Black v. Romano

In this case we consider whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment generally requires a sentencing court to indicate that it has considered alternatives to incarceration before revoking probation. After a hearing, a state judge found that respondent had violated his probation conditions by committing a felony shortly after his original prison sentences were suspended. The judge revoked probation and ordered respondent to begin serving the previously im*608posed sentences. Nearly six years later, the District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri held that respondent had been…