United States v. Derrick Seals ( 2018 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 18-1255
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United States of America
lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellee
v.
Derrick T. Seals
lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the Western District of Missouri - Kansas City
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Submitted: August 10, 2018
Filed: August 27, 2018
[Unpublished]
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Before WOLLMAN, GRUENDER, and GRASZ, Circuit Judges.
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PER CURIAM.
Federal inmate Derrick Seals, who is serving a statutory mandatory minimum
sentence, directly appeals after the district court1 denied his 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2)
1
The Honorable Brian C. Wimes, United States District Judge for the Western
District of Missouri.
motion for a sentence reduction. His counsel has moved for leave to withdraw, and
has filed a brief, asserting that the district court erred by denying Seals’s motion
without conducting an evidentiary hearing.
After careful consideration, see United States v. Long, 757 F.3d 762, 763 (8th
Cir. 2014) (noting that a legal conclusion as to whether § 3582(c)(2) authorizes a
modification is reviewed de novo, and that a discretionary decision as to whether to
grant an authorized modification is reviewed for an abuse of discretion), we conclude
that Seals could not have obtained a sentence reduction because the district court had
already imposed a statutory minimum sentence, see United States v. Peters, 524 F.3d
905, 907 (8th Cir. 2008) (per curiam) (concluding that a sentence reduction was not
authorized because the prisoner had received a statutory mandatory minimum
sentence). Consequently, no error occurred, and an evidentiary hearing could not
have made a difference.
We thus affirm the judgment, and we grant counsel’s motion to withdraw.
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