Manuel De Jesus Del Cid Bran v. United States
Immigration
Does a district court abuse its discretion under 18 U.S.C. § 3583 by imposing a term of supervised release on a deportable noncitizen purely in order to impose 'a harsher sentence' in the future?
QUESTION PRESENTED A district court may not consider retribution when deciding whether to impose a term of supervised release. See Concepcion v. United States, 142 S. Ct. 2389, 2400 (2022). Instead, supervised release is intended “for those, and only those, who need|[] it.” Cornell Johnson v. United States, 529 U.S. 694, 709 (2000). Consistent with those opinions, and after careful study, the Sentencing Commission in 2011 recommended that district courts not impose a term of supervised release on a person who would likely be deported. U.S.S.G. § 5D1.1(c). But, Sentencing Commission datafiles show, district courts still, ordinarily do impose such terms, especially in the Fourth and Ninth Circuits. In this case, the district court imposed supervised release even though it and the parties agreed that imprisonment would not deter Mr. Del Cid Bran from returning to the United States, given the corroborated and uncontradicted death threats from gangs in El Salvador he and his family had received. But it still imposed a term of supervised release to be able to “give [Mr. Del Cid Bran] a harsher sentence” when he returns to the United States. Therefore, the question presented is: Does a district court abuse its discretion under 18 U.S.C. § 3583 by imposing a term of supervised release on a deportable noncitizen purely in order to impose “a harsher sentence” in the future?