Opinion ID: 4212292
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Supervised Release Guidelines Calculation

Text: Next, Oliver argues that the district court procedurally erred by imposing a three‐year term of supervised release without first calculating the Guidelines range for supervision and considering whether a three‐year term was appropriate based on the statutory sentencing factors. As a preliminary matter, the government argues that Oli‐ ver waived his right to challenge the issue because he did not object to the Guidelines calculations in the PSR. This argu‐ ment misses the point. Oliver is not challenging the Guide‐ lines calculation for his supervised release term on substan‐ tive grounds; rather, he is arguing that the district court failed to follow proper procedure by not repeating that calculation on the record. A defendant does not waive the procedural re‐ quirements of a sentencing hearing simply by failing to object to a PSR. Indeed, when Oliver stated that he had no objections to the PSR at the beginning of the sentencing hearing, he could not have known whether the district court would comply with procedural requirements during the rest of the proceed‐ ing. Therefore, Oliver did not waive this claim, and we review for plain error. Turning to the merits, Oliver relies on this Court’s decision in United States v. Downs, 784 F.3d 1180 (7th Cir. 2015). In Downs, the district court sentenced the defendant to ten years of supervised release even though the Guidelines recom‐ mended a supervised release term of only three years. Id. at 1181. We held that the district court judge “was required, be‐ fore deciding on the length of the defendant’s term of super‐ vised release, to calculate the guidelines range and assess its appropriateness as a guide to sentencing the defendant, in No. 16‐3611 13 light of the sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).” Id. Be‐ cause there was no indication that the district court even con‐ sidered the Guidelines range, we reversed and remanded for resentencing. Id. at 1181–82. Downs is distinguishable from this case. Unlike the district court in Downs, the district court here expressly referenced the PSR, adopted the PSR’s Guideline calculations, imposed a term of supervised release that was within the Guidelines range, and explained its rationale for doing so in light of the § 3553(a) factors. Immediately after going through each of the § 3553(a) factors to reach Oliver’s prison sentence, the district judge explained that he was imposing a three‐year supervised release term “because of all the reasons [he] just stated” and to ensure that restitution could be recovered during that time. Oliver seems to argue that, even if a district court ex‐ pressly adopts the Guideline calculations in the PSR, the fail‐ ure to separately calculate the Guidelines range for super‐ vised release constitutes reversible error. Neither Downs nor other precedent from this Court supports such a rule. Alt‐ hough prison and supervised release are two different forms of punishment, they are both part of a single sentence. See id. at 1182; United States v. Kappes, 782 F.3d 828, 837 (7th Cir. 2015) (“Any term of supervised release is considered part of the overall sentence.”). Accordingly, we have held that “an ex‐ plicit announcement of the guidelines recommendation” for supervised release, although helpful for purposes of appellate review, is not required. Anderson, 604 F.3d at 1003–04 (holding that the district court did not procedurally err even though the judge “never recited [the] guideline range for supervised release during the [sentencing] hearing”). Rather, the critical 14 No. 16‐3611 inquiry is whether the district court was aware of and under‐ stood the Guidelines recommendation for supervised release. See id. Where, as here, the district court “impose[s] a within‐ guidelines term of supervised release” and “express[ly] men‐ tions … the PSR in the earlier part of the hearing,” this Court can rest assured that the district court was aware of the Guide‐ lines range. Id. at 1004. For the same reasons, the district court was not required to engage in “a separate comprehensive analysis” of the § 3553(a) factors as they applied to Oliver’s term of supervised release after extensively discussing those same factors with respect to Oliver’s prison sentence. See id. at 1003 (“We have never required such repetition from the district court.”); see also United States v. Bloch, 825 F.3d 862, 869 (7th Cir. 2016), reh’g denied (July 13, 2016) (“[T]he district court was not required to provide two separate explanations, one for the term of impris‐ onment and one for the term of supervised release.”). Instead, “a district court need only provide one overarching explana‐ tion and justification—tethered, of course, to the § 3553(a) fac‐ tors—for why it thinks a criminal sentence comprised of both terms of imprisonment and supervised release is appropri‐ ate.” Bloch, 825 F.3d at 870. The district court did that here. Therefore, the district court did not err in imposing a three‐year term of supervised release.