Special SR Conditions Must Be Imposed at Sentencing Hearing

US v. Rogers: Rogers was on supervised release when he was convicted of state charges involving drugs. At the revocation hearing, the district court imposed a sentence of 24 months in prison, plus an additional term of supervised release. It did not mention anything about conditions of supervised release. Weeks later, in the written judgement order, the district court imposed 26 conditions of supervised release - four mandated by statute and 22 "standard" conditions that had been adopted by the court in a standing order.

On appeal, the Fourth Circuit vacated Rogers' sentence. It held that imposing conditions of supervised release in a written judgment, without first announcing them orally at sentencing, violated the defendant's right to be present. While the oral pronouncement of a term of supervised release was enough to cover the mandatory conditions (the four set forth in the statute), it could not cover the other 22 conditions which were, in spite of the standing order, "special" conditions of supervised release that have to be tailored to the specific needs of the defendant upon whom they are imposed. The court suggested that sentencing courts could incorporate such conditions by reference at sentencing, but there was no such reference made in this case so the sufficiency of that incorporation was not before the court.

Congrats to the Defender office in Western NC on the win!