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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 20-11692
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D.C. Docket No. 1:17-cr-00034-JRH-BKE-1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
REALITY LEIGH WINNER,
Defendant - Appellant.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Georgia
________________________
(December 7, 2020)
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Before MARTIN, LUCK, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
MARTIN, Circuit Judge:
Reality Leigh Winner is a federal prisoner now incarcerated at FMC
Carswell in Texas. This is her appeal of the District Court’s Order denying her
Motion for Compassionate Release under
18 U.S.C. § 3582 and Request for Oral
Argument (“Motion for Compassionate Release”). Ms. Winner makes three
principal arguments in this appeal: (1) the District Court erred as a matter of law
when it held that it lacked authority to waive the exhaustion requirement in
§ 3582(c)(1)(A) and, in any event, Winner has now met that requirement; (2) the
District Court was wrong to hold that it could not determine what constitutes
“extraordinary and compelling” reasons warranting compassionate release under
§ 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) independent of United States Sentencing Guideline § 1B1.13;
and (3) the District Court abused its discretion when it held that “even if the Court
were to conclude that the First Step Act gave it discretion . . . , Winner would not
be afforded the relief she seeks.” After careful consideration and with the benefit
of oral argument, we conclude that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in
denying Ms. Winner’s motion. Because we resolve her appeal on this basis alone,
we need not (and do not) address Ms. Winner’s other arguments.
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I.
Ms. Winner is a 29-year-old Air Force veteran and “skilled linguist.”
During the six years that she served in the military, Ms. Winner consistently
received high evaluations and earned a commendation medal for her work on an
Afghan Mission. She also continued her study of languages, and today is fluent in
Farsi, Dari, and Pashto. After being honorably discharged from the Air Force in
2016, Ms. Winner began work as a contract linguist with Pluribus International
Corporation in Augusta, Georgia. She was assigned at the National Security
Agency and had a Top Secret/SCI clearance level.
Shortly after beginning her work at Pluribus, Ms. Winner made what she
acknowledges was a terrible mistake. She leaked a single document containing
national defense information to a news outlet in violation of
18 U.S.C. § 793(e), a
section of the Espionage Act. This was Ms. Winner’s first and only offense. Ms.
Winner pled guilty to the single count with which she was charged, and the parties
stipulated to a sentence of 63-months. Ms. Winner is currently incarcerated at
FMC Carswell, a medical prison in Fort Worth, Texas.
Around April 8, 2020, Ms. Winner submitted a written request to the
Warden of FMC Carswell asking that he petition the BOP for a reduction of her
sentence under § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. About two
days later Ms. Winner filed a Motion for Compassionate Release under
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§ 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) in the District Court. She argued that because her underlying
health conditions make her especially vulnerable to COVID-19 and it is nearly
impossible to adequately protect herself from infection while in prison, she met the
criteria for compassionate release.
Ms. Winner’s arguments in seeking compassionate release are best
understood in light of the arguments she has made throughout her prosecution and
punishment for this crime. After her arrest, she was detained while awaiting her
trial. At her detention hearing, Ms. Winner presented testimony from Justin
Garrick, a counterintelligence special agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
that he had never encountered another “first offender, American citizen,
honorably-discharged veteran with commendations who was denied pretrial release
on an espionage charge.” Ms. Winner made a similar argument at her sentencing
hearing. While she advocated for the 63-month sentence she and the government
agreed to as a part of their plea negotiations, she argued that a 63-month sentence
was higher than “the average sentence for charges under the Espionage Act” and
provided the court with a list of others who had been convicted under the same
statute, but given lighter sentences.
The additional arguments Ms. Winner makes in support of her
compassionate release motion are related to her personal health, so we address
them generally and only to the extent we must. Ms. Winner says she suffers from
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depression and an eating disorder, both of which affect her ability to “cope[] with
stress and uncertainty, such as incarceration and the invasion of a novel disease.”
