Rule 36 Limits: Clerical Corrections Must Reflect the Statute of Conviction (and PSRs Are Correctable “At Any Time”)

1. Introduction

In 2007, William Baskerville was convicted by a jury of conspiracies connected to the murder of an FBI informant—conspiring to murder a witness and conspiring to retaliate against an informant—along with eight drug trafficking offenses. The District Court imposed nine concurrent life sentences.

Years later, Baskerville pursued three avenues of post-conviction relief: (1) compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i), citing COVID-19-related health risks; (2) a sentence reduction on drug counts under Section 404 of the First Step Act of 2018; and (3) correction of clerical errors in the judgment and PSR under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 36.

The Third Circuit affirmed the denials of compassionate release and § 404 relief, but vacated in part the Rule 36 ruling—holding that Rule 36 corrections must accurately reflect the statute of conviction (not a later congressional redesignation) and that clerical errors in a PSR may be corrected under Rule 36, with no time limit, requiring further district-court consideration on remand.

2. Summary of the Opinion

A. Compassionate release

The Third Circuit held the District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying compassionate release based on the § 3553(a) factors—emphasizing deterrence and the seriousness of the offense conduct tied to the murder of an FBI informant. Because the § 3553(a) analysis supported denial, the panel did not need to resolve whether Baskerville’s COVID-19 health risks were “extraordinary and compelling.”

B. First Step Act § 404

The panel upheld the District Court’s use of the concurrent sentence doctrine to decline reaching the merits of Baskerville’s requested reductions on certain drug counts, because he was serving multiple concurrent life sentences and would remain subject to the same life sentence regardless of changes to some counts.

C. Rule 36 corrections (judgment and PSR)

The panel made two key holdings:

• Judgment (Count Two): The District Court exceeded Rule 36’s scope by “correcting” Count Two to cite 18 U.S.C. § 1513(f) (a redesignation that did not exist at sentencing). Rule 36 only permitted correction to reflect the actual statute of conviction at the time: 18 U.S.C. § 1513(e).
• PSR: The panel vacated the refusal to correct the PSR and remanded. It relied on Third Circuit authority recognizing Rule 36’s applicability to clerical errors in PSRs and the absence of a time limit for such corrections. The government’s new appellate argument (that the PSR’s mistake was not “clerical”) was forfeited because it was not presented to the District Court.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

A. Compassionate release framework and standard of review

• United States v. Andrews: The panel used Andrews for two foundational points: (1) the abuse-of-discretion standard for reviewing denials of compassionate release, and (2) the three-part compassionate release inquiry—extraordinary and compelling reasons, consistency with applicable policy statements, and support in the § 3553(a) factors. Andrews also supplied the formulation that appellate reversal requires a “definite and firm conviction” of clear error of judgment.

B. First Step Act § 404 and standard of review

• United States v. Jackson: Cited for the abuse-of-discretion standard in reviewing denials of sentence reductions under First Step Act § 404.

C. Concurrent sentence doctrine

• United States v. McKie: Provided the Third Circuit’s articulation of the concurrent sentence doctrine—permitting courts to avoid resolving issues affecting fewer than all counts when at least one count and its sentence will remain.
• Duka v. United States: Reinforced the doctrine’s practical rationale: conserving judicial and litigant resources when the defendant remains subject to the same sentence regardless of outcome.

D. Rule 36 scope—clerical vs. substantive errors

• United States v. Bennett: Anchored the proposition that Rule 36 is limited to clerical errors and cannot be used to make substantive corrections. Bennett also supported the “no time limit” concept for true Rule 36 clerical corrections.
• United States v. Guevremont: Supplied the definition of clerical error as a “mechanical” mistake of recitation, as opposed to a substantive alteration. The panel used this conceptual line to conclude that swapping in a later redesignated statute was not “merely of recitation.”
• Dura-Wood Treating Co. v. Century Forest Indus.: Quoted (via Guevremont) for the “amanuensis”/mechanical-error concept, helping the panel distinguish a transcription-type mistake from a legally meaningful modification.

E. Rule 36 and PSRs; inter-circuit support

• United States v. Gjeli: Critical Third Circuit authority recognizing Rule 36’s application to PSRs as “part of the record” (supporting remand for PSR correction consideration).
• United States v. Vanderhorst and United States v. Mackay: Cited to show other circuits hold Rule 36 applies to PSRs because they are part of the record, bolstering the Third Circuit’s approach.
• United States v. Robinson, United States v. Portillo, and United States v. Burd: Cited in the panel’s discussion of review standards for Rule 36 “questions of law,” illustrating broad agreement that legal authority questions are reviewed de novo.
• States v. Bergmann and United States v. Niemiec: Cited to reflect disagreement among circuits about the standard of review when Rule 36 issues involve factual questions (clear error vs. abuse of discretion). The panel avoided resolving this split because the result would be the same under any standard.

F. Appellate forfeiture/waiver—new arguments on appeal

• Komis v. Sec'y of United States Dep't of Lab.: Provided the Third Circuit’s general practice of not considering arguments raised for the first time on appeal. This case underwrote the panel’s refusal to entertain the government’s new theory that the PSR error was merely an “imprecision.”

