehabilitating an offender who is returning to free society. Supervised release should not be an afterthought; it deserves careful and thoughtful attention from the sentenc‐ ing judge. Thompson, 777 F.3d at 373–75. Second, supervised release needs to be a flexible tool, and the governing statute treats it that way. The statute provides 6 No. 14‐3635 for a few mandatory conditions of supervised release, and it authorizes courts to impose additional standard and special conditions tailored to a particular case. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d). Conditions of supervised release announced at the begin‐ ning of a prison sentence will not take effect until the end of the prison sentence, often many years later. In addition, a de‐ fendant’s supervised release may take place in a district other than the sentencing court. Unlike other sentence terms, there‐ fore, the duration and conditions of supervised release may be modified by a court “at any time prior to the expiration or termination of the term.” § 3583(e). This special flexibility is a key feature of supervised re‐ lease that shapes our approach to challenges to conditions of supervised release. For example, we held in United States v. Neal, 810 F.3d 512, 514 (7th Cir. 2016), that a defendant could challenge conditions of release on substantive (not proce‐ dural) grounds during the term of supervised release itself. At the same time, we also declined to take up, for the first time on appeal, challenges to conditions of supervised release that the defendant had chosen not to challenge in the district court. Id. at 521. Those were matters that needed to be raised in the district court in the first instance. Next, as with any terms of a sentence, the sentencing judge must be able to explain the legal basis for a condition and how it will serve the statutory purposes of supervised release. Kappes, 782 F.3d at 837; Thompson, 777 F.3d at 373. The re‐ quired extent of those findings and explanations can be a sub‐ ject of endless debate, however. That problem is at the core of Lewis’s arguments on the merits in this appeal. No. 14‐3635 7 In considering this and other supervised release appeals, we remember that our criminal justice system is based on ad‐ versarial principles. The people who work in it—judges, de‐ fense lawyers, prosecutors, probation officers, and others— are busy. They do not need to waste time treating matters that are not disputed as if they were. To be sure, judges have duties to oversee even matters where the adversaries agree, see Thompson, 777 F.3d at 374, but we shape our appellate deci‐ sions to avoid forcing busy actors to waste their time on mat‐ ters that are not disputed, and not disputed for good reasons. We also keep in mind the respective roles of the district courts and the court of appeals with regard to sentencing in general and supervised release in particular. Sentencing hap‐ pens in the district courts, and conditions of supervised re‐ lease require the exercise of the district court’s judgment and discretion. The appellate court’s role is to review parties’ claims that district courts have made legal or factual errors, and to provide a remedy where such errors have harmed the interests of a party. Appellate review is ordinarily limited to matters raised in the district court. There are exceptions, of course, such as matters involving subject matter jurisdiction, or “plain errors,” which are limited to those that are plain, were not intentionally waived, affect substantial rights, and seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Molina‐Martinez v. United States, 578 U.S. —, 136 S. Ct. 1338, 1343 (2016); United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732 (1993). But that is a high standard, and as we pointed out in Silvious and Neal, a district court can fix a problem with supervised release conditions at any time, which should make it harder to show plain error in such conditions that must be corrected immediately, despite the absence of objection. See 8 No. 14‐3635 Silvious, 512 F.3d at 371, and Neal, 810 F.3d at 514, both citing 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(2). We also keep in mind the costs of remands for resentenc‐ ing, especially the human costs imposed on victims. In cases like this, where children have been victims of terrible abuse and where even one sentencing hearing can be traumatic, that concern is important. Where a significant and prejudicial er‐ ror requires remand and resentencing, the trauma and other costs of resentencing may be necessary. But we should keep those costs in mind in any quest for better findings or im‐ proved procedures, especially where the defense had ample opportunity to address the issues at the time of sentencing and raised no objection. The foundation for these limits on appellate review is that a district judge needs to ensure that parties have a fair and genuine opportunity to raise objections in the district court. In the context of supervised release, that means giving the parties advance notice of contemplated terms of supervised release or a fair opportunity to respond to unexpected devel‐ opments. E.g., Kappes, 782 F.3d at 842–43. In addition, it is im‐ portant for the district court to ensure that a sentence is not finally imposed until the parties have been fully heard. Fed‐ eral Rule of Criminal Procedure 51(a) makes clear there is no need for a party to state an “exception” to a court ruling that has already been made. See, e.g., United States v. Shannon, 743 F.3d 496, 499–500 (7th Cir. 2014) (no waiver or forfeiture where defendant failed to object to condition first raised by