by Katharine Yale
On October 10th in U.S. v. Stroud, the Fourth Circuit affirmed a judgment that revoked the defendant’s supervised release, ordered him to serve twenty-four months consecutively to any state sentence, and directed that he be given credit for the time that he was in federal detention prior to sentencing.
Under a plain error standard of review, the Fourth Circuit found no error in the district court’s sentencing decision. The defendant did not meet his burden in proving that there was an error, that the error was clear, and that the error affected his substantial rights in that it affected the outcome of the district court proceedings.
The defendant argued that the district court compounded its error in ordering sentencing credit by selecting the wrong date to start calculating the credit. The Fourth Circuit rejected this argument because the Attorney General (through the Bureau of Prisons, the “BOP”) is responsible for computing the sentencing credit for the time in detention prior to sentencing. The BOP will determine the amount of credit when it implements the defendant’s sentence. If the defendant does not agree with the credit, he can seek an administrative remedy, then file a petition if he is not happy with that result. Because the BOP would have the responsibility to calculate the amount of credit, the court found that there was no reason to vacate the district court’s judgment.
Further, the defendant argued that because his sentence was unreasonable, his counsel was ineffective. To bring this claim on direct appeal, the record must conclusively show that counsel was indeed ineffective. Here, the court held that the record did not make a conclusive showing on the issue and denied review.
