Opinion ID: 213839
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: standard of review

Text: Sentences in criminal cases are reviewed for procedural and substantive reasonableness. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51, 128 S.Ct. 586, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007). This review is conducted under the deferential abuse-of-discretion standard. United States v. Novales, 589 F.3d 310, 314 (6th Cir.2009). Substantive-reasonableness claims do not need to be raised before the district court to be preserved for appeal. United States v. Penson, 526 F.3d 331, 337 (6th Cir.2008). But if a sentencing judge asks ... whether there are any objections not previously raised, in compliance with the procedural rule set forth in United States v. Bostic, 371 F.3d 865 (6th Cir.2004)[,] and if the relevant party does not object, then plain-error review applies on appeal to those procedural-reasonableness arguments that were not preserved in the district court. Penson, 526 F.3d at 337 (alterations and internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting United States v. Vonner, 516 F.3d 382, 385 (6th Cir.2008) (en banc)). In the present case, after the district court imposed Freeman's sentence, including the amount of restitution, it asked Freeman's counsel: Richard, do you want to renew your previously-raised objections for the record? Freeman's counsel responded to this question by renewing two objections to the court's term of imprisonment that he had previously raised in the sentencing hearing. Although Freeman's counsel clarified that he was renewing his objections pursuant to Bostic, the purpose of the Bostic question is to allow the parties to raise objections that have not previously been raised. Bostic, 371 F.3d at 872. Asking the parties whether they want to renew their previously raised objections, as the district court did here, does not address Bostic 's primary concern of giving the parties a final opportunity to raise new objections. See United States v. Batti, 631 F.3d 371, 379 n. 2 (6th Cir.2011) (holding that the district court's question of whether there was [a]nything else concerning sentence? did not satisfy Bostic 's requirement of asking whether the parties have any additional objections at the end of the sentencing hearing (emphasis added)). Freeman's objections on appeal to his term of imprisonment will therefore be reviewed under the abuse-of-discretion standard as if they had been raised below because the district court failed to properly ask the Bostic question. Under this standard, [t]he district court's legal interpretation[s] of the Guidelines are reviewed de novo, but its factual findings will not be set aside unless they are clearly erroneous. United States v. Brooks, 628 F.3d 791, 796 (6th Cir.2011). We next turn to the district court's restitution order. If a party does not object at sentencing to the restitution order, then the order is also reviewed under the plain-error standard. Batti, 631 F.3d at 379 n. 2. But, as is the case with procedural-reasonableness objections, if the district court fails to ask the Bostic question, then the default abuse-of-discretion standard of review applies. Id. The fact that Freeman's counsel stated early in the sentencing hearing that he did not have any objections to the district court's proposed restitution order does not obviate the need for a proper Bostic question concerning restitution. This is especially true here because, towards the end of the hearing, the probation officer stated that he doubted the court's ability to order any restitution since all of the firearms related to Count 1 of the indictment were recovered. Despite this red flag alert, Freeman has conceded on appeal that his challenge to the district court's restitution order should be reviewed for plain error because he did not raise his challenge at sentencing. Although we might still be able to review this challenge as if it had been raised below because a party cannot `waive' the proper standard of review by failing to argue it, see Brown v. Smith, 551 F.3d 424, 428 n. 2 (6th Cir.2008), we need not further address this issue because we have concluded that the restitution order should be reversed even under the more deferential plain-error standard of review.