A federal judge was entitled to double the prison term of a man who laughed during a sentencing hearing, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence O’Neill initially gave Ramon Ochoa a sentence of one year and a day in 2014 for violating the terms of his early release from prison, where Ochoa had been sent after pleading guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. But O'Neill doubled the penalty to two years when he observed Ochoa laughing in his California courtroom.

“You think this is funny?” O’Neill demanded to know. “No way,” Ochoa responded.

“What is the laughter about?” the judge inquired. “I’m just surprised,” Ochoa explained.



Unsatisfied with the answer and convinced Ochoa was being disrespectful, O’Neill announced “you just talked yourself into more time” and gave him the maximum penalty of two years.

The two appeals judges who ruled the change was legal found sentences can be altered until a sentencing hearing has concluded.

The dissenting judge, Gloria Navarro, wrote that sentences, once orally communicated, could only be increased if there was a “finding that the sentence imposed had resulted from ‘arithmetical, technical, or other clear error.’”

Navarro wrote that her colleagues set a troubling precedent by taking a different view of rules that limit sentence adjustments.



“Casting aside the clear limitations required by these provisions, the majority upholds a sentence that was imposed out of haste and imprudence, based on conduct that occurred within the courtroom,” Navarro wrote. “It is hard to imagine a more draconian rule than the one adopted by the majority today.”

Ochoa now is slated to be released on Christmas Eve, according to information on the Federal Bureau of Prisons' website and his attorney, Carlton Gunn, says he hasn’t decided yet if he will appeal the ruling, due in part to the fact that his client’s sentence will have expired by the time an appeal would be decided.

Gunn notes fast-tracked Supreme Court review is unlikely because there’s not yet a split among U.S. appeals courts on the matter. He nonetheless insists his client’s case is distinguishable from similar rulings in other circuits, as Ochoa denies he intentionally disrespected O’Neill.