3.2 Legal Reasoning

A. Compassionate release: the decisive role of § 3553(a)

The panel’s analysis reflects a common compassionate-release structure: even if “extraordinary and compelling” reasons might exist, a court may deny relief when the § 3553(a) factors counsel against a reduction. Here, the District Court emphasized deterrence and the gravity of the conduct (a conspiracy that “led to the brutal murder of an FBI informant”), and the panel found no clear error in that weighting.

Notably, the panel declined to engage contested medical-risk questions because the § 3553(a) rationale independently supported denial—an approach that streamlines compassionate-release adjudication where sentencing factors are dispositive.

B. First Step Act § 404: concurrent sentence doctrine as a merits-avoidance tool

Baskerville argued the district court should have reached the merits because the issues were not complex. The panel treated that contention as insufficient to show abuse of discretion. The operative premise of the concurrent sentence doctrine is not whether the merits are interesting or easy, but whether deciding them would change the defendant’s custody exposure. Because Baskerville challenged only seven of nine concurrent life sentences, and at least one life term would remain regardless, the doctrine supported declining to expend resources on a decision that would not alter the sentence actually served.

C. Rule 36: the boundary between “recording” and “revising”

The most consequential doctrinal clarification in the opinion lies in its Rule 36 analysis.

The District Court identified a real clerical problem: Count Two in the judgment cited subsections that did not match the conspiracy statute of conviction. But it attempted to “track” Congress’s later repair of a statutory numbering error by changing the judgment to § 1513(f). The Third Circuit held that move was not clerical because it substituted a statute label that did not exist at the time of sentencing. Rule 36, the panel explained, only authorized correction to the statute of conviction as it was: 18 U.S.C. § 1513(e).

On the PSR, the panel rejected the District Court’s twin rationales (no authority, and untimeliness under Rule 32(f))—at least to the extent they foreclosed consideration. Relying on Gjeli and Bennett, the panel reaffirmed that clerical corrections under Rule 36 may be made “at any time” and that PSRs can qualify as “part of the record.” It remanded for the District Court to decide whether the PSR contains clerical errors that should be corrected.

3.3 Impact

A. Rule 36 practice: do not “modernize” a judgment through clerical-correction procedure

The decision signals that courts should resist the temptation to conform old judgments to current statutory numbering when the defendant was convicted and sentenced under a prior codification. Even when Congress later redesignates a subsection to fix drafting errors, Rule 36 is not the vehicle to retrofit the judgment to the new label. Instead, the correction must reflect the historical statute of conviction.

Practically, this matters for Bureau of Prisons classification, collateral consequences, and future proceedings where the precise statute of conviction may be read literally from the judgment or PSR. The panel also suggested a pragmatic solution: the District Court may add clarifying explanatory material (e.g., a footnote) on remand to address the historical subsection duplication without altering the legal identity of the statute of conviction.

B. PSR corrections: reinforcing “part of the record” and “any time”

By vacating and remanding, the panel reinforces that PSRs are not immune from Rule 36. That is significant because PSRs are heavily relied upon long after sentencing (custody determinations, programming, parole-like decisions where relevant, and litigation). This opinion strengthens the path for defendants to seek narrowly tailored corrections of genuine clerical mistakes in PSRs without being blocked by Rule 32(f) timeliness arguments.

C. Concurrent sentence doctrine in sentence-reduction litigation

The opinion endorses discretionary use of the concurrent sentence doctrine to avoid merits decisions in First Step Act § 404 motions where the defendant’s controlling sentence remains unchanged. This may reduce the number of full resentencing-style analyses in cases with multiple concurrent life terms, even where some counts might otherwise be eligible for recalculation.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• Compassionate release (18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)): A court may reduce a sentence if (a) there are “extraordinary and compelling reasons,” (b) the reduction fits any applicable Sentencing Commission policy statements, and (c) the normal sentencing factors (§ 3553(a)) support it. Even strong personal/medical reasons can be outweighed by deterrence, public safety, and offense seriousness.
• § 3553(a) factors: The statutory checklist for sentencing decisions (and sentence reductions), including seriousness of the offense, deterrence, protection of the public, and avoiding unwarranted disparities.
• Concurrent sentence doctrine: If multiple sentences run at the same time and at least one will remain unchanged, a court may choose not to decide issues about other counts because the defendant’s time in custody will not change.
• Rule 36 clerical error: A “clerical” mistake is a recording/transcription-type error—like listing the wrong statutory subsection—where the fix is to make the paperwork match what the court actually did. It does not allow changing the substance of the judgment or updating it to reflect later legal edits.
• Forfeiture of arguments on appeal: Generally, if a party did not raise a point in the trial court, an appellate court will not consider it for the first time on appeal.

5. Conclusion

United States v. William Baskerville delivers two principal takeaways. First, compassionate release remains heavily driven by § 3553(a); courts may deny relief based on deterrence and offense gravity without resolving contested medical questions. Second—and more doctrinally pointed—Rule 36 permits only true clerical corrections that make the record reflect what happened at the time: it cannot be used to “update” a judgment to a post-sentencing statutory redesignation. At the same time, the opinion reinforces that PSRs are “part of the record” correctable under Rule 36 “at any time,” warranting remand where a district court wrongly declines to consider such corrections.