United States v. Dubois — Article III Prohibits Delegating the Inpatient/Outpatient Treatment Choice to Probation After a Short Revocation Sentence

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Date: January 13, 2026
Case: United States v. Dubois, No. 24-11046

Introduction

United States v. Dubois addresses a recurring supervised-release problem: how far a district court may rely on the probation office to operationalize treatment conditions without ceding constitutionally reserved sentencing power. Brent Michael Dubois, after a drug-trafficking conviction and later revocations, received a revocation sentence of ten months’ imprisonment followed by supervised release. The district court reimposed a long-used condition requiring substance-abuse treatment, but it authorized the probation office to decide whether treatment would be inpatient or outpatient.

The key issue on appeal was whether allowing the probation office to choose between inpatient and outpatient treatment is an impermissible delegation of the court’s Article III sentencing authority—particularly where supervised release will begin soon after a short term of incarceration. Because Dubois did not object below, the Fifth Circuit reviewed for plain error.

Summary of the Opinion

Analysis

1) Precedents Cited

A. The plain-error framework

• United States v. Huor — Supplied the standard of review when no objection is made to supervised-release conditions (plain error).
• United States v. Hinojosa, relying on Puckett v. United States — Set out the four-step plain-error test (error; clear/obvious; substantial rights; discretionary correction to protect fairness/integrity/public reputation).
• United States v. Olano — Anchored the “clear under current law” requirement and the final discretionary step.
• Rosales-Mireles v. United States and Molina-Martinez v. United States — Reinforced that plainness requires clarity under existing law and discussed when appellate courts should exercise discretion to correct judicial errors.
• United States v. Rodriguez-Parra — Emphasized that an error is not “plain” if reasonably disputable.

B. Article III, nondelegation in sentencing, and supervised release

• United States v. Barber (quoting United States v. Franklin) — Framed sentencing as a “core judicial function” that cannot be delegated.
• United States v. Yurika Huerta — Located the constraint in Article III and tied it to liberty interests protected by judicial sentencing.
• United States v. Martinez and United States v. Medel-Guadalupe — The opinion’s central pair of “same-day” precedents on whether probation may decide inpatient vs. outpatient treatment.
• United States v. Aguilar-Cerda — Synthesized Fifth Circuit principles: the district court must decide whether to impose a condition; probation may handle “modality, intensity, and duration” only until a significant liberty deprivation is implicated.
• United States v. Huerta (unpublished) — Identified a practical distinction harmonizing Martinez and Medel-Guadalupe: the length of the underlying prison sentence.
• United States v. Demery (8th Cir.) — Quoted in Medel-Guadalupe for the notion that the district court retains final say if the defendant later disputes probation’s treatment determination.

C. Substantial rights and remedies

• United States v. Escalante-Reyes (en banc) and United States v. Broussard — Explained the requirement that the error affect the proceeding’s outcome.
• United States v. Vega-Santos — Treated impermissible delegations as violating a defendant’s substantial right “to be sentenced by an Article III judge.”
• United States v. Fields — Used to reject the Government’s attempt to rely on modifiability as a reason to leave the delegation error uncorrected.

D. Government’s discretion-step authorities (distinguished or limited)

• Sealed Appellee v. Sealed Appellant and United States v. Prieto — Cited for the idea that modifiable conditions can make relief harder to obtain, but the court found them inapt in an Article III delegation case.
• United States v. Jacquot (unpublished) — Distinguished on its facts; in Jacquot the defendant had expressed a desire for inpatient treatment to the probation officer, reducing fairness/integrity concerns.
• United States v. Herrera-Angeles (unpublished) — Not treated as controlling for the delegation problem at issue.
• 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(2) — The Government invoked modifiability of supervised-release conditions; the court refused to let modifiability dilute Article III’s allocation of sentencing authority.

2) Legal Reasoning

A. Identifying the constitutional line: “details” vs. deprivation of liberty

The court started from a constitutional premise: sentencing—including the terms and conditions of supervised release—is a core Article III function (United States v. Barber; United States v. Yurika Huerta). While probation officers may administer implementation details (e.g., “modality, intensity, and duration” of treatment) (United States v. Medel-Guadalupe), their authority ends where the condition entails a “significant deprivation of liberty” (United States v. Aguilar-Cerda).

The inpatient/outpatient choice is pivotal because inpatient treatment can functionally resemble confinement: it may restrict movement, residence, and autonomy in ways materially different from outpatient counseling. For that reason, United States v. Martinez treated the inpatient/outpatient decision as not merely managerial.

B. Harmonizing Martinez and Medel-Guadalupe by sentence length and predictability

The opinion confronted an apparent tension: Martinez invalidated delegation of the inpatient/outpatient decision, while Medel-Guadalupe upheld it. The panel adopted the harmonization already articulated in later Fifth Circuit discussions: the permissibility “largely turns on the length of the underlying prison sentence.”

• In United States v. Martinez, supervised release would begin after a short ten-month term, making it feasible for the sentencing court to assess needs with relative clarity and inappropriate to outsource the inpatient/outpatient choice.
• In United States v. Medel-Guadalupe, a ten-year prison term made it impracticable to predict treatment needs a decade later; deferring certain treatment “details” was more defensible, especially given the district court’s retained authority to resolve disputes later.

