Court Opinion

ID: 9606594
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:51:14.685437+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:34.828083
License: Public Domain

ALICE M. BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the lead opinion, and I write separately only with regard to the government’s argument that our review should be for plain error. Although I think there are good reasons to be skeptical of this circuit’s talismanic approach to what we now refer to as “the Bostic rule,” I agree that under our precedents, the district court that deviates from the language of Bostic does so at its peril. That said, it is important to note here that the district court not only did not ask the literal Bostic question — i.e., whether the parties have any objections to the sentence “that have not previously been raised” — the district court did not apparently give Gapinski’s counsel any opportunity to respond effectively to the question the court did ask. According to the transcript of the resen-tencing hearing, the closing colloquy went like this:
THE COURT: Anything else for the record, Ms. Lasker [counsel for defendant]?
MS. LASKER: Can I have just a moment, Your Honor?
THE COURT: Very well. That’s all for the record, then. Thank you. MS. LASKER: I have nothing else, Your Honor.
At oral argument, Gapinski’s counsel advised that she was not in fact given the “moment” she requested; rather, the court immediately ended the proceedings. Certainly under these circumstances, we cannot review only for plain error.