Monroe Ace Setser, Petitioner v. United States (566 U.S. 231)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 28, 2012 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 566 U.S. 231 · 132 S. Ct. 1463
- Decided
- March 28, 2012
- Term
- October Term 2011
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Scalia
- Issue area
- Judicial Power
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court. We consider whether a district court, in sentencing a defendant for a federal offense, has authority to order that the federal sentence be consecutive to an anticipated state sentence that has not yet been imposed. I — { When officers of the Lubbock Police Department arrested petitioner Monroe Setser for possessing methamphetamine, he was already serving a 5-year term of probation imposed by a.Texas court for another drug offense. Setser was indicted in state court for possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, and the State also moved to revoke his term of probation. As often happens in drug cases, the federal authorities also got involved. A federal grand jury indicted Setser for possessing with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine, 21 U. S. C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(l)(A)(viii), and he pleaded guilty. Before the federal sentencing hearing, a probation officer calculated the applicable Sentencing Commission Guidelines range to be 121 to 151 months’ imprisonment. Citing precedent from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, United States v. Brown, 920 F. 2d 1212 (1991) (per curiam), he indicated that the District Court had discretion to make Setser’s sentence either concurrent with or consecutive to any sentence anticipated in the separate state-court proceedings. Setser…
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