Case Citator › Burns v. United States

Burns v. United States

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Limited by some courts
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
501 U.S. 129
Decided
Confirmed treatments
1
Flagged citations read
42 of 42
Citing cases (total)
42
Treatment dates
2008
Limited by some courts
At least one reviewed court has limited this case’s holding to narrower facts or a narrower rule. No reviewed court has overruled it. Burns v. United States remains the rule for advance notice of an unannounced upward departure from the federal sentencing guidelines, but its reach is limited. In Irizarry v. United States, the Supreme Court declined to extend that notice requirement to a variance under the advisory guidelines.
More on how this was screened

All 42 flagged citations have been read; the confirmed limitation is listed below.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

42 later cases cite Burns v. United States; 42 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Burns v. United States?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Limited

  • The Supreme Court declined to extend Burns's advance notice rule for guideline departures to sentencing variances under the advisory guidelines.

    Irizarry v. United States · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    The due process concerns that motivated the Court to require notice in a world of mandatory Guidelines no longer provide a basis for this Court to extend the rule set forth in Burns either through an interpretation of Rule 32(h) itself or through Rule 32(i)(l)(C). And contrary to what the dissent argues, post, at 718 (opinion of Breyer, J.), the rule does not apply to 18 U. S. C. § 3553 variances by its terms.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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