7th Circuit Declines to Decide Appellate Standard For New Sentence Post-Revocation Of Supervised Release

Abraham Flagg was convicted of distributing cocaine and cocaine base, and of conspiracy to distribute. After a plea deal, he received concurrent sentences of 180 months of imprisonment and 60 months of supervised release.

As soon as he began serving it, Flagg violated the terms of his supervised release. He was sentenced to 30 months additional prison time for the violation.

Flagg appealed the additional sentence. He claimed that the standard of review was whether the sentence was “plainly unreasonable.” The issue was whether the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in U.S. v. Booker required a change in the standard of review merely to “reasonableness.” The opinion noted a split among the federal circuits on this question. But the 7th Circuit left the question unanswered, ruling that Flagg’s additional sentence was correct under either standard of review.

The whole case, U.S. v. Flagg, No. 06-3092 (3/23/07) is available by clicking here.