United States v. Juan Carlos Fernandez , 213 F. App'x 857 ( 2007 )

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
FILED
-------------------------------------------U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
No. 06-10336 ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
JANUARY 8, 2007
Non-Argument Calendar
-------------------------------------------- THOMAS K. KAHN
CLERK
D.C. Docket No. 91-00413-CR-WPD
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
JUAN CARLOS FERNANDEZ,
Defendant-Appellant.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
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(January 8, 2007)
Before EDMONDSON, Chief Judge, BIRCH and PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Defendant-Appellant Juan Carlos Fernandez, proceeding pro se, appeals the
district court’s denial of his motion for reduction of his sentence, 18 U.S.C. §
3582(c)(2). No reversible error has been shown; we affirm.
Fernandez pled guilty to various drug offenses; and he was sentenced to 360
months’ imprisonment. On appeal, Fernandez first argues that the district court
erred in concluding that Amendment 591 to the Sentencing Guidelines -- which
requires that a defendant’s applicable Guideline section be determined by the
offense of conviction -- did not provide a basis to reduce his sentence. He asserts
that his offense of conviction only includes conduct charged in his indictment or
listed in his plea agreement; and neither his indictment nor his plea agreement
specified a drug quantity attributable to him. Therefore, although Fernandez
acknowledges that the district court sentenced him pursuant to the appropriate
Guideline, he contends that -- because he did not admit to a specific drug quantity
-- the district court selected the wrong base offense level under U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1
and erred in not sentencing him under the provision of 21 U.S.C. § 841 that carries
a statutory maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years. Fernandez argues that
Amendment 591 is retroactively applicable; and as a result, his sentence should be
reduced so that it does not exceed the statutory maximum of 20 years.
We review a district court’s decision whether to reduce a defendant’s
sentence pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) for abuse of discretion. See United
States v. Brown, 332 F.3d 1341, 1343 (11th Cir. 2003). Under 18 U.S.C. §
3582(c)(2), a district court may reduce a defendant’s term of imprisonment if the
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defendant was “sentenced to a term of imprisonment based on a sentencing range
that has subsequently been lowered by the Sentencing Commission . . . .”
Therefore, “the court may reduce the term of imprisonment, after considering the
factors set forth in [18 U.S.C. §] 3553(a) to the extent that they are applicable, if
such a reduction is consistent with applicable policy statements issued by the
Sentencing Commission.” Id. Because Amendment 591 is listed as an
amendment covered by the policy statement provided at U.S.S.G. § 1B1.10(a), it
can be applied retroactively. See United States v. Moreno, 421 F.3d 1217, 1219
(11th Cir. 2005), cert. denied, 126 S.Ct. 1643 (2006); U.S.S.G. § 1B1.10(c).
In Moreno, the defendant argued that Amendment 591 prohibited the court
“from selecting the base offense level . . . where the judge (not the jury) found the
requisite drug quantity used in determining the appropriate base offense level
under the applicable offense [G]uideline.” Moreno, 421 F.3d at 1219. We
rejected this argument, explaining that “Amendment 591 directs the district court
to apply the [G]uideline dictated by the statute of conviction, but does not
constrain the use of judicially found facts to select a base offense level within the
relevant [G]uideline.” Id. at 1219-20. In this case, Fernandez concedes that the
district court properly relied on U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1 in determining his sentence.
Because Amendment 591 only applies to the district court’s choice of the
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appropriate Guideline -- and not to the base offense level within that Guideline --
the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Fernandez’s section
3582(c)(2) motion for reduction of sentence.1
AFFIRMED.
1
Fernandez’s reliance on United States v. Cordoba-Murgas, 422 F.3d 65 (2d Cir. 2005), is
misplaced. In that recent decision, the Second Circuit vacated the defendant’s sentence on direct
appeal, concluding that “when a defendant has been indicted for a violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)
involving an unspecified quantity of drugs, the defendant cannot be sentenced above the statutory
maximum for an indeterminate quantity of drugs, as set forth in 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C).”
Cordoba-Murgas, 422 F.3d at 66. Fernandez’s case is distinguishable. He was sentenced in 1992,
under the mandatory Guidelines system that existed at that time; and we affirmed his sentence on
direct appeal. Fernandez’s arguments that his sentence should be reduced because of Cordoba-
Murgas and the Supreme Court’s decisions in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (2000),
Blakely v. Washington, 124 S.Ct. 2531 (2004), and United States v. Booker, 125 S.Ct. 738 (2005),
are without merit. See Moreno, 421 F.3d at 1220 (explaining that “Booker is a Supreme Court
decision, not a retroactively applicable [G]uideline amendment by the Sentencing Commission.
Therefore, Booker is inapplicable to [section] 3582(c)(2) motions”).
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