Court Opinion

ID: 3197722
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2016-04-26 15:00:31.421734+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:39:11.579097
License: Public Domain

SUMMARY ORDER
 

  • Defendant-appellant Stephen Walsh (“Walsh”) appeals from the - District Court’s November 19, 2014 judgment, which was signed on November 18, 2014, and which imposed a principal sentence of 240 months’ imprisonment. The District Court’s written judgment followed an identical oral sentence that it imposed during an October 29, 2014 sentencing hearing.
 

  The crux of Walsh’s argument on appeal is that the District Court “arrest[ed] the October 29 [sentencing] hearing and in-vit[ed] a plea withdrawal motion ... [,] only to pronounce the ultimate sentence weeks later via electronic docket entry,” thereby “infring[ing] ... [his] fundamental rights” under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Rule 48(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure “that sentence be imposed in open court, in the presence of the accused, his counsel and any spectators that wish to attend.” Def.’s Br. 8-9.
 

  We find Walsh’s argument unpersuasive. The transcript of the October 29 sentencing hearing establishes beyond any doubt that Walsh was, in fact, sentenced in open court on that date, and not, as he claims,
  
   “in camera”
  
  on November 19, when judgment was formally entered.
  
   See
  
  A-61 (“[A]t this time, I sentence you ... to 20 years in prison. To be followed by three years of supervised release.”); A-62 (requiring that Walsh stand, and stating again, “I sentence you to 20 years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release”). That the District Court may have mistakenly implied that it had the authority to entertain a post-sentencing motion to withdraw Walsh’s guilty plea,
  
   see
  
  Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(e) (“After the court imposes sentence, the defendant many not withdraw a plea of guilty ..., and the plea may be set aside only on direct appeal or collateral attack.”), does not change that fact.
 

  CONCLUSION
 

  We have considered all of Walsh’s arguments on appeal and found them to be without merit. Accordingly, the November 19, 2014 judgment of the District Court is AFFIRMED.