Applying that framework, Dubois’s ten-month revocation sentence placed the case squarely on the Martinez side of the line: delegation of inpatient/outpatient selection was impermissible.

C. Plainness: binding Fifth Circuit law made the error “clear or obvious”

Under Rosales-Mireles v. United States and United States v. Olano, an error is plain if “clear under current law.” The court found Martinez controlling and unequivocal for a ten-month sentence, defeating the Government’s attempts to distinguish the case (e.g., reimposition of an earlier condition; different standard of review in Martinez; reliance on a concurrence in United States v. Aguilar-Cerda).

D. Substantial rights: improper delegation itself injures the right to Article III sentencing

The panel treated the injury as structural to sentencing authority: delegating sentencing power violates the substantial right to be sentenced by an Article III judge (United States v. Vega-Santos (quoting United States v. Barber)). On that understanding, the improper delegation affected Dubois’s substantial rights.

E. Discretion to correct: modifiability does not sanitize an Article III delegation

The most notable part of the opinion is its handling of step four. The Government argued that because the condition is modifiable under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(2), the court should decline to correct the error. The Fifth Circuit refused to apply any presumption against correction in this context: leaving an Article III delegation in place undermines the fairness and integrity of judicial proceedings precisely because it “outsource[s]” a constitutionally assigned judicial task.

The court also rejected two pragmatic arguments:

• Dubois’s statement at the revocation hearing that he wanted to continue inpatient treatment did not equate to a durable, voluntary preference that would neutralize the constitutional concern; United States v. Jacquot was distinguished as nonprecedential and factually different.
• The likelihood that probation would not impose inpatient treatment was irrelevant to the constitutional harm; the defect is the existence of unauthorized decisional power, not merely its anticipated exercise.

Consistent with Rosales-Mireles, the court viewed judicial errors as typically warranting correction given the relative ease of remedy (vacatur/remand) and the reputational importance of preserving judicial sentencing authority.

3) Impact

A. Practical rule for district courts in the Fifth Circuit

After Dubois, when supervised release is to begin soon (as after a short revocation term), district courts should not draft conditions that allow probation to decide whether treatment will be inpatient or outpatient. Courts must either:

• select inpatient or outpatient themselves, or
• craft a condition that preserves judicial control over the inpatient decision (for example, requiring outpatient treatment unless and until the court orders inpatient treatment upon a subsequent hearing).

B. Clarifying the “modifiability” argument at plain-error step four

The opinion meaningfully limits reliance on the proposition (drawn from cases like United States v. Prieto) that modifiable conditions are less urgent to correct. In Article III delegation cases, Dubois emphasizes that modifiability cannot excuse leaving a constitutional allocation-of-power error embedded in the judgment.

C. Effects on supervised-release litigation

• More targeted challenges: Defendants serving short revocation terms have a clearer path to challenge inpatient/outpatient delegation even without an objection below, because Martinez and now Dubois make the error “clear.”
• More careful drafting: District courts may revise standard conditions to avoid “inpatient and/or outpatient … as determined by probation” language.
• Sharper line on liberty deprivations: The opinion reinforces that when a condition implicates confinement-like restrictions, the decision must remain judicial.

Complex Concepts Simplified

• Supervised release: A post-incarceration monitoring period with court-ordered conditions (treatment, reporting, testing, travel limits, etc.).
• Revocation: If a defendant violates supervised-release conditions, the court may revoke supervision and impose additional prison time and a new supervision term.
• Plain error review: When a defendant did not object in the district court, the appellate court corrects only errors that are (1) errors, (2) clear/obvious, (3) harmful to substantial rights, and (4) serious enough to undermine fairness/integrity/public reputation of proceedings.
• Impermissible delegation: A court cannot transfer to probation an inherently judicial sentencing choice. Probation may implement details, but it cannot decide matters that meaningfully determine the scope of liberty.
• Inpatient vs. outpatient treatment: Outpatient generally allows the person to live at home and attend scheduled sessions; inpatient often requires living at a facility with significant restrictions—hence the “significant deprivation of liberty” concern.
• Article III “core judicial function”: The Constitution assigns sentencing to judges; this protects both separation of powers and individual liberty by ensuring confinement-like decisions are made by a judge, not an executive officer.

Conclusion

United States v. Dubois reinforces an Article III boundary in supervised-release sentencing: after a short revocation sentence (here, ten months), a district court may not empower the probation office to decide whether substance-abuse treatment will be inpatient or outpatient. Building on United States v. Martinez and distinguishing United States v. Medel-Guadalupe, the Fifth Circuit framed sentence length and predictability as the key to whether such discretion is an implementation detail or an unconstitutional transfer of sentencing power. The decision also underscores that the modifiability of supervised-release conditions does not neutralize an Article III delegation problem; where the judgment vests probation with confinement-like decisional authority, appellate correction is warranted to protect both liberty interests and institutional legitimacy.