For Ms. Winner, her “routines allow her to cope and hold the things she is unable
to control together.” But as a result of the lockdown of the federal prison system
on account of COVID-19, she cannot engage in her regular routine and is left with
“no way to exercise any coping mechanism for the stress of her own underlying
conditions.” The uncertainties associated with the lockdown and worries about
COVID-19 have aggravated Ms. Winner’s eating disorder in unhealthy and even
dangerous ways. She says her resulting “depleted mental and physical states . . .
make her particularly susceptible to COVID-19.” She also advises that many
people with eating disorders are immunocompromised. Ms. Winner says prison is
“a particularly dangerous place” for her during the pandemic because of the close
living quarters, continual transfer of prisoners in and out, and the lack of supplies
such as hand sanitizer.
Ms. Winner filed a Motion for Expedited Briefing and Immediate Hearing,
which the District Court denied, saying that “[t]he current global pandemic
wrought by COVID-19 has affected all aspects of the judicial system in some
capacity” and “a hearing in this matter is not a certainty.” The District Court held
no evidentiary hearing on Ms. Winner’s motion, but issued an Order denying her
Motion for Compassionate Release.
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The District Court made three conclusions. First, it held that Ms. Winner’s
failure to properly exhaust under § 3582(c)(1)(A) barred its consideration of her
motion. Second, it held that Ms. Winner had not shown extraordinary and
compelling grounds for relief as defined by the Sentencing Commission in its
commentary to its § 1B1.13 policy statement, which the District Court found to be
binding. Third and finally, it held that “even if the Court were to conclude that the
First Step Act gave it discretion . . . , Winner would not be afforded the relief she
seeks.” It reasoned, in full:
Winner has not carried the burden of demonstrating that
her specific medical conditions under the particular
conditions of confinement at FMC Carswell place her at a
risk substantial enough to justify early release. [FN 4: The
Court would be remiss not to point out Winner’s
incongruous complaint that she is at greater risk because
of the preventative measures undertaken by the prison in
response to COVID-19.] In fact, the Court is constrained
to observe that Winner is in a medical prison, which is
presumably better equipped than most to deal with any
onset of COVID-19 in its inmates.
This is Ms. Winner’s appeal.
II.
The provision at issue here,
18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), states that a district
court “may” reduce a defendant’s sentence. Given the permissive language, a
district court’s decision whether to grant or deny a defendant’s request for a
sentence reduction is discretionary. We therefore review the District Court’s
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denial here for abuse of discretion. See United States v. Jones,
962 F.3d 1290,
1296 (11th Cir. 2020) (explaining the standard of review for a motion for reduction
of sentence under an analogous provision of the First Step Act); see also United
States v. Webb,
565 F.3d 789, 792 (11th Cir. 2009) (per curiam) (applying the
abuse of discretion standard to a court’s denial of a reduction under
18 U.S.C.
§ 3582(c)(2)). Under this standard, a court abuses its discretion if it “fails to apply
the proper legal standard or to follow proper procedures in making its
determination.” United States v. Jules,
595 F.3d 1239, 1241–42 (11th Cir. 2010)
(quotation marks omitted and alteration adopted). When reviewing for abuse of
discretion, “there will be occasions in which we affirm the district court even
though we would have gone the other way had it been our call.” United States v.
Drury,
396 F.3d 1303, 1315 (11th Cir. 2005).
III.
Ms. Winner argues the District Court abused its discretion when it denied
her motion because it refused to hold a hearing and did not properly consider her
evidence. It is true that the court ruled, without holding an evidentiary hearing,
that Ms. Winner had not shown “that her specific medical conditions under the
particular conditions of confinement at FMC Carswell place her at a risk
substantial enough to justify early release” and that she “is in a medical prison.”
This ruling, while succinct, does not constitute a “fail[ure] to apply the proper legal
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standard” or a failure “to follow proper procedures in making its determination.”
Jules,
595 F.3d at 1242 (quotation marks omitted and alteration adopted). And as
this court has held with respect to analogous motions for a reduced sentence under
§ 3582(c)(1)(B), failure to hold a hearing does not constitute abuse of discretion.
See United States v. Denson,
963 F.3d 1080, 1086–87 (11th Cir. 2020). Therefore,
under this court’s precedent, the District Court did not abuse its discretion and we
affirm its denial of Ms. Winner’s motion for compassionate release.1
AFFIRMED.
1
In keeping with this ruling, we also deny Ms. Winner’s request that we reverse and render
judgment in her favor.
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