PSR Disclosure Satisfies Notice for Unread Supervised-Release Conditions; Written Judgment Must Not Add Burdens Beyond Oral Pronouncement

1. Introduction

United States v. Lezama-Ramirez (5th Cir. Apr. 20, 2026) arises from a guilty plea to unlawful reentry under 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) by Luis Alfredo Lezama-Ramirez, a previously removed alien. The district court imposed 24 months’ imprisonment and one year of supervised release. The appeal focused narrowly on whether supervised-release conditions were properly imposed when: (1) many conditions were not read aloud at sentencing but appeared in the PSR and later in the written judgment, and (2) two conditions were described differently in the oral pronouncement than in the written judgment.

Procedurally, the Fifth Circuit granted panel rehearing (while denying rehearing en banc) and withdrew its prior opinion, United States v. Lezama-Ramirez, 155 F.4th 348 (5th Cir. 2025) (per curiam), substituting the present decision.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The panel affirmed the supervised-release conditions that were listed in the PSR and written judgment but not read aloud, holding there was no plain error because the record supported that Lezama-Ramirez had notice through the PSR and an opportunity to object.

The panel vacated and remanded Special Condition 2 because the written judgment added a new reporting requirement (report within 72 hours upon reentry) not contained in the oral pronouncement—an added burden.

The panel affirmed Standard Condition 10, concluding the difference between the oral phrasing (“prohibited from possessing”) and the written phrasing (“must not own, possess, or have access to”) was an ambiguity that permissibly clarified scope rather than an impermissible conflict.

3. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

1) Notice via PSR and “unread” conditions: the Diggles line

United States v. Diggles, 957 F.3d 551 (5th Cir. 2020) (en banc) supplied the framework: when conditions are disclosed in a PSR and the defendant fails to object at sentencing, challenges are reviewed for plain error. The majority read Diggles to allow the district court to adopt conditions without reading them aloud where the defendant had notice and an opportunity to object.
The panel relied on post-Diggles applications reinforcing that courts need not read conditions aloud if the PSR disclosed them: United States v. Grogan, 977 F.3d 348 (5th Cir. 2020) and United States v. Molina-Alonso, 834 F. App'x 80 (5th Cir. 2020) (per curiam).
For the proposition that Rule 32 does not require an “absolute” on-the-record inquiry that the defendant read the PSR, the panel invoked United States v. Esparza-Gonzalez, 268 F.3d 272 (5th Cir. 2001) (quoting United States v. Victoria, 877 F.3d 338 (5th Cir. 1989)) and emphasized that reviewing courts may “draw reasonable inferences” from the record about PSR review.
The panel distinguished, but also cited, United States v. Duruisseau, No. 20-30649, 2021 WL 5778463 (5th Cir. Dec. 6, 2021), noting that case’s skepticism about a defendant’s post hoc claim of non-review and its willingness (in that posture) to assume arguendo a Diggles error.

2) Oral vs. written discrepancies: conflict vs. ambiguity

The court adopted the standard-of-review and “burden-expansion” test from United States v. Pelayo-Zamarripa, 81 F.4th 456 (5th Cir. 2023): a discrepancy warrants relief if the written judgment broadens restrictions or imposes a more burdensome requirement than the oral pronouncement.
For discrepancies that reflect mere ambiguity, the court relied on United States v. Tanner, 984 F.3d 454 (5th Cir. 2021), which instructs courts to examine the full record to discern intent.
In treating Standard Condition 10 as clarification rather than conflict, the panel relied on United States v. Thomas, 830 F. App'x 420 (5th Cir. 2020) (per curiam) (written judgment may “define scope” of an orally pronounced condition).
In vacating Special Condition 2, the panel followed the Government’s concession and cited United States v. Riojas-Flores, 834 F. App'x 120 (5th Cir. 2021) (per curiam) as an example that an added reporting obligation is an additional burden requiring correction.

3) The separate writings’ precedent debate (rule of orderliness and Diggles’s meaning)

Judge Oldham’s concurrence framed the rehearing as a dispute about how strictly panels must treat prior panel language under the Fifth Circuit’s “rule of orderliness,” analogizing over-reading precedent to textual exegesis, and citing Pulsifer v. United States, 601 U.S. 124 (2024) (as an example of statutory parsing).
Judge Southwick’s dissent read United States v. Diggles, 957 F.3d 551 (5th Cir. 2020) (en banc) more rigidly—especially its insistence that the court “ensure” the defendant had an opportunity to review adopted conditions with counsel—and argued the majority’s approach dilutes Diggles through inference rather than confirmation. The dissent cited supportive Fifth Circuit discussions including United States v. Quezada-Atayde, 148 F.4th 360 (5th Cir. 2025), and noted institutional concerns raised in United States v. Baez-Adriano, 74 F.4th 292 (5th Cir. 2023).
The dissent also invoked due-process-centered oral-pronouncement precedent such as United States v. Bigelow, 462 F.3d 378 (5th Cir. 2006) and referenced United States v. Reyes, 734 F. App'x 944 (5th Cir. 2018), while cautioning that panel drift creates confusion (analogizing to hierarchy principles discussed in Lefebure v. D'Aquilla, 15 F.4th 650 (5th Cir. 2021)).
Both the concurrence and dissent situated the panel decision alongside a run of similar outcomes, cited in the concurrence: United States v. Martinez-Rivera, No. 24-20031, 2025 WL 985711 (5th Cir. Apr. 2, 2025) (per curiam) and United States v. Villafana-Mondragon, 170 F.4th 360 (5th Cir. 2026).

