U.S. v. McClain

Dist. Ct. erred in granting government’s motion to modify defendant’s sentences on unlawful drug distribution and violation of supervised release arising out of prior federal conviction on drug delivery charge, where government claimed that said modifications were permissible as attempts to correct “clerical errors” in prior imposition of said sentences. Record showed that: (1) Dist. Ct. imposed original sentences on said convictions in 2012; (2) in 2013, Dist. Ct. modified said sentences pursuant to Dorsey, 567 U.S. 260, by sentencing defendant to 90 months in federal prison, with 24 months to be served concurrently with existing state sentence and 66 months to be served consecutively to state sentence; (3) government claimed that written 2013 judgments did not conform to orally pronounced sentences, where effect of written sentences meant that defendant received 42 months of concurrent time and only 48 months of consecutive time; (4) Dist. Ct. modified 2013 sentence in 2016, following Amendment 782 to Sentencing Guidelines, but new sentence incorrectly imposed 48-month consecutive sentence; (4) in February of 2021, Dist. Ct., pursuant to joint motion by parties, corrected math errors in 2016 sentence; and (6) in March of 2021, Dist. Ct., over defendant’s objection, granted government’s Rule 36 motion to correct clerical errors between sentences orally announced in 2013 and defendant’s release date in April of 2021, where government argued that sentence should be corrected so that defendant would serve 64 months total after his state sentence. Ct. of Appeals agreed with defendant that government could not use Rule 36 to make any sentence correction, where: (1) said proposed correction was not “clerical” in nature, as required under Rule 36; and (2) while Rule 35 would allow such correction, government’s motion was untimely as it was filed well beyond 14-day limitation period for filing such motion.