Opinion ID: 200784
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Right to be Present at the Sentencing Hearing

Text: 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