Earley v. Murray
| Decision Date | 31 August 2006 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 04-4098-pr. |
| Citation | 462 F.3d 147 |
| Parties | Sean EARLEY, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Timothy MURRAY, Respondent-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
David M. Samel, New York, NY, for Petitioner-Appellant.
Amy M. Appelbaum, Assistant District Attorney (Charles J. Hynes, District Attorney, Kings County, Leonard Joblove and Victor Barall, Assistant District Attorneys, on the brief), Brooklyn, NY, for Respondent-Appellee.
Before WALKER, Chief Judge, LEVAL and SOTOMAYOR, Circuit Judges.
For the reasons stated below, respondent-appellee Timothy Murray's petition for rehearing is denied.
Respondent-appellee petitions for rehearing of a June 9, 2006, opinion of this court vacating the judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York denying petitioner-appellant Sean Earley's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Respondent-appellee argues that rehearing in this case is warranted because this court's decision (1) was based on an inaccurate understanding of the operation of New York law and (2) will call into question the validity of the post-release supervision ("PRS") elements of numerous sentences. Upon review, we adhere to our view that the inclusion of a five-year period of PRS in Earley's sentence when that PRS was not included in the sentence imposed at Earley's sentencing hearing violated his rights under the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution.
Respondent-appellee insists that our original decision failed to recognize that New York law automatically includes a period of PRS in every determinate sentence. He further argues 29 that, by virtue of the fact that every determinate sentence, by definition, includes such a period, Earley's PRS was part of his judicially-imposed sentence through the operation of New York law as soon as he was sentenced to a determinate sentence. In other words, respondent-appellee believes that a judicially-imposed sentence consists of two elements: (1) the terms imposed by the sentencing judge and (2) whatever additional terms that pronouncement is defined to include under New York law. As a result, respondent-appellee argues that the insistence of Hill v. United States ex rel. Wampler, 298 U.S. 460, 56 S.Ct. 760, 80 L.Ed. 1283 (1936), on which we relied in our original opinion, that the only cognizable sentence is the one imposed by the judge has no effect on Earley's PRS term; the sentence imposed by the judge did, in fact, include a term of PRS by operation of New York law. That this argument is cleverly formulated, we do not deny; nevertheless, we must reject it. A judicially-imposed sentence includes only those elements explicitly ordered by the sentencing judge.
Wampler undeniably stands for the proposition that the only valid terms of a defendant's sentence are the terms imposed by the judge. Indeed, the facts of Wampler compel this interpretation. In that case, the judge orally imposed a sentence on the defendant. The clerk of the court then altered the terms of that sentence when preparing the written judgment. Id. at 461-62, 56 S.Ct. 760. It was this alteration that the Supreme Court held to be null and void, stating that "[t]he only sentence known to the law is the sentence or judgment entered upon the records of the court." Id. at 464, 56 S.Ct. 760. Thus, the only sentence known to the law is the sentence imposed by the judge; any additional penalty added to that sentence by another authority is invalid, regardless of its source, origin, or authority until the judge personally amends the sentence. Thus, contrary to respondent-appellee's contention, a sentence cannot contain elements that were not part of a judge's pronouncement. The fact that New York law mandates a different sentence than the one imposed may render the sentence imposed unlawful, but it does not change it. The sentence imposed remains the sentence to be served unless and until it is lawfully modified.
The analysis in Bozza v. United States, 330 U.S. 160, 67 S.Ct. 645, 91 L.Ed. 818 (1947) supports the point. In that case, the trial judge had failed to impose a mandatory fine at sentencing. Id. at 165, 67 S.Ct. 645. Several hours after the original sentence had been announced, the judge recalled the prisoner and imposed the mandatory fine. Id. The Supreme Court, in rejecting the argument that the defendant had twice been placed in jeopardy, never suggested that a defendant's sentence could be corrected to include a term mandated by statute without a...
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