United States v. Billy Jack Keene

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that a guidelines error is harmless if the district court unambiguously expressed that it would have imposed the same sentence, regardless of the guidelines calculation
• holding that the court need not decide a guidelines enhancement issue if the trial court makes clear it made no difference to the ultimate sentence imposed and the sentence is substantively reasonable under the lower guidelines range advocated by the defendant
• explaining that “it would make no sense to set aside this reasonable sentence and send the case back to the district court since it has already told us that it would impose exactly the same sentence”
• holding any guidelines calculation error is harmless where the sentence would be reasonable even if the district USCA11 Case: 23-10060 Document: 31-1 Date Filed: 01/05/2024 Page: 9 of 9 23-10060 Opinion of the Court 9 AFFIRMED. court’s guideline calculation was erroneous
• affirming criminal sentence after district court explained that it would have applied the same sentence even if it calculated sentencing guidelines incorrectly
• analyzing whether the sentence was reasonable “assuming exactly the same conduct and other factors in the case,” but applying the new guideline range

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).