United States v. Robert U. Syme

How courts have described this case

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

• holding that even though a constructive amendment to an indictment does not constitute a “structural” error, it nevertheless must be “presumed prejudicial” in light of the difficulty of proving prejudice resulting from constructive amendments
• explaining that Apprendi applies only to criminal penalties that increase a defendant’s sentence “beyond the prescribed statutory maximum”
• noting that evidence of sandbagging weighs against finding plain error
• finding plain error and ex post facto violation where defendant was sentenced using enhancement 16 No. 03-4114 not in effect at time crime was committed
• discussing Adams and concluding that “[l]ike a denial of the right of allocution, a constructive amendment [to an indictment] also violates a basic right of criminal defendants”
• “Like a denial of the right of allocution, a constructive amendment also violates a basic right of criminal defendants . . . .”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).