Mental Health, Sentencing

United States v. Carlin, 712 F. App’x 365, (5th Cir. 2017); United States v. Stephens, 699 F. App'x 343 (5th Cir. 2017)
United States v. Wesberry, 709 F. App’x 895 (10th Cir. 2017)

The following three cases each involved defendant challenges to the imposition of mental health treatment as part of their sentencing. The cases are presented here in brief because of their relatively similar, short opinions that do not present notable fact patterns or developments in jurisprudence.

United States v. Carlin, 712 F. App’x 365, (5th Cir. 2017); United States v. Stephens, 699 F. App'x 343 (5th Cir. 2017).

Both Carlin and Stephens essentially concerned a misstatement of a condition of sentencing. In both cases, the court ordered that the defendant “participate in a mentalhealth program as deemed necessary and approved by the probation officer,” thus impermissibly delegating sentencing authority to the probation officer. In both cases, the Fifth Circuit affirmed a modified sentence that imposed mental health treatment, with details of the treatment to be supervised by the probation officer.

United States v. Wesberry, 709 F. App’x 895 (10th Cir. 2017).

In Wesberry, the defendant challenged the imposition of mental health treatment as part of his sentence under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, arguing that the condition was unreasonable because it bore no relation to the goals of the guidelines. The Tenth Circuit reviewed his claim for plain error because he had not challenged the condition in district court. The court found that there was no “well-settled” law supporting his challenge, thus there was no clear error to be found in the lower court’s sentencing decision. In addition, the court noted that the Guidelines’ policy statement recommends requiring participation in a mental health program if a court has reason, based on particularized findings, to believe the defendant is in need of psychological or psychiatric treatment; the court noted the district court’s reliance on presentence reports documenting Wesberry’s diagnoses and medications as meeting the requirement of particularized findings.

Found in DMHL Volume 37, Issue 1