United States v. Inerd Bernard Young

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT FILED
________________________ U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 08-14859 MAR 4, 2009
Non-Argument Calendar THOMAS K. KAHN
________________________ CLERK
D. C. Docket No. 06-00083-CR-CG
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
INERD BERNARD YOUNG,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Alabama
_________________________
(March 4, 2009)
Before BIRCH, HULL and MARCUS, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Inerd Bernard Young, a federal prisoner convicted of a crack cocaine
offense, through counsel, appeals from the district court’s denial of his counseled
motion for a reduced sentence, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2). On appeal,
Young argues that the district court erred by concluding that it lacked authority to
grant his § 3582(c)(2) motion. After thorough review, we affirm.
Generally, “[w]e review a district court’s decision whether to reduce a
sentence pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2), based on a subsequent change in the
sentencing guidelines, for abuse of discretion.” United States v. Brown, 332 F.3d
1341, 1343 (11th Cir. 2003). However, in the § 3582(c)(2) context, we review “de
novo the district court’s legal conclusions regarding the scope of its authority
under the Sentencing Guidelines.” United States v. White, 305 F.3d 1264, 1267
(11th Cir. 2002). We also review “de novo questions of statutory interpretation.”
United States v. Maupin, 520 F.3d 1304, 1306 (11th Cir. 2008).
A district court may not modify a term of imprisonment once it has been
imposed except where expressly permitted by statute or by Federal Rule of
Criminal Procedure 35. 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(B). One statutory exception to
this general rule involves relief under § 3582(c)(2), which provides:
[I]n the case of a defendant who has been sentenced to a term of
imprisonment based on a sentencing range that has subsequently been
lowered by the Sentencing Commission pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 994(o),
upon motion of the defendant or the Director of the Bureau of Prisons,
or on its own motion, the court may reduce the term of imprisonment,
after considering the factors set forth in section 3553(a) to the extent
that they are applicable, if such a reduction is consistent with
applicable policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission.
18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2).
2
On November 1, 2007, the Sentencing Commission promulgated
Amendment 706, which amended the Drug Quantity Table in U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(c).
U.S.S.G. App. C, Amend. 706. The effect of Amendment 706 is to provide a two-
level reduction in base offense levels for certain crack cocaine offenses. See id.
Section 1B1.10 of the Sentencing Guidelines provides that a sentence
reduction is not authorized under § 3582(c)(2) if “[a]n amendment listed in
subsection (c) [which includes Amendment 706] does not have the effect of
lowering the defendant’s applicable guideline range.” U.S.S.G. § 1B1.10(a)(2)(B).
The commentary elaborates that a reduction is not authorized if “an amendment
listed in subsection (c) is applicable to the defendant but the amendment does not
have the effect of lowering the defendant’s applicable guideline range because of
the operation of another guideline or statutory provision (e.g., a statutory
mandatory minimum term of imprisonment).” U.S.S.G. § 1B1.10, cmt. n.1(A). In
addition, Section 5G1.1 of the Sentencing Guidelines provides that “[w]here a
statutorily required minimum sentence is greater than the maximum of the
applicable guideline range, the statutorily required minimum sentence shall be the
guideline sentence.” U.S.S.G. § 5G1.1(b).
In United States v. Williams, we considered whether the district court had
the authority to grant a defendant a sentence reduction pursuant to Amendment
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706. See 549 F.3d 1337, 1338 (11th Cir. 2008). There, Williams’s guideline range
initially was 92 to 115 months’ imprisonment, but because he faced a statutory
minimum term of 120 months’ imprisonment, the district court determined that his
range was 120 months’ imprisonment. Id. at 1338. Williams received a
downward departure, pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1 and 18 U.S.C. § 3553(e), based
on his substantial assistance, and he was ultimately sentenced to 60 months’
imprisonment. Id.In holding that the district court did not have the authority to grant Williams
a sentence reduction, we recognized that “a defendant whose original sentencing
range was based on something other than § 2D1.1 is precluded from receiving a
sentence reduction, since the amendment would not lower his applicable guidelines
range.” Id. at 1339 (citing Moore, 541 F.3d at 1327). We concluded that the result
was the same even if a defendant received a downward departure, because the
departure would be from the statutory minimum and “the court’s point of departure
would not shift as a result of the amendment’s lowering of the crack offense
levels.” Id. at 1340. In reaching this conclusion, we rejected Williams’s argument
that his “guideline sentence” was distinct from his “guideline range,” finding the
“attempted range/sentence distinction linguistically interesting but ultimately
unpersuasive” because, “[f]or those situations in which the mandatory minimum
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exceeds the range for the entire offense level, the ‘guideline sentence’ would [] be
the same as the ‘guideline range,’ even if it involves a ‘range’ of only one
number.” Id. at 1340-41. We also rejected the argument that a downward
departure under § 3553(e) constituted a waiver or dispensing of the “guideline
range,” seeing “no indication in the statute that this decreased sentence should be
read to somehow eliminate the otherwise applicable mandatory minimum.” Id. at
1341. In short, we concluded that “[b]ecause Williams was subject to a statutory
mandatory minimum that replaced his original sentencing guideline range, he was
not sentenced according to the base offense level in § 2D1.1, even taking into
account the § 5K1.1 downward departure. He thus would not fall within the scope
of Amendment 706.” Id. at 1342.
Here, the district court correctly denied Young’s § 3582(c)(2) motion based
on its determination that Amendment 706 did not lower the guideline range that
ultimately determined his sentence. Just as in Williams, Young’s initial guideline
range was entirely below the statutory minimum, so that his range became the
statutory minimum. See U.S.S.G. § 5G1.1(b). Also as in Williams, Young
received a downward departure, so that the statutory minimum was the point from
which the district court departed. Young’s sentence was therefore based on the
statutory minimum term of imprisonment, and the crack cocaine base offense level
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played no role in his sentence. See Williams, 549 F.3d at 1339-40. Because
Young was not sentenced under the otherwise applicable base offense level found
in § 2D1.1, the district court did not err in determining that Young was not eligible
for relief under Amendment 706. See id. at 1339-40, 1342.1 Accordingly, we
affirm.
AFFIRMED.
1
Moreover, Young’s assertion that defendants who provide substantial assistance should
not be in a worse position than those who do not overlooks the fact that his substantial assistance
enabled the district court originally to sentence him below the statutory minimum term of
imprisonment, which it would not have been able to do otherwise. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(e); United
States v. Ciszkowski, 492 F.3d 1264, 1270 (11th Cir. 2007) (“Even after Booker, the district court
is bound by the statutory mandatory minimums.”).
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