Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Seth Logan Walker pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. At his original sentencing, the district court imposed a term of imprisonment to run concurrently with a state sentence Walker was already serving.
After the original sentencing, the district court resentenced Walker and entered an amended judgment changing the federal term to run consecutively — rather than concurrently — with the state sentence. Walker appealed the amended judgment to the Fifth Circuit.
The Court’s Holding
The Fifth Circuit, in a per curiam opinion, agreed with both parties that the district court lacked jurisdiction to resentence Walker. Under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(a), a district court may correct a sentence only within fourteen days of the original sentencing. Because the resentencing occurred outside that window, the court had no authority to act, and Rule 45(b)(2) bars any extension of that deadline.
Applying its prior decision in United States v. Willis, 76 F.4th 467 (5th Cir. 2023), the court held that the resentencing and the amended judgment are void. Because no valid judgment existed from which Walker could appeal, the court had nothing to review and dismissed the appeal. The court expressly noted that the original concurrent sentence and judgment remain in effect.
Key Takeaways
- A district court’s power to correct a sentencing error under Fed. R. Crim. P. 35(a) is strictly limited to fourteen days after the original sentencing — missing that deadline strips the court of jurisdiction entirely.
- A resentencing conducted outside the Rule 35(a) window is void, not merely voidable, and any amended judgment entered at that resentencing has no legal effect.
- When an amended judgment is void, there is no appealable judgment, requiring the appellate court to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction rather than reach the merits.
- The original sentence survives: voiding an untimely resentencing restores, rather than eliminates, the defendant’s original judgment.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces that the fourteen-day limit in Rule 35(a) is jurisdictional and absolute. District courts cannot use resentencing as a vehicle to fix perceived errors — even ones that both the government and defendant may agree on — once that window closes. Practitioners must monitor sentencing orders immediately and move quickly if a correction is needed.
For defendants, the ruling is a double-edged sword. Walker’s untimely resentencing to a harsher consecutive term was voided, restoring the more favorable concurrent sentence. But the case illustrates that procedural missteps by the district court can leave both sides without a meaningful avenue for appeal, and that jurisdictional defects can moot an appeal entirely regardless of the underlying merits.