Ball v. United States - Criminal Case Remanded to Mississippi District
Summary
The Fifth Circuit granted the government's unopposed motion to remand D'Laun Ball's criminal case to the Southern District of Mississippi. The case arose after Ball's probation was revoked and he was sentenced to 46 months' imprisonment. The appellate court, exercising its obligation under Anders v. California to review the record, identified a potentially outcome-determinative policy statement under U.S.S.G. § 7B1.4(a) recommending a 3-to-9-month sentencing range that was never raised by defense counsel, the government, or the district court.
What changed
The Fifth Circuit vacated the prior judgment and remanded the case to the district court. Judge Oldham's concurrence highlights that while courts traditionally operate as passive instruments under the party-presentation principle, the Anders obligation requires courts to independently identify meritorious issues that defense counsel may have overlooked. In this case, the court found that everyone—defense counsel, the government, and the district court—missed an applicable policy statement recommending a substantially lower sentencing range than the 46-month term imposed.
The practical implications for criminal practitioners are significant. Defense counsel must conduct thorough reviews of sentencing guidelines and policy statements at both the trial and appellate levels, as courts may not excuse failures to raise such issues simply because the district court or the government also missed them. The decision reinforces that appellate courts have both the power and duty to identify legal errors affecting sentencing outcomes, even when no party has preserved the issue.
Archived snapshot
Apr 17, 2026GovPing captured this document from the original source. If the source has since changed or been removed, this is the text as it existed at that time.
Case: 25-60396 Document: 69-2 Page: 1 Date Filed: 04/16/2026
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
_____________ Fifth Circuit FILED April 16, 2026 _____________
Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk United States of America, Plaintiff--Appellee, versus D'Laun Ball, Defendant--Appellant. ________________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi USDC No. 1:21-CR-59-5 ________________________________ PUBLISHED ORDER Before Smith, Haynes, and Oldham, Circuit Judges. Per Curiam: IT IS ORDERED that appellee's unopposed motion to remand is GRANTED.
United States Court of Appeals
Case: 25-60396 Document: 69-2 Page: 2 Date Filed: 04/16/2026
Andrew S. Oldham, Circuit Judge, concurring: I do not object to the majority's approach to this case. But I write separately to emphasize its implications for the so-called party-presentation principle. When the district court revoked D'Laun Ball's probation, the court sentenced him to 46 months of imprisonment. No one said anything about an applicable policy statement that recommended a three-to-nine-month range for an offender like Ball. See U.S.S.G. § 7B1.4(a). Defense counsel missed it. The Government missed it. And the district court apparently missed it. The case came up on appeal, and defense counsel missed it again. He filed an Anders brief, informing this court that Ball's appeal "present[ed] no legally nonfrivolous basis for reversal." ECF 24, at ii. The first mention of this apparently outcome-determinative policy statement came from this court. Pursuant to this court's obligation to litigate this case on Ball's behalf under Anders v. California, we identified the policy statement. Then and only then did defense counsel pick up on the problem, and only then did defense counsel argue that it was somehow "plain error" for everyone, including defense counsel, to miss the policy statement both in the district court and on appeal in the Anders brief. Courts are supposedly "passive instruments of government. They do not . . . sally forth each day looking for wrongs to right. They wait for cases to come to them, and when cases arise, courts normally decide only questions presented by the parties." United States v. Sineneng-Smith, 590 U.S. 371, 376 (2020) (citation modified). In our adversarial system, the judge does act as inquisitor, conducting the "legal investigation himself." McNeil v. Wisconsin, 501 U.S. 171, 181 n.2 (1991). Yet today, we invoke the judicial power to remand a case based solely
Case: 25-60396 Document: 69-2 Page: 3 Date Filed: 04/16/2026
on an (apparently plain) error that our court found under Anders. So why, exactly, do we in other contexts invoke the party-presentation doctrine to ignore legal problems that parties fail to identify? What gives courts power to ignore a winning legal argument in some contexts, but not in others? Perhaps the best answer is to recognize a basic truth: Courts have the power and duty to find and apply the correct legal principles regardless of what the parties say.
A True Copy Certified order issued Clerk, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Apr 16, 2026
Named provisions
Related changes
Get daily alerts for 5th Circuit Published Opinions
Daily digest delivered to your inbox.
Free. Unsubscribe anytime.
About this page
Every important government, regulator, and court update from around the world. One place. Real-time. Free. Our mission
Source document text, dates, docket IDs, and authority are extracted directly from 5th Circuit.
The summary, classification, recommended actions, deadlines, and penalty information are AI-generated from the original text and may contain errors. Always verify against the source document.
Classification
Who this affects
Taxonomy
Browse Categories
Get alerts for this source
We'll email you when 5th Circuit Published Opinions publishes new changes.
Subscribed!
Optional. Filters your digest to exactly the updates that matter to you.