Opinion ID: 200784
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Drug Treatment Condition

Text: 20 Meléndez claims that the sentencing court impermissibly delegated its sentencing authority by allowing a probation officer to decide whether he might have to attend drug treatment. The condition states that if Meléndez tests positive for drugs, at the discretion of the probation officer, [he shall] participate in a substance abuse treatment program arranged and approved by the probation officer until duly discharged by authorized program personnel with the approval of the probation officer. He also claims that since that condition was only included in the written orders setting forth the terms of supervised release but was never imposed as a condition at his sentencing hearing, the court violated his Sixth Amendment right to be present at sentencing. 21
22 Defendants have a right, guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, to be present during sentencing. See Fed. R.Crim.P. 43(a) ([T]he defendant must be present at... sentencing.). The Supreme Court has stated that the constitutional aspect of this right is rooted to a large extent in the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment, but that it also derives from the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. United States v. Gagnon, 470 U.S. 522, 526, 105 S.Ct. 1482, 84 L.Ed.2d 486 (1985). Although a defendant does not have a right to be present at every minor stage in a trial, due process concerns are implicated 23 [w]henever [the defendant's] presence has a relation, reasonably substantial, to the fulness of his opportunity to defend against the charge.... [T]he presence of a defendant is a condition of due process to the extent that a fair and just hearing would be thwarted by his absence, and to that extent only. 24 Id. (quoting Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 105-06, 108, 54 S.Ct. 330, 78 L.Ed. 674 (1934)). Since the defendant's absence from a sentencing hearing could threaten his ability to obtain a fair and just hearing on the important issues of punishment and rehabilitation addressed at such a hearing, the Court's due process concerns in Gagnon are relevant to the sentencing stage of a trial. See Thompson v. United States, 495 F.2d 1304, 1306 (1st Cir.1974) ([T]he alleged failure of petitioner to be present at his own sentencing is an error which... affects seriously the fairness, integrity and public reputation of judicial proceedings.). 25 As a consequence of the defendant's right to be present at the sentencing hearing, we have previously stated, in dicta, that `[w]here... [a] district court's oral expression of its sentencing rationale varies materially from its subsequent written expression of that rationale, appellate courts have tended to honor the former at the expense of the latter.' United States v. Cali, 87 F.3d 571, 579 (1st Cir.1996) (quoting dictum in United States v. Muniz, 49 F.3d 36, 42 n. 5 (1st Cir.1995)). Nearly all of the other circuits have reached similar conclusions, although there has been some variation in the exact phrasing of this doctrine. See, e.g., United States v. DeMartino, 112 F.3d 75, 78 (2d Cir.1997) ([I]f there is a variance between the oral pronouncement of sentence and the written judgment of conviction, the oral sentence generally controls.); United States v. Faulks, 201 F.3d 208, 211 (3d Cir.2000) (A long line of cases provides that when the two sentences are in conflict, the oral pronouncement prevails over the written judgment.); United States v. Morse, 344 F.2d 27, 29 n. 1 (4th Cir.1965) (To the extent of any conflict between [a] written order and [an] oral sentence, the latter is controlling.); United States v. Martinez, 250 F.3d 941, 942 (5th Cir.2001) ([W]hen there is a conflict between a written sentence and an oral pronouncement, the oral pronouncement controls.); United States v. Becker, 36 F.3d 708, 710 (7th Cir. 1994) (If an inconsistency exists between an oral and the later written sentence, the sentence pronounced from the bench controls.); United States v. Glass, 720 F.2d 21, 22 n. 2 (8th Cir.1983) (Where an oral sentence and the written judgment conflict, the oral sentence controls.); United States v. Hicks, 997 F.2d 594, 597 (9th Cir.1993) (`In cases where there is a direct conflict between an unambiguous, oral pronouncement of sentence and the written judgment and commitment, this [c]ourt has uniformly held that the oral pronouncement, as correctly reported, must control.') (quoting United States v. Munoz-Dela Rosa, 495 F.2d 253, 256 (9th Cir.1974)); United States v. Marquez, 337 F.3d 1203, 1207 n. 1 (10th Cir.2003) ([A]n oral pronouncement of sentence from the bench controls over other written language....). Accordingly, we conclude that where the conditions of supervised release announced at the sentencing hearing conflict in a material way with the conditions of supervised release in the written sentencing order, the oral conditions control. 26 The failure of the sentencing court to announce the drug treatment condition at the sentencing hearing created a material conflict between the written and oral sentencing orders. The court imposed a potentially significant new burden on the Defendant — permitting a probation officer to order him to attend a residential treatment program if he failed a drug test — without giving him the opportunity to object to the condition at the sentencing hearing. This procedure violated Meléndez's right to be present at sentencing. We must vacate the drug treatment condition on this basis alone. 27
28 There is another defect in the drug treatment condition that we must discuss to avoid future problems. That defect involves the amount of discretion that the court delegated to the probation officer to decide whether Meléndez must participate in a drug treatment program. 29 Article III of the Constitution vests responsibility for resolving cases and controversies with the courts. As Justice Kennedy observed during his tenure on the Ninth Circuit, this responsibility requires both the appearance and the reality of control by Article III judges over the interpretation, declaration, and application of federal law to maintain the essential, constitutional role of the judiciary. Pacemaker Diagnostic Clinic of America, Inc. v. Instromedix, Inc., 725 F.2d 537, 544 (9th Cir.1984) (Kennedy, J.). The judiciary's essential role can be eroded just as easily through improvident delegation as through interference by another branch, id.; therefore, separation of powers forbids courts from delegating their Article III responsibilities. However, `[t]hat general principle does not ... prohibit courts from using nonjudicial officers to support judicial functions, as long as that judicial officer retains and exercises ultimate responsibility.' United States v. Allen, 312 F.3d 512, 515-16 (1st Cir.2002) (quoting United States v. Johnson, 48 F.3d 806, 809 (4th Cir.1995)). 30 In Allen, we upheld the sentencing court's imposition of a condition of supervised release that required the defendant to participate in a mental health treatment program as directed by the probation officer. Allen, 312 F.3d at 515. We determined that the court itself retained ultimate sentencing authority by requiring the defendant to undergo treatment and that it had merely delegated administrative details to the probation officer. Id. at 516. In reaching this holding, we contrasted the facts in Allen with those in United States v. Kent, 209 F.3d 1073 (8th Cir.2000), in which the court struck down a condition that allowed the probation officer to make the ultimate decision regarding whether the defendant would have to undergo treatment. Stated simply, the probation officer in Allen was not deciding whether the defendant had to attend counseling but how many sessions he had to attend. See also United States v. Peterson, 248 F.3d 79, 84-85 (2d Cir.2001) (concluding that delegation would be permissible regarding scheduling and selection of mental health therapy sessions). 31 The sentencing court's delegation to the probation officer of the treatment decision in this case contravenes our ruling in Allen. The drug treatment condition states that if Meléndez fails a drug test, he must participate in a treatment program at the discretion of the probation officer. Rather than simply vesting the probation officer with the responsibility for managing the administrative details of drug treatment, the court granted the probation officer the authority to decide whether Meléndez would have to undergo treatment after testing positive for drugs. 6 That treatment decision must be made by the court, either at the time of sentencing, 7 or later in response to a motion by the probation officer, citing the positive drug test during the period of supervised release and seeking a change in the conditions of supervised release. 8