United States v. Thomas, 840 F.3d 920

Defendant pleaded guilty to wire fraud for submitting fraudulent invoices and obtaining $374,000 from Riverdale, Illinois.
District court sentenced defendant to 60 months imprisonment and 36 months of supervised release.
Judge imposed numerous discretionary and special supervised-release conditions (financial reporting, restitution-related restrictions, community service conditional on unemployment, credit restrictions, substance-abuse testing up to 104 tests/year, contribution of 10% of net monthly income, restriction on acting as law-enforcement informant) but did not number or fully reconcile all orally stated conditions with the written judgment.
The judge did not state reasons on the record for the discretionary conditions or for the 36-month term of supervised release, nor did the judge read the conditions aloud to the defendant at sentencing.
The written proposed conditions (prepared by probation) differed from the oral imposition (e.g., substance-abuse testing condition added orally; special condition numbers misstated), creating conflicts with precedent requiring alignment between oral and written conditions.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether judge complied with requirement to give reasons for supervised-release conditions	Government: conditions are valid; procedural defects can be cured by remand	Defendant: judge failed to state required reasons, undermining validity of conditions	Court: judge failed to give required reasons; error warranted resentencing
Whether judge properly read conditions to defendant at sentencing	Government: incorporation by reference allowed if defendant saw proposed conditions and no conflicts	Defendant: conditions were not read; defendant lacked opportunity to review; violation of precedent	Court: judge did not read conditions and did not explain omission; procedural error
Whether oral and written conditions conflicted and whether incorporation by reference was proper	Government: argued for affirmance or limited remedy	Defendant: pointed to added oral condition (substance testing) and misnumbered conditions as conflicts	Court: found discrepancy between oral and written conditions (added testing condition; misnumbered condition) violating Bloch/Kappes; error requires resentencing
Whether judge provided reasons for length of supervised release (36 months)	Government: term acceptable	Defendant: judge gave no §3553(c) reasons on record	Court: failure to state reasons for supervised-release term was error supporting resentencing

United States v. Kappes, 782 F.3d 828 (7th Cir. 2015) (sentencing judge must read conditions and state reasons on the record)
United States v. Johnson, 765 F.3d 702 (7th Cir. 2014) (procedural requirements for sentencing, including explaining conditions orally)
United States v. Bloch, 825 F.3d 862 (7th Cir. 2016) (incorporation by reference of written conditions permitted only if defendant reviewed proposed conditions and there are no conflicts between oral and written conditions)
United States v. Harper, 805 F.3d 818 (7th Cir. 2015) (remand for resentencing where procedural sentencing errors are significant)
United States v. Downs, 784 F.3d 1180 (7th Cir. 2015) (similar authority supporting reversal and resentencing for procedural sentencing defects)

Court disposition: Judgment reversed and case remanded for full resentencing.