United States v. Matta

• Decision Date: 26 January 2015
• Docket Number: No. 13–4078.,13–4078.
• Citation: 777 F.3d 116
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Luis MATTA, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

777 F.3d 116

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee,

v.Luis MATTA, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 13–4078.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Submitted: Sept. 19, 2014.

Decided: Jan. 26, 2015.

Yuanchung Lee, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Federal Defenders of New York, Inc., New York, NY, for Defendant–Appellant.

Susan Corkery, Margaret E. Lee (on the brief), for Loretta E. Lynch, United States Attorney, Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn, NY, for Appellee.

Before: CABRANES and LOHIER, Circuit Judges, and ENGELMAYER, District Judge.^*

LOHIER, Circuit Judge:

The principal issue we are asked to consider on this appeal is whether a sentencing court may delegate its sentencing authority to the United States Probation Department ¹ to determine whether a defendant should undergo inpatient or outpatient drug treatment as a special condition of supervised release. Here, the District Court (Irizarry, J.) imposed a special condition of supervised release that delegated the discretion to select between inpatient and outpatient treatment to the Probation Department. On appeal, Luis Matta challenges the delegation and also attacks his sentence on other grounds. We agree that the District Court's delegation was improper, and we vacate the special condition effectuating it and remand with instructions that the District Court itself select which form of treatment, if any, Matta should undergo. We reject Matta's remaining sentencing challenges and affirm in all other respects.

BACKGROUND

I. The Supervised Release Violations

In 2007 Matta pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced principally to 36 months' imprisonment and three years of supervised release. In August 2012 Matta was released from prison and began his term of supervised release. Within two months of Matta's release, the Probation Department issued a violation of supervised release (“VOSR”) report charging Matta with assaulting (“Charge One”) and menacing (“Charge Two”) the mother of his child by punching her repeatedly in the face. Three other VOSR reports followed, charging Matta with using cocaine (“Charge Three”), failing to reside in and abide by the rules of a residential reentry center for a period of 120 days (“Charge Four”), jumping over a subway turnstile without permission (“Charge Five”), leaving a drug treatment program early without permission (“Charge Six”), and failing to report to the Probation Department (“Charge Seven”).

On September 5, 2013, the Probation Department issued a final VOSR report describing New York State charges that had been filed against Matta after an incident on August 31, 2013, in which Matta reportedly threatened a female friend with a knife while intoxicated and kicked down her apartment door after she refused to let him into the apartment. Although New York eventually dismissed these charges, the Probation Department charged Matta with three violations relating to the incident: menacing (“Charge Eight”), criminal mischief (“Charge Nine”), and possession of a weapon (“Charge Ten”).

II. Resolution of the Charges

In August 2013 the District Court found Matta guilty of Charges One through Three and revoked his supervised release.² As for the remaining charges, in October 2013 Matta pleaded guilty to Charges Four through Seven, while the Government agreed to dismiss Charges Eight through Ten (relating to the August 31, 2013 incident).

After accepting Matta's guilty plea, the District Court, with the consent of the parties, proceeded immediately to sentencing. At sentencing Matta's counsel raised the issue of Matta's prior drug use and the appropriateness of drug treatment, remarking that while “maybe drug testing and treatment, special condition is appropriate, I don't think it would be appropriate at this time to order a condition of inpatient treatment.” Joint App'x at 116. After determining that Matta's Sentencing Guidelines range was 8 to 14 months—a calculation uncontested by either party—the District Court proceeded to review the factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). In particular, the court considered the events of August 31, 2013 that gave rise to the dismissed charges against Matta:

But I have to say, I have to agree with Probation, that you weren't even on supervised release for six months before the violations really started to roll in, beginning with a very serious incident of violence. It's interesting that these incidents involving violence involve women.

There was serious injury to the victim, and that was proven to this Court's satisfaction and the Magistrate Judge's satisfaction by a preponderance of the evidence.

....

[E]ven though charges eight through ten were dismissed, it is disturbing that again it involved a violent incident with a woman.

Alcohol was involved....

