Court Opinion

ID: 9489144
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:06:51.541997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:20.922276
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment:
It seems to me that the application of guideline 5G1.3 to Prewitt’s sentence is controlled by United States v. Smith, 80 F.3d 1188 (7th Cir.1996). That case holds that, “[t]he district court’s discretion to sentence [the defendant] either concurrently or consecutively translates into ... only the possibility of receiving a concurrent sentence.” Hence, pre-indictment delay like that before us does not qualify as actual prejudice. It is therefore unnecessary to spin out the distinctions drawn in United States v. Phipps, 68 F.3d 159, 161-63 (7th Cir.1995). Phipps found that a “term of imprisonment” does not include home detention, but it carefully left undecided the meaning of “undischarged term of imprisonment.” Whether being placed on parole “discharges” a term of imprisonment is not a question we have to decide now and I would not decide it.
Given the ruling in Smith, the district court did not abuse its broad discretion by refusing to hold a hearing on the issue of pre-indictment delay. I also agree that “unexpired” and “undischarged” have no obviously different meanings in the present context.