23-6145 United States of America v. Dean Brooks

United States Court of Appeals For the Second Circuit

August Term 2023

Argued: February 14, 2024 Decided: April 17, 2024

No. 23-6145

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

v.

DEAN BROOKS,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York No. 20-cr-00118, David N. Hurd, Judge.

Before: KEARSE, PARKER, and PÉREZ, Circuit Judges.

Pending before this Court is Defendant-Appellant Dean Brooks’s motion to reinstate an appeal from an order of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (Hurd, J.). Brooks filed a motion on March 28, 2024, requesting that we reinstate his appeal because the district court failed to take any action after this Court issued its order. To date, the district court has not taken any action. Brooks’s motion is GRANTED, and the order of the district court is VACATED AND REMANDED, again. Further, we ORDER that the case be reassigned to a different district judge on remand.

APPEAL REMANDED.

RAJIT S. DOSANJH (Geoffrey J.L. Brown, on the brief), for Carla B. Freedman, United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York, Syracuse, NY, for Appellee.

MELISSA A. TUOHEY, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Northern District of New York, Syracuse, NY, for Defendant-Appellant.

PER CURIAM∗:

1 This is the second appeal by Defendant-Appellant Dean Brooks from an

2 order of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York

3 denying his motion to modify a special condition of his supervised release

4 pursuant to

(e)(2). Specifically, the special condition prohibits him

5 from having direct contact with any minor child—including his own children—

6 without permission from the probation office.

7 In the first appeal, we vacated the order of the district court and remanded

8 pursuant to United States v. Jacobson,

(2d Cir. 1994), to allow the district

9 court to reconsider Brooks’s motion to modify his special condition of supervised

∗ Judge Amalya Kearse, a member of the panel, is temporarily unavailable. This opinion has been resolved by the remaining two members of the panel consistent with the local rules of this Court.

2 10 release in light of his circumstances, the applicable statutory factors, and

11 governing law. We directed the district court to reconsider Brooks’s request for

12 modification and provide an explanation for its rationale by March 28, 2024, within

13 30 days of the date of our order. See generally United States v. Brooks (“Brooks I”),

14 No. 23-6145,

(2d Cir. Feb. 27, 2024).

15 In this second appeal, Brooks filed a motion on March 28, 2024, requesting

16 that we reinstate his appeal because, to date, the district court has failed to take

17 any action after this Court issued its order. Brooks’s motion is GRANTED, and

18 the order of the district court is VACATED AND REMANDED again. Further,

19 we ORDER that the case be reassigned to a different district judge on remand.

20 DISCUSSION

21 “[T]he ‘mandate rule’ describes the duty of the district court on remand

22 upon receipt of the mandate, which is the appellate court’s direction to the trial

23 court[.] . . .” United States v. Ben Zvi,

(2d Cir. 2001) (some internal

24 quotation marks omitted). Barring exceptional circumstances not applicable here,

25 “the district court ‘must follow the mandate issued by an appellate court,’ and it

26 ‘has no discretion in carrying out the mandate.’” Callahan v. County of Suffolk, 96

, 367 (2d Cir. 2024) (quoting Puricelli v. Argentina,

(2d

3 28 Cir. 2015)). To date, the district court failed to follow our instructions “to

29 reconsider Brooks’s request for modification and provide an explanation for its

30 rationale within 30 days of the date of this order.” Brooks I,

4457, at *4.

32 As this Court explained in Brooks I, in determining whether or how to

33 modify the conditions of supervised release, district courts are required to

34 consider the appropriate “factors set forth in section 3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(B), (a)(2)(C),

35 (a)(2)(D), (a)(4), (a)(5), (a)(6), and (a)(7).”

at *2 (quoting

(e)).

36 Although district courts are not required to set forth detailed findings on each

37 statutory factor, see United States v. Gammarano,

(2d Cir. 2003), a

38 district court must “adequately explain the chosen sentence to allow for

39 meaningful appellate review” when considering a motion for a sentence

40 modification, United States v. Halvon,

(2d Cir. 2022) (per curiam)

41 (quoting Chavez-Meza v. United States,

(2018)). This is not a

42 high burden to meet. “The explanation required need not be lengthy,” and must

43 simply provide “some indication of the rationale for the ruling[.]” United States v.

44 Christie,

(2d Cir. 2013).

4 45 We GRANT Brooks’s motion to reinstate his appeal and again VACATE

46 AND REMAND the order of the district court to allow the district court to

47 reconsider Brooks’s motion to modify his special condition of supervised release

48 in light of his circumstances, the applicable statutory factors, and governing law.

49 We ORDER that the case be reassigned to a different district judge on remand “to

50 preserve the appearance of justice.” United States v. Robin,

(2d Cir.

51 1977) (en banc) (per curiam).

5