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Hilarity Ensues During a Federal Probation Revocation Hearing

“After violating the terms of his supervised release, Appellant was sentenced to prison and an additional period of supervised release, including special conditions. The Fifth Circuit found that the district court abused its discretion by imposing the special condition without demonstrating that the condition was reasonably related to statutory factors.”

The above quote comes from a federal probation revocation hearing, published online over at the Federal Criminal Appeals Blog, and is part of a larger (sometimes humorous) story of a man named Sammy Salazar. US v. Salazar, 743 F.3d 445 (5th Cir. 2014).

Mr. Salazar was serving a 10-year suspended sentence for third degree sexual abuse when he failed to register as a sex offender and earned himself a new felony.

Time served, plus fifteen (15) years of supervised release with a ton of special conditions on his supervision. He appealed those special conditions and several conditions were removed. 1Removal of these special conditions wasn’t because Salazar didn’t need them, or deserve them, it was simply because the judge ordered only a few of these special conditions out loud in court. The rest of the conditions were snuck in outside of oral orders and were thrown out by the Appeals Court.

Later, Mr. Salazar assaulted somebody in his family. Without a doubt, Mr. Salazar isn’t a man I want to get to know. Most times, important decisions are made and important precedents are set because of very unlikeable characters such as Salazar.

His supervision was then revoked: prison for 12 months and 14 years of supervision.  Again along with a bunch of special conditions of supervision.

Defense attorney objected, and led to the funniest written exchange between judge and lawyer we’ve seen in a long time:

Judge : Counsel, I’m aware that this is what went up on appeal because they weren’t written at the time of the sentence. This is not the original sentence. This is a new sentence on revocation. I am adding these conditions. I may do so under the terms of the supervised release and a revocation. So these are additional conditions that I am imposing on the revocation.

Saad: Then Your Honor, we would object and make a new objection that they’re overly burdensome and …

Jude: Overruled, counselor.

Saad: …and…

Judge: Overruled.

Saad: Thank you, Your Honor.

Judge: Overruled.

The defense attorney pissed the judge off to the point where defense’s GRATITUDE was overruled. Well done counselor.

References

References
1 Removal of these special conditions wasn’t because Salazar didn’t need them, or deserve them, it was simply because the judge ordered only a few of these special conditions out loud in court. The rest of the conditions were snuck in outside of oral orders and were thrown out by the Appeals Court.

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