Marco Antonio Naranjo-Aguilar v. United States

Is remand for resentencing required when it is unclear whether the district court applied the correct legal standard in making a factual finding essential to its sentencing determination, which is the rule in all circuits but the Tenth Circuit, or—when confronted with an ambiguity in the district court’s ruling—may the appeals court simply assume that the district court intended the meaning that would have been legally correct, as the Tenth Circuit held in this case?

When a party articulates the correct legal standard in objecting to the presentence report’s recommendation on a Sentencing Guidelines issue and the district court overrules the objection using ambiguous language that raises doubts about whether the district court applied the correct legal standard, must the party take exception to the district court’s ruling in order to preserve the Guidelines objection for harmless-error review on appeal?