So I don't know how much of any lesson you have learned, quite frankly. I don't think you have learned any lesson whatsoever.

Joint App'x at 119–20.

The District Court sentenced Matta principally to a term of imprisonment of 24 months,³ to be followed by 12 months of supervised release, including four months in a residential reentry center. The court also required Matta to participate in a drug treatment or detoxification program as a special condition of supervised release. In doing so, the court left it “to the discretion of Probation” to decide whether an inpatient or outpatient program was “most appropriate.” The subsequent judgment of conviction confirmed that Matta would be required to “participate in an outpatient and/or inpatient drug treatment or detoxification program approved by the U.S. Probation Department.” Joint App'x at 129. Matta failed to object to the imposition of this special condition.

This appeal followed.

DISCUSSION

I. Delegation to the Probation Department

In addition to attacking the reasonableness of his sentence, Matta argues that the District Court impermissibly delegated its sentencing authority by allowing the Probation Department to determine whether he should undergo inpatient or outpatient drug treatment as a condition of supervised release. Because we agree that the delegation was impermissible for the reasons explained below, we vacate that portion of the sentence and remand to the District Court to determine for itself whether such treatment, if still necessary, should be on an inpatient or outpatient basis.

As an initial matter, the Government points out that Matta failed to object to the District Court's delegation and argues that we should review it for plain error. It urges that on plain error review Matta's argument fails because there was no clear precedent preventing the District Court's delegation; in other words, the error was not “plain.” We appreciate that Matta failed to object to this particular condition of supervised release at sentencing, and we agree with the Government that under those circumstances we ordinarily review for plain error. United States v. Green, 618 F.3d 120, 122 (2d Cir.2010) (“Generally, we review conditions of supervised release for abuse of discretion. When the defendant does not object to the conditions, however, we review only for plain error.” (citation omitted)). But plain error review is not always warranted in the sentencing context. We have explained that “the plain error doctrine should not be applied stringently in the sentencing context, where the cost of correcting an unpreserved error is not as great as in the trial context.” United States v. Gamez, 577 F.3d 394, 397 (2d Cir.2009) (citing United States v. Williams, 399 F.3d 450, 456–57 (2d Cir.2005)). And so we have employed a “relaxed” form of plain error review in those rare cases in which the defendant lacked sufficient prior notice that a particular condition of supervised release might be imposed. See Green, 618 F.3d at 122; United States v. Sofsky, 287 F.3d 122, 125–26 (2d Cir.2002).

Here, we conclude that Matta did not have a sufficient opportunity to raise a contemporaneous objection to the challenged delegation as a condition of supervised release. Matta could not have known of the delegation until the District Court had imposed sentence: the PSR made no mention of delegating to the Probation Department the decision as to treatment; nor did the District Court warn Matta of the possibility before imposing sentence, and even then all that the court said was that it would leave “to the discretion of Probation” the decision whether an inpatient or outpatient program was “most appropriate.” Joint App'x at 120. Accordingly, “[b]oth because the alleged error relates only to sentencing and because [Matta] lacked prior notice, we will entertain his challenge without insisting on strict compliance with the rigorous standards” of plain error review. Sofsky, 287 F.3d at 125–26.

We turn next to the merits of Matta's challenge to the District Court's delegation. The power to impose special conditions of supervised release, including participation in a substance abuse program, is vested exclusively in the district court. See18 U.S.C. § 3583; U.S.S.G. § 5D1.3(b), (d)(4). It is true that a district court may delegate to a probation officer decisionmaking authority over certain minor details of supervised release—for example, the selection of a therapy provider or treatment schedule. See United States v. Peterson, 248 F.3d 79, 85 (2d Cir.2001). But a district court may not delegate to the Probation Department decisionmaking authority which would make a defendant's liberty itself contingent on a probation officer's exercise of discretion. See id. For example, if, as a special condition of supervised release, a defendant is “required to participate in a [substance abuse] intervention only if directed to do so by his probation officer, then this special condition constitutes an impermissible delegation of judicial authority to the probation officer.” Id. In other words, the extensive “supervision mission” of federal probation officers includes “execut[ing] the...