The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the revocation of a defendant's supervised release term. The court rejected the argument that the consecutive sentence was substantively unreasonable.
Serbelio Tepaz-Perez appealed the revocation of his term of supervised release. He argued that the district court’s order to run his twelve-month revocation sentence consecutively to a twenty-one-month sentence for a new illegal reentry offense was substantively unreasonable.
The court’s reasoning
The court held that the defendant failed to rebut the presumption of reasonableness that applies to a revocation sentence. It also found that the defendant did not show that the district court committed a clear or obvious error by imposing a substantively unreasonable sentence.
What it means going forward
The ruling reinforces the standard of review for supervised release revocations, placing the burden on the appellant to demonstrate that a consecutive sentence is substantively unreasonable or clearly erroneous.
