Court Opinion

ID: 9960854
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-17 15:00:37.296115+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:19:55.765785
License: Public Domain

23-6145
United States of America v. Dean Brooks

                                  United States Court of Appeals
                                      For the Second Circuit

                                          August Term 2023

                                     Argued: February 14, 2024
                                      Decided: April 17, 2024

                                              No. 23-6145

                                    UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                                               Appellee,

                                                   v.

                                            DEAN BROOKS,

                                          Defendant-Appellant.

                         Appeal from the United States District Court
                           for the Northern District of New York
                           No. 20-cr-00118, David N. Hurd, Judge.

        Before: KEARSE, PARKER, and PÉREZ, Circuit Judges.

       Pending before this Court is Defendant-Appellant Dean Brooks’s motion to
reinstate an appeal from an order of the United States District Court for the
Northern District of New York (Hurd, J.). Brooks filed a motion on March 28, 2024,
requesting that we reinstate his appeal because the district court failed to take any
action after this Court issued its order. To date, the district court has not taken any
action. Brooks’s motion is GRANTED, and the order of the district court is
    VACATED AND REMANDED, again. Further, we ORDER that the case be
    reassigned to a different district judge on remand.

            APPEAL REMANDED.

                                               RAJIT S. DOSANJH (Geoffrey J.L. Brown, on the
                                               brief), for Carla B. Freedman, United States
                                               Attorney for the Northern District of New York,
                                               Syracuse, NY, for Appellee.

                                               MELISSA A. TUOHEY, Office of the Federal Public
                                               Defender, Northern District of New York,
                                               Syracuse, NY, for Defendant-Appellant.

    PER CURIAM∗:

1           This is the second appeal by Defendant-Appellant Dean Brooks from an

2   order of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York

3   denying his motion to modify a special condition of his supervised release

4   pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(2). Specifically, the special condition prohibits him

5   from having direct contact with any minor child—including his own children—

6   without permission from the probation office.

7           In the first appeal, we vacated the order of the district court and remanded

8   pursuant to United States v. Jacobson, 15 F.3d 19 (2d Cir. 1994), to allow the district

9   court to reconsider Brooks’s motion to modify his special condition of supervised

    ∗ Judge Amalya Kearse, a member of the panel, is temporarily unavailable. This opinion has been resolved by the
    remaining two members of the panel consistent with the local rules of this Court.

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10   release in light of his circumstances, the applicable statutory factors, and

11   governing law. We directed the district court to reconsider Brooks’s request for

12   modification and provide an explanation for its rationale by March 28, 2024, within

13   30 days of the date of our order. See generally United States v. Brooks (“Brooks I”),

14   No. 23-6145, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 4457 (2d Cir. Feb. 27, 2024).

15         In this second appeal, Brooks filed a motion on March 28, 2024, requesting

16   that we reinstate his appeal because, to date, the district court has failed to take

17   any action after this Court issued its order. Brooks’s motion is GRANTED, and

18   the order of the district court is VACATED AND REMANDED again. Further,

19   we ORDER that the case be reassigned to a different district judge on remand.

20                                      DISCUSSION

21         “[T]he ‘mandate rule’ describes the duty of the district court on remand

22   upon receipt of the mandate, which is the appellate court’s direction to the trial

23   court[.] . . .” United States v. Ben Zvi, 242 F.3d 89, 95 (2d Cir. 2001) (some internal

24   quotation marks omitted). Barring exceptional circumstances not applicable here,

25   “the district court ‘must follow the mandate issued by an appellate court,’ and it

26   ‘has no discretion in carrying out the mandate.’” Callahan v. County of Suffolk, 96

27   F.4th 362, 367 (2d Cir. 2024) (quoting Puricelli v. Argentina, 797 F.3d 213, 218 (2d

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28   Cir. 2015)).   To date, the district court failed to follow our instructions “to

29   reconsider Brooks’s request for modification and provide an explanation for its

30   rationale within 30 days of the date of this order.” Brooks I, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS

31   4457, at *4.

32          As this Court explained in Brooks I, in determining whether or how to

33   modify the conditions of supervised release, district courts are required to

34   consider the appropriate “factors set forth in section 3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(B), (a)(2)(C),

35   (a)(2)(D), (a)(4), (a)(5), (a)(6), and (a)(7).” Id. at *2 (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)).

36   Although district courts are not required to set forth detailed findings on each

37   statutory factor, see United States v. Gammarano, 321 F.3d 311, 315 (2d Cir. 2003), a

38   district court must “adequately explain the chosen sentence to allow for

39   meaningful appellate review” when considering a motion for a sentence

40   modification, United States v. Halvon, 26 F.4th 566, 570 (2d Cir. 2022) (per curiam)

41   (quoting Chavez-Meza v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 1959, 1965 (2018)). This is not a

42   high burden to meet. “The explanation required need not be lengthy,” and must

43   simply provide “some indication of the rationale for the ruling[.]” United States v.

44   Christie, 736 F.3d 191, 196 (2d Cir. 2013).

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45         We GRANT Brooks’s motion to reinstate his appeal and again VACATE

46   AND REMAND the order of the district court to allow the district court to

47   reconsider Brooks’s motion to modify his special condition of supervised release

48   in light of his circumstances, the applicable statutory factors, and governing law.

49   We ORDER that the case be reassigned to a different district judge on remand “to

50   preserve the appearance of justice.” United States v. Robin, 553 F.2d 8, 10 (2d Cir.

51   1977) (en banc) (per curiam).

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