High Court sides with Mexican man in sentencing case

 A unanimous Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a Mexican man who said he received an unfairly long prison sentence for re-entering the United States after being deported.

The justices ruled Wednesday that Saúl Molina Martínez's rights were violated when a federal judge used the wrong sentencing guideline range to give him a 77-month prison sentence.

Molina Martínez should have been subject to a guideline range of 70 months to 87 months. But the judge mistakenly placed Molina Martínez in a higher category that called for a range of 77 months to 96 months.

A federal appeals court ruled that the error didn't violate Molina Martínez's rights because the judge's sentence was within both the correct and incorrect ranges.

The Supreme Court disagreed and ordered a new sentencing hearing.