B. Legal Reasoning

1) Conditions disclosed in the PSR but not read aloud: no plain error on this record

The court treated the defendant’s attack on the “unread” standard and special conditions as a forfeited procedural complaint because Lezama-Ramirez did not object when the district court adopted the PSR and ordered him to comply with “all other standard conditions.” Under Diggles, that posture triggers plain-error review.

On the merits, the panel concluded the record supported a “reasonable inference” that Lezama-Ramirez had notice and an opportunity to object: the probation officer certified PSR disclosure; counsel affirmatively stated there were no PSR objections; counsel demonstrated detailed familiarity with the PSR; and the defendant’s allocution reflected willingness to comply and no claim of surprise or lack of review. Therefore, even though the court did not read the conditions aloud, the panel found no reversible error.

2) Oral vs written divergence: added burdens must be removed; clarifying scope may remain

For conditions that diverged between oral pronouncement and the written judgment, the panel applied Pelayo-Zamarripa to ask whether the written judgment made the condition more burdensome.

Special Condition 2: Oral pronouncement barred reentry without written permission; the written judgment added a mandatory reporting obligation within 72 hours if the defendant reentered. That additional reporting term increased burdens and therefore constituted a remediable conflict. The court vacated and remanded to conform the written judgment to the oral pronouncement.
Standard Condition 10: The oral “prohibited from possessing” and the written “must not own, possess, or have access to” were treated as an ambiguity resolved by recognizing the written condition as defining the scope of what “prohibited” means (consistent with Thomas). No abuse of discretion.

C. Impact

Practically, the decision reinforces two operational rules in Fifth Circuit sentencing practice:

PSR disclosure can supply adequate notice of supervised-release conditions without an in-court recitation, and appellate courts may uphold such conditions on plain-error review by drawing record-based inferences that the defendant had an opportunity to review the PSR with counsel. This approach reduces reversals where the sentencing hearing references and adopts the PSR without a condition-by-condition oral reading.
Written judgments remain policed for added burdens: any post-sentencing written expansion—especially the addition of concrete affirmative duties like reporting—risks vacatur and remand. At the same time, modest wording differences that plausibly “clarify” scope are more likely to be treated as non-reversible ambiguities.

The separate opinions signal that the deeper doctrinal fault line is not the outcome but the methodology: whether Diggles requires an explicit on-the-record “ensure/confirm” step, or whether inference from the broader record suffices. That debate may invite continued litigation (and potentially future en banc clarification) over what record facts reliably establish “opportunity to review” for non-English-speaking defendants and other defendants with limited ability to read the PSR.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

PSR (Presentence Report): A probation-prepared document used at sentencing that often lists guideline calculations and proposed supervised-release conditions. If disclosed before sentencing, it can provide advance notice of conditions.
Oral pronouncement vs. written judgment: The sentence is imposed in open court; the written judgment memorializes it afterward. If the written judgment adds obligations beyond what was imposed orally, appellate courts may require correction.
Plain error: A demanding appellate standard applied when the defendant did not object in the district court; relief generally requires an obvious error affecting substantial rights and the fairness/integrity of proceedings.
Abuse of discretion (in this context): Used when the defendant could not have objected at sentencing because the conflict first appears in the written judgment; the court asks whether the written condition is more burdensome than the oral condition.
Ambiguity vs. conflict: An ambiguity is a difference in phrasing that can be understood as clarifying the same obligation; a conflict is when the written judgment meaningfully expands or changes what the defendant must do.
Rule of orderliness / horizontal stare decisis: The Fifth Circuit’s doctrine that later panels are generally bound by prior published circuit decisions; the concurrence and dissent debate how strictly to read prior language and whether later panels are, in practice, creating “case-law” through incremental phrasing changes.

5. Conclusion

United States v. Lezama-Ramirez strengthens a pragmatic Fifth Circuit rule: supervised-release conditions disclosed in the PSR and adopted at sentencing will generally be upheld absent a contemporaneous objection, even if not read aloud, so long as the record supports that the defendant had notice and an opportunity to object. At the same time, the court reaffirmed strict supervision of the written judgment: it may clarify, but it may not add new burdens (such as a reporting requirement) beyond the oral pronouncement. The decision’s larger significance lies in its exposed tension over what Diggles demands—explicit confirmation of PSR review versus inference from the record—an issue likely to recur in supervised-release litigation.