Whether a district court that imposes supervised release on a deportable offender must specifically tie it to a need for deterrence or protection

QUESTIONS PRESENTED Forty-one percent of federal offenders sentenced in 2016 were noncitizens. U.S. Sentencing Commission, Quick Facts, Non-U.S. Citizen Federal Offenders FY 2017. And despite the Guidelines instruction that district courts “ordinarily should not impose a term of supervised release” on a deportable offender unless compelled by statute, U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 5D1.1(c), district courts ordinarily do impose it: Last year, 56.5% of immigration sentences included supervised release. U.S. Sentencing Commission, 2018 Annual Report and Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics, at 67 (“2018 Sourcebook”). Two-thirds of noncitizen offenders, and three-quarters of reentry offenders, were sentenced in just five of the 94 federal districts. The Petitioner was sentenced for reentry after an aggravated felony in one of the other 89. Articulating only that its sentence was “based on the Sentencing Reform Act of ’84 and considering the provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 3553,” the district court imposed supervised release — and a 70-month custodial sentence. The questions presented are: 1. Whether a district court that imposes supervised release on a deportable offender must specifically tie it to a need for deterrence or protection, as the Third, Sixth, and Tenth Circuits hold; whether that provision is “hortatory” with no legal force, as the Fifth and Eighth Circuits hold; or whether Guidelines § 5D1.1(c) requires findings that can be satisfied by articulated support for the broader sentence, as the Second, Fourth and Ninth Circuits seem to hold. 2. Whether a presumption of reasonableness attends a sentence within a range established by Guidelines § 2L1.2, as amended in 2016, despite (i) evidence that the ranges established by the former § 2L1.2 seldom controlled sentences actually imposed ii on reentry offenders and (11) suggestions of a longstanding and significant geographic disparity in reentry sentences that Guideline does not address. 3. Whether a district court reversibly errs at sentencing by pronouncing only that its sentence is “based on the Sentencing Reform Act of ’84 and considering the provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 3553.” kK OK OR OK If the Court grants review, with Petitioner’s consent counsel will enlist an experienced member of this Court’s bar as counsel of record for merits briefing and argument. PARTIES INVOLVED All parties are reflected in the case caption. ili