United States v. Barnett

In United States v. Barnett, No. 23-20174 (5th Cir. July 26, 2024) (unpublished), the Fifth Circuit vacated a district court’s restitution order — as it had done two days earlier in United States v. McIntosh.

At sentencing, the district court “ordered Barnett to pay restitution to victims who are not mentioned in the record and failed to conduct the required proximate-cause analysis for these victims.” And “[a]n order of restitution that does not contain a proximate cause analysis is an illegal sentence.” That error required the court to vacate the restitution order, but it otherwise affirmed Barnett’s conviction and sentence.

On appeal, the Government argued that it was harmless error for the district court to have awarded restitution to victims not named in the record “because the amounts do not appear in the written judgment.” But the Fifth Circuit rejected that argument because its “precedent makes clear that ‘where there is any variation between the oral and written pronouncements of sentence, the oral sentence prevails.’” (quoting United States v. Shaw, 920 F.2d 1225, 1231 (5th Cir. 1991)).