Opinion ID: 201728
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sentencing errors are different

Text: 85 The Second Circuit has held that courts have some flexibility in applying the otherwise strict standards of plain-error review when faced with sentencing errors. See United States v. Sofsky, 287 F.3d 122, 125 (2d Cir.2002). We, in turn, have cited Sofsky for that proposition. See United States v. Cortes-Claudio, 312 F.3d 17, 24 (1st Cir.2002). One of the principle reasons for Sofsky's conclusion was the relative ease of the burden of correction: 86 [N]oticing unobjected-to errors that occur at trial precipitates an entire new trial that could have been avoided by a timely objection, whereas correcting a sentencing error results in, at most, only a remand for resentencing, or, as in this case, for a modification of the allegedly erroneous condition of supervised release. 87 287 F.3d at 125. Here, of course, Padilla makes the same modest request for a modification in the conditions of his supervised release, and the same principle applies. 88 We have demonstrated our fidelity to this principle recently in our treatment of unpreserved Booker error. For instance, in United States v. Antonakopoulos, we began with a classic statement of the third prong. To show prejudice, we said that a defendant must point to circumstances creating a reasonable probability that the district court would impose a different sentence more favorable to [him] under the new `advisory Guidelines' Booker regime. 399 F.3d 68, 75 (1st Cir.2005). Soon thereafter, we also said in United States v. Heldeman that we were [g]uided by traditional plain error doctrine. 402 F.3d 220, 224 (1st Cir.2005). Yet we acknowledged that, due to the special circumstances of unpreserved Booker error, we are inclined not to be overly demanding as to proof of probability where, either in the existing record or by plausible proffer, there is reasonable indication that the district judge might well have reached a different result under advisory guidelines. Id. We added that, 89 [a]fter all, it will be easy enough for the district judge on remand to say no with a minimum expenditure of effort if the sentence imposed under the pre- Booker guidelines regime is also the one that the judge would have imposed under the more relaxed post-Booker framework. 90 Id.; see also United States v. Wilkerson, 411 F.3d 1, 8 (1st Cir.2005) (one reason for remand is that it would be easy enough for [the district judge] to say no with a minimum expenditure of effort). Although Heldeman did not explicitly consider the fourth step of plain-error review in its analysis, I understand our consideration of the burden of correcting the error as particularly relevant to the fourth step. To the extent that Heldeman did not consider the fourth step at all, it shows that we have been sensitive to context in the application of plain-error doctrine-indeed, quite recently, and in an instance where institutional concerns about the burden of error correction were important to the plain-error analysis. 91 In short, in the sentencing context, we have been able to adapt traditional plain-error review to unusual circumstances that the doctrine, and the Supreme Court's explication of it, have not anticipated. We continue to cite both Antonakopoulos and Heldeman as our guides in this area of law. See, e.g., United States v. Lewis, 406 F.3d 11, 21 (1st Cir.2005).