Setser vs United States

Monroe Setser was arrested in Lubbock Texas for drug and firearms related crimes. Both of these crimes in which fall in with Federal and State chargers. 

The questions that were stated were:

1. "Does a district court have authority to order a federal sentence to run consecutively to an anticipated, but not yet imposed, state sentence?”

2. “s it reasonable for a district court to provide inconsistent instructions about how a federal sentence should interact with state sentences?”

There were two issues with this case though. They were:

1.     Whether a district court can impose a federal sentence that runs consecutively to a state sentence even before that sentence is imposed.

2.     Whether it is reasonable for a federal sentence to run consecutively to one state sentence but concurrently to another when those two state sentences run concurrently to each other.

Setser had pleaded guilty in the Unites States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The Court’s decision in this case will clarify whether district courts may order a federal sentence to run consecutively to a state sentence until and unless the state sentence has been imposed.