Opinion ID: 4656619
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Probation Oﬃcer’s Recommendation

Text: Stephens ﬁrst argues that the district court erred when it did not explicitly address on the record the probation oﬃcer’s separate recommendation of a below-guideline sentence. He contends that the court must articulate reasons for disregarding such a recommendation, at least if the defendant relies on it. This argument is profoundly mistaken, and we are publishing this as a precedential opinion to make this point. A district court need not address a probation oﬃcer’s recommendation at sentencing. Our ruling is not intended as any disrespect for the valuable work that probation oﬃcers do. All members of this panel have beneﬁted from thoughtful advice from probation oﬃcers. A big part of the work of federal probation oﬃcers is to provide invaluable information and insight to district courts for sentencing decisions. Ultimately, however, probation oﬃcers work for the court. It is then up to the court to decide whether even to disclose their recommendations (as distinct from the PSR and its guideline calculations). The court also decides how to weigh those recommendations. We have explained before that district courts are not required to give any deference to a probation oﬃcer’s recommendation in a PSR, let alone to explain a disagreement on the record. See United States v. Schuler, 34 F.3d 457, 461 6 No. 20-1463 (7th Cir. 1994) (court not required to make ﬁndings about “inappropriateness of [the probation oﬃcer’s] recommendation”); United States v. Guadagno, 970 F.2d 214, 224 (7th Cir. 1992) (same, regarding a probation oﬃcer’s acceptance-of-responsibility endorsement); United States v. Heilprin, 910 F.2d 471, 474–75 n.7 (7th Cir. 1990) (court is “at all times perfectly free to disagree with the probation oﬃcer's position”). The probation oﬃcer’s recommendation may be persuasive and even compelling on its merits. But there is no legal reason for requiring the court to give it any particular weight apart from its inherent persuasiveness. Defendants are not legally entitled to know probation oﬃcers’ recommendations. See Heilprin, 910 F.2d at 474 (no constitutional or statutory right to be informed of a probation oﬃcer’s sentencing recommendation); Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(e)(3) (“By local rule or by order in a case, the court may direct the probation oﬃcer not to disclose to anyone other than the court the oﬃcer’s recommendation on the sentence.”). The district judge here was free to disclose the recommendation, but that disclosure did not trigger a new procedural requirement that the judge discuss the recommendation on the record. Stephens contends that this court overturned the Heilprin line of cases in United States v. Petersen, 711 F.3d 770, 778–79 (7th Cir. 2013), where in dicta we urged courts to consider releasing conﬁdential sentencing recommendations to the parties. Diﬀerent judges have diﬀerent perspectives on the dis- cretionary choice whether to disclose conﬁdential recommendations. There are reasonable arguments on both sides of that question, and the better course may diﬀer from case to case. But there is no legal conﬂict here. Petersen reiterated that a deNo. 20-1463 7 fendant does not have a legal right to see the conﬁdential recommendation, at least as long as the recommendation does not put new factual information before the court. Id. at 778. And Petersen reinforced that the choice about disclosing a recommendation is up to the judge. Id. at 779. 1 Returning to this case, the district court did release the recommendation to the parties, and Stephens was able to comment on it. He did so, saying that the probation oﬃcer had considered a minimum sentence. But the oﬃcer increased the recommendation (though still below the range) because Stephens had committed new child pornography crimes after the ﬁrst seizure. The district court did not commit a procedural error when it did not address the probation oﬃcer’s recommendation when explaining Stephens’s sentence.