United States v. Jeffrey Cofield ( 2018 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 16-6926
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
JEFFREY COFIELD, a/k/a Puller, a/k/a Slick, a/k/a S.,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore.
Catherine C. Blake, District Judge. (1:12-cr-00630-CCB-2)
Submitted: November 30, 2018 Decided: December 20, 2018
Before KING, WYNN, and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges.
Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Jeffrey Cofield, Appellant Pro Se.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Jeffrey Cofield appeals the district court’s order denying his motion for a sentence
reduction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) (2012) and Amendment 782. The district
court denied Cofield’s motion because he was sentenced pursuant to a Fed. R. Crim. P.
11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement that was not based on the Sentencing Guidelines. We vacate
the district court’s order and remand for further proceedings.
We review for abuse of discretion a district court’s order denying a § 3582 motion
and review “its ruling as to the scope of its legal authority under § 3582(c)(2) de novo.”
United States v. Mann, 709 F.3d 301, 304 (4th Cir. 2013). A district court may reduce a
defendant’s sentence if the defendant “has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment
based on a sentencing range that has subsequently been lowered by the Sentencing
Commission.” 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2). While this appeal was pending, the Supreme
Court decided Hughes v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 1765, 1775 (2018), and held that “a
sentence imposed pursuant to a [Rule 11(c)(1)(C)] agreement is ‘based on’ the
defendant’s Guidelines range so long as that range was part of the framework the district
court relied on in imposing the sentence or accepting the agreement.” Because the
Guidelines provide the “district court’s starting point” in sentencing, a defendant whose
Guidelines range is lowered by a retroactive amendment “will be eligible for relief under
§ 3582(c)(2) absent clear demonstration, based on the record as a whole, that the court
would have imposed the same sentence regardless of the Guidelines.” Id. at 1776.
Our review of the record reveals that the district court used the Guidelines in
calculating Cofield’s sentence, and the record does not make clear that the district court
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would have imposed the same sentence absent the Guidelines. Accordingly, we vacate
the district court’s order and remand for further proceedings. We express no opinion as
to whether a reduction in Cofield’s sentence is warranted, leaving that decision to the
district court in the first instance. We grant Cofield’s motion to file a supplemental
informal brief and dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions
are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid
the decisional process.
VACATED AND REMANDED
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