United States v. Kelvin Spotts ( 2021 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 20-6791
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
KELVIN ANDRE SPOTTS, a/k/a Shorty,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, at
Huntington. Robert C. Chambers, District Judge. (3:98-cr-00047-1)
Submitted: November 8, 2021 Decided: December 16, 2021
Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, THACKER, Circuit Judge, and KEENAN, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Kelvin Andre Spotts, Appellant Pro Se.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Kelvin Andre Spotts appeals the district courts order denying his motion for
compassionate release pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), as amended by the First Step
Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-391, § 603(b)(1), 132 Stat. 5194, 5239. We vacate the court’s
order and remand for further consideration.
We review a district court’s ruling on a compassionate-release motion for abuse of
discretion. United States v. Kibble, 992 F.3d 326, 329 (4th Cir. 2021) (per curiam), cert.
denied, No. 21-5624, 2021 WL 4733616 (U.S. Oct. 12, 2021). “A district court abuses its
discretion when it acts arbitrarily or irrationally, fails to consider judicially recognized
factors constraining its exercise of discretion, relies on erroneous factual or legal premises,
or commits an error of law.” United States v. Dillard, 891 F.3d 151, 158 (4th Cir. 2018)
(internal quotation marks omitted). A district court also abuses its discretion “when it
ignores unrebutted, legally significant evidence.” In re Search Warrant Issued June 13,
2019, 942 F.3d 159, 171 (4th Cir. 2019) (internal quotation marks omitted).
The district court denied Spotts’ compassionate-release motion on the ground that
the mere possibility of contracting a virus in prison does not qualify as an extraordinary
and compelling reason for compassionate release. But Spotts offered more than just a
generalized fear: he argued that he is particularly susceptible to severe illness or death from
COVID-19 due to his preexisting medical conditions and that he has a high risk of
contracting the disease due to crowded prison conditions. And, “[i]n the context of the
COVID-19 outbreak, courts have found extraordinary and compelling reasons for
compassionate release when an inmate shows both a particularized susceptibility to the
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disease and a particularized risk of contracting the disease at his prison facility.” United
States v. Feiling, 453 F. Supp. 3d 832, 841 (E.D. Va. 2020); accord United States v. High,
997 F.3d 181, 185 (4th Cir. 2021) (explaining that arguments for compassionate release
“based on the coronavirus pandemic depend at least on allegations that the risk of
contracting COVID-19 in a prison is higher than the risk outside the prison and that the
inmate’s preexisting medical condition increases that individual’s risk of experiencing a
serious, or even fatal, case of COVID-19”).
We conclude that the district court abused its discretion when it denied relief without
considering “unrebutted, legally significant evidence”—that is, Spotts’ allegations that he
suffers from two conditions that render him particularly susceptible to severe illness or
death from COVID-19 and that he has a high risk of contracting the virus at his prison. In
re Search Warrant Issued June 13, 2019, 942 F.3d at 171 (internal quotation marks
omitted). Accordingly, we vacate the district court’s order denying Spotts’ motion for
compassionate release and remand for further consideration. * We deny Spotts’ motion for
summary disposition.
We 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
*
By this disposition, we express no opinion on the merits of Spotts’ motion.
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