Rico v. United States

Today, most criminal defendants sentenced to federal prison must also serve a term of supervised release.

If a defendant on supervised release fails to report to his probation officer, serious consequences can follow.

This case poses a question about one of them.

Under the Sentencing Reform Act of nineteen eighty-four, supervised release serves as a transitional period between incarceration and freedom.

While on supervised release, a criminal defendant must comply with various conditions.

Some of those conditions, like commit no more crimes, are as mandatory as they are obvious.

Others may be imposed at the discretion of the sentencing judge.

Common discretionary conditions include reporting to a probation officer as directed and notifying the probation officer promptly of any change in address.

Should a defendant violate any prescribed condition, whether mandatory or discretionary, a judge may revoke his release and order him returned to prison.

A judge may also require the defendant to serve an additional term of supervised release after his imprisonment.

Isabel Rico's encounter with these rules is long and complex.

In twenty ten, she pleaded guilty to federal drug trafficking charges and was sentenced to seven years in prison, followed by four years of supervised release.

Only a few months after leaving prison in January twenty seventeen, Ms. Rico violated her supervised release conditions.

As a result, the judge revoked her release, sent her back to prison for two months, and ordered her to serve another forty-two-month term of supervised release.

Per the judge's order, that new supervised release term was slated to expire in June twenty twenty-one, an important date, as we will soon see.

Ms. Rico's second stint on supervised release went no better than her first.

Shortly after leaving prison in December twenty seventeen, she changed her residence without telling her probation officer, once again violating a condition of her release.

In response, a judge issued a warrant for her arrest in May twenty eighteen, but federal authorities apparently didn't catch up with her until January twenty twenty-three.

In between too, it turned out that Ms. Rico committed new state law offenses.

In January twenty twenty-one, authorities arrested her for evading police and driving without a license.

And in January twenty twenty-two, she was charged with possessing illicit drugs for sale.

Both sets of crimes resulted in convictions.

Of course, Ms. Rico faced punishment for those offenses in state court, but what did they mean for her back in federal court? Consulting the sentencing guidelines, the court held that Ms.

Rico's failure to report to her probation officer and her January twenty twenty-one offenses qualified as two independent Grade C violations of her supervised release conditions, each carrying an advisory sentencing range of eight to fourteen months of imprisonment.

The court also held that Ms. Rico's January twenty twenty-two drug offense amounted to a grade A violation with an associated advisory range of thirty-three to thirty-six months of imprisonment.