United States v. Ford

Steven Ford was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment for various firearms-possession charges, followed by three years of supervised release. Because of a sex-offense conviction nineteen years earlier, the district court placed sex-offense-specific conditions on Ford’s term of supervised release. Specifically, the court required Ford to undergo a sex-offender assessment, and if recommended by the assessment, to submit to treatment which could include polygraph questioning about his sexual past. Ford contended on appeal that the district court abused its discretion because the sex-offender conditions are not reasonably related to the sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C. 3583. After review, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals held that, notwithstanding Ford’s long custodial sentence and new life sentence for a different crime, Ford’s challenge was ripe for review. Furthermore, the Court determined the district court did not abuse its discretion by requiring Ford to undergo a sex-offender risk assessment as a condition of supervised release. View "United States v. Ford" on Justia Law