## Facts

- A citizen reported a suspicious person who knocked on a door and then struck a vehicle while driving away.
- A deputy found the reported vehicle parked on a dead-end road and encountered Nathan Leland Minard.
- Minard was armed, and the vehicle contained multiple firearms and property taken in recent local burglaries.
- Minard pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g).
- The PSR calculated an advisory Guidelines range of 120 to 150 months; the statutory maximum was 120 months.
- At sentencing, a burglary victim described the burglary’s effect on his family, including his wife and young children.
- The sentencing judge made a brief personal remark that a similar burglary had happened to him when his children were young.
- The court explained its sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) and imposed the 120-month statutory maximum.

## Issues

1. Whether the judge’s brief personal remark to a victim created an appearance of partiality requiring disqualification under 28 U.S.C. § 455(a).
2. Whether the remark rendered the sentence “clear error” correctable under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35, requiring resentencing by a different judge.

## Decision

- The Eighth Circuit affirmed the 120-month sentence and the denial of Minard’s Rule 35 motion.
- The court held the remark was a spontaneous expression of empathy and did not show deep-seated favoritism or antagonism.
- The court concluded the sentencing record reflected proper consideration of the § 3553(a) factors and supported the statutory-maximum sentence.
- The court held Rule 35 did not apply because the sentence did not result from an arithmetical, technical, or similarly obvious error.

## Legal Principles

- Under 28 U.S.C. § 455(a), disqualification is required when a judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned; comments made during proceedings warrant recusal only if they reflect deep-seated favoritism or antagonism making fair judgment impossible.
- A sentencing judge may acknowledge victim-impact statements and the harm to victims without thereby showing improper bias against the defendant.
- Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35 permits correction only for narrow categories of “clear error” and is not a mechanism to relitigate discretionary sentencing decisions or allegations of bias unsupported by the record.
- A sentence within the advisory Guidelines range and supported by an on-the-record application of § 3553(a) factors is generally upheld absent a showing of reversible error.

## Conclusion

The court held that a brief, personal expression of empathy toward a victim at sentencing did not create a reasonable appearance of bias under § 455(a) and did not constitute Rule 35 “clear error,” so Minard was not entitled to resentencing and his 120-month sentence was affirmed.


United States v. Minard, 856 F.3d 555 (8th Cir. 2017)