Ninth Circuit Standard Sentencing Terms Ruling Highlights Split

A drug defendant wasn’t deprived of her right to be present at her sentencing hearing because the judge didn’t read the standard conditions of her supervised release, the Ninth Circuit said.

The ruling, issued Tuesday, underscored an already existing circuit split on how trial courts must treat certain sentencing conditions and ended with one member of the three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit calling for en banc review of its 2006 precedent, which allows judges to skip pronouncement of those standard terms.

Judges must orally pronounce a sentence at a sentencing hearing, Judge Kenneth ...