Defendants Must Be Present During Release Conditions Delivery

The Second Circuit overturned more than 25 years of precedent Thursday, ruling that a sentencing court must pronounce any non-mandatory conditions of supervised release in a criminal defendant’s presence.

Statutorily mandated sentencing conditions may be imposed without prior notice or pronouncement, but discretionary conditions—including those considered “standard"—may not, Judge Sarah A.L. Merriam said for the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The en banc opinion overruled the Second Circuit’s 1999 holding in United States v. Truscello, which had departed from the general rule that a defendant must be present for the pronouncement of a sentence. It also ...