United States v. Honors
Split Score
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Case Summary
Disposition
Affirmed in Part
The Tenth Circuit affirmed Eric Honors’s convictions for transporting a minor for sex and producing child pornography but vacated a post-sentencing custodial no-contact injunction and a related supervised-release condition that barred him from contacting his wife and biological children. The court held the district court lacked statutory and ancillary jurisdiction to impose the custodial order and that the supervised-release restriction unduly infringed Honors’s fundamental right to familial association.
Circuit Split Identified
Legal Issue
Whether a federal district court possesses inherent/ancillary authority to impose a standalone custodial no-contact order (an injunction restricting a defendant’s communications while imprisoned) after the oral pronouncement of sentence.
Circuit Positions
District courts possess inherent authority to issue post-sentencing custodial no-contact orders to protect witnesses and the administration of justice.
District courts lack inherent authority to impose custodial no-contact orders once sentence is pronounced; such orders require statutory authorization.
Inherent authority, if it exists at all, is limited to ‘rare and compelling circumstances’; order here vacated for lack of statutory or ancillary jurisdiction.
Conflict Summary
The Seventh and Ninth Circuits recognize broad inherent authority permitting district courts to enter post-sentencing custodial no-contact orders in order to protect witnesses and the administration of justice. The Third Circuit has expressly rejected that view, holding that such orders are unauthorized absent express statutory authority and cannot be grounded in inherent power. In this Tenth Circuit opinion the court declines to endorse the broad view and vacates the order, holding that—at least absent ‘rare and compelling circumstances’—a district court lacks statutory or ancillary jurisdiction to impose a custodial no-contact injunction after sentencing.