United States v. Groves

How courts have described this case

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

• holding Groves was enti- tled to challenge his sentence on Ex Post Facto grounds after he pleaded guilty without agreeing to a specific sentence, and reserved the right to appeal any “illegal sentence” that may be imposed
• “If a guideline amendment contradicts either the plain meaning of the preexisting guideline or controlling case law, that amendment is necessarily substantive.”
• “Because the defendant reserved the right to appeal an ‘illegal sentence,’ and because an unconstitutional sentence is ‘illegal,’ we hold that the defendant is entitled to challenge his sentence . . . .”
• “If a guideline amendment contradicts either the plain meaning of the preexisting guideline or controlling case law [in this Circuit or from the Supreme Court], that amendment is necessarily substantive.”
• ―Because the defendant reserved the right to appeal an ‗illegal sentence,‘ and because an unconstitutional sentence is ‗illegal,‘ we hold that the defendant is entitled to challenge his sentence . . . .‖
• to decide whether an amendment is clarifying or substantive, we consider (1) “whether the amendment alters [our] controlling pre-amendment interpretation of the guideline,” (2) “whether the amendment changes the text of the sentencing guideline or merely the accompanying commentary,” and (3

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).