Court Opinion

ID: 9438354
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 05:30:28.545173+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:25:33.790482
License: Public Domain

EVANS, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Judges sometimes get carried away and say things they should not say. I agree with my colleagues that the judge in this case said things that he should not have said. And what was said, I agree, marred the procedural aspects of Figueroa’s sentencing proceeding.
Having said that, however, I do not think that what the judge actually did, as opposed to what he said, demonstrated an intent to lay the wood to Figueroa or otherwise treat him unfairly. The sentence the judge imposed, which was at the lowest point of Figueroa’s advisory guideline range, looks to be reasonable. If the judge truly wanted to stick it to Figueroa, he could have said nothing out of the ordinary and imposed a sentence, still within the guideline range, that was 58 months longer than the one actually ordered. With that being the case, we might very well have a no harm-no foul situation. Yet Figueroa is entitled, procedurally, to a cleaner hearing than the one he got so I join my colleagues in returning this case to a new judge for a fresh hearing.