United States v. John Daniels

D efendant-Appellant John Fitzgerald Daniels (“Daniels”) appeals a 40-month sentence imposed by the district court after revocation of his supervised release. Daniels contends that the district court violated Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32.1(b)(2)(E) when it did not affirmatively offer him an opportunity to allocute before imposing its sentence. We have jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3742 (a) and 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we vacate and remand for resentencing.

I

In February 1991, Daniels was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison, to be followed by 10 years of supervised release, after pleading guilty to possession with intent to distribute cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841 . He served more than 17 years of his sentence before being released in June 2008, when his term of supervised release began.

In October 2012, Los Angeles police officers pulled over a vehicle driven by Daniels. During a search, the officers found marijuana, drug trafficking paraphernalia such as plastic bags and digital scales, and other indicia of drug trafficking including cell phones and cash. Daniels admitted to the arresting officers that he was driving on a suspended license and…