United States v. Jeffrey Riggins ( 2022 )

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
__________
No. 21-2005
___________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
JEFFREY RIGGINS,
Appellant
________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Criminal Action No. 2-06-cr-00700-001)
Chief District Judge: Honorable Juan R. Sanchez
________________
Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
November 18, 2022
Before: AMBRO, KRAUSE, and BIBAS, Circuit Judges
(Opinion filed December 2, 2022)
___________
OPINION*
___________
AMBRO, Circuit Judge.
*
This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not
constitute binding precedent.
In 2008, Jeffrey Riggins was sentenced to a 432-month term of imprisonment for
drug distribution and for unlawfully possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. At the time,
Riggins was sentenced as a career offender under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1 based on several
qualifying predicate offenses, including a Pennsylvania drug trafficking conviction and a
Pennsylvania felony robbery conviction.
In 2019, Riggins successfully moved for a sentence reduction under § 404 of the
First Step Act. After the Parties agreed on an updated Guidelines range of 262 to 327
months, the District Court resentenced Riggins to a term of 240 months’ imprisonment.
Riggins then appealed, arguing that the District Court erred by applying the career-
offender enhancement from U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1.1 He reasons that his prior Pennsylvania
robbery conviction no longer qualifies as a crime of violence, and thus his Guidelines range
should have been reduced further (along with his sentence).
We must reject Riggins’s argument because a district court cannot “recalculate a
movant’s benchmark Guidelines range in any way other than to reflect the retroactive
application of the Fair Sentencing Act.” Concepcion v. United States, 142 S. Ct. 2389,
2402 n.6 (2022); see also United States v. Shields, 48 F.4th 183, 190 (3d Cir. 2022)
(“Concepcion thus validated the District Court’s decision to recalculate [the defendant’s]
Guidelines range as if the Fair Sentencing Act’s amendments had been in place at the time
of his offense, without taking into account any other intervening changes in law . . . .”).
We have reviewed the record and identify no error in the District Court’s calculation
1
The District Court had jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. §§ 3231 and 3582(c)(1)(B), and we
have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
2
of the benchmark Guidelines range. Moreover, the sentencing colloquy shows a thoughtful
weighing of the relevant 18 U.S.C. § 3553 factors and satisfies us that the District Court
“considered the parties’ arguments and ha[d] a reasoned basis for exercising [its] own legal
decisionmaking authority.”2 Shields, 48 F.4th at 194 (quoting Rita v. United States, 551
U.S. 338, 356 (2007)). We will therefore affirm the judgment of the District Court.
2
We agree with the Government that Riggins’s counseled sentencing memoranda
abandoned any argument that he should receive a lesser sentence because of the change
to U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1. Compare Suppl. App. 27–28 & n.3 (Mot. For Resentencing), with
Supp. App. at 71–78 (Suppl. Mot. For Reduced Sentence); see also Shields, 48 F.4th at
190–91 (citing Concepcion, 142 S. Ct. at 2396, 2402–03) (requiring a district court to
consider nonfrivolous arguments concerning “any intervening changes of law (such as
changes to the Sentencing Guidelines)” insofar as they are “raised by the parties”)
(cleaned up).
3