Dennis Lenin Carranza-Clavel v. United States

When a sentencing court considers imposing a term of supervised release, 18 U.S.C. § 3583(c) stipulates which factors the court may weigh, while U.S.S.G. § 5D1.1(c) generally discourages applying supervised release to deportable aliens. Petitioner Dennis Lenin Carranza-Clavel is a deportable alien who has been given a sentence which includes supervised release. In the decision below, the Fifth Circuit affirmed without requiring individualized findings, holding that even if the district court plainly violated § 3583(c) and § 5D1.1(c), relief was unavailable under plainerror review, effectively insulating this recurring statutory violation from appellate correction. The circuit courts are divided over the Question Presented, which is as follows: Whether a district court violated 18 U.S.C. § 3583(c) and U.S.S.G. § 5D1.1(c) by imposing a term of supervised release on a deportable defendant without making an individualized finding that such supervision is necessary.