Opinion ID: 3054361
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Requisite Findings at Sentencing

Text: [1] “[A] district court is not generally required to articulate on the record at sentencing the reasons for imposing each condition” of supervised release.3 Weber, 451 F.3d at 559 (internal quotation marks omitted). If a condition of supervised release “involves an especially significant liberty interest,” 2 “Abel testing, [a] procedure used in sexual offender treatment programs, involves presenting individuals with non-erotic pictures of children and adults and determining sexual interest by measuring how long a person spends viewing each picture.” Weber, 451 F.3d at 555 n.3 (internal quotation marks omitted). 3 As we have observed previously, our rule differs from the rule in some other circuits, which requires specific findings for each condition of supervised release. See Weber, 451 F.3d at 560 n.10 (citing United States v. Loy, 191 F.3d 360, 371 (3d Cir.1999), and United States v. Edgin, 92 F.3d 1044, 1049 (10th Cir. 1996)). UNITED STATES v. ESPARZA 773 however, the district court must make certain “specific findings” justifying imposition of the supervised-release condition. Id. at 560. For example, a condition requiring a defendant to take “psychotropic medication” involves an especially significant liberty interest and, therefore, requires the district court to make certain findings, as described in United States v. Williams, 356 F.3d 1045, 1052-57 (9th Cir. 2004). But a condition requiring a defendant to take other types of medications does not necessarily involve an especially significant liberty interest and may not require specific findings. United States v. Cope, 527 F.3d 944, 955 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 129 S. Ct. 321 (2008). [2] Here, Condition 5 requires Defendant to “take all prescribed medication.” On its face, that condition encompasses both categories of medication—those that require specific findings and those that do not. In Cope and United States v. Daniels, 541 F.3d 915 (9th Cir. 2008), we addressed the same issue concerning an identically worded condition of supervised release and held that, in the absence of specific findings by the district court, we would construe such a condition “ ‘as limited to those medications that do not implicate a particularly significant liberty interest of the defendant.’ ” Daniels, 541 F.3d at 926 (quoting Cope, 527 F.3d at 955). As the government concedes, those cases control here. Because the district court did not have the benefit of Cope when it sentenced Defendant, we also “remand this condition to the district court so that it can make necessary findings with respect to the requirement that [he] take all prescribed medication,” if the court chooses to require Defendant to take medications implicating a particularly significant liberty interest. Id. [3] A similar analysis applies to the condition that Defendant submit to “physiological testing, such as polygraph and Abel testing.” A district court may require some forms of physiological testing, including polygraph and Abel testing, without making specific findings. Weber, 451 F.3d at 567-70. Other forms of physiological testing, though, may not be 774 UNITED STATES v. ESPARZA imposed without additional findings. Id. As with the medication requirement, the physiological testing requirement encompasses both categories of testing—those that require specific findings and those that do not. We therefore apply the same reasoning and reach the same result. We hold that, in the absence of specific findings, Condition 5 necessarily must be understood as limited to those forms of physiological testing that do not implicate a particularly significant liberty interest. And, as in Cope and Daniels, the district court may, on remand, make the necessary supporting findings insofar as Condition 5 may require Defendant to undergo testing that implicates a particularly significant liberty interest.