United States v. Reginald L. McCoy

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[PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 21-13838
____________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
REGINALD L. MCCOY,
Defendant-Appellant.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
D.C. Docket No. 8:90-cr-00132-CEH-AAS-4
____________________
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21-13838 Opinion of the Court 2
Before JORDAN, NEWSOM, Circuit Judges, and GRIMBERG,* District
Judge.
JORDAN, CIRCUIT JUDGE:
Time travel has long been popular in literature and pop cul-
ture. See, e.g., H.G. Wells, The Time Machine (1895); Life on Mars
(BBC One 2006-07). Every once in a while, the possibility of going
back in time becomes a reality in law, and courts are faced with
trying to figure out how an alternative legal reality would have
played out in the past. Take § 404(b) of the First Step Act, Pub. L.
115-391, 132 Stat. 5194 (2018). It affords some defendants a back-
wards-looking remedy—an opportunity to go back and avail them-
selves of reduced statutory penalties for crack cocaine offenses that
were implemented (by the Fair Sentencing Act, Pub. L. 111-220,
124 Stat. 2372 (2010)) after their sentences became final. See Con-
cepcion v. United States, 142 S. Ct. 2389, 2402 (2022) (“[T]he ‘as if’
clause [in § 404(b)] requires a district court to apply the Fair Sen-
tencing Act as if it applied at the time of the commission of the of-
fense[.]”).
Reginald McCoy, whose First Step Act motion for a reduc-
tion of sentence was denied by the district court, envisions a ver-
sion of the First Step Act that allows a court to travel back in time
and correct any “historical” error that may have occurred at his
original sentencing. Cf. Quantum Leap (NBC Television 1989-93).
* Honorable Steven D. Grimberg, United States District Judge for the North-
ern District of Georgia, sitting by designation.
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21-13838 Opinion of the Court 3
He asks us to hold that he can now object—through a § 404(b) mo-
tion—to a drug-quantity finding made at his original sentencing be-
cause at that time he did not know that the statutory sentencing
thresholds would be lowered in the future and therefore had no
reason to lodge any objections. We decline the request and affirm
the district court’s denial of Mr. McCoy’s motion.
I
In 1990, a grand jury charged Mr. McCoy with conspiracy to
possess 50 grams or more of crack cocaine with intent to distribute,
and possession of 50 grams or more of crack cocaine with intent to
distribute. See 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 846 (1988 version). Prior to
trial, the government filed a notice under 21 U.S.C. § 851. The no-
tice informed Mr. McCoy that, if convicted, he was subject to an
enhanced statutory sentence based on his prior felony drug convic-
tions.
A jury ultimately found Mr. McCoy guilty of both charges.
Consistent with the law at that time, the jury did not make a drug-
quantity finding because Mr. McCoy “was prosecuted before Ap-
prendi v. New Jersey[, 530 U.S. 466 (2000),] made clear that drug-
quantity findings that increase a defendant’s punishment must be
made by a jury based on a standard of proof beyond a reasonable
doubt.” United States v. Jones, 962 F.3d 1290, 1293 (11th Cir. 2020),
vacated by Jackson v. United States, 143 S. Ct. 72 (2022), reinstated by
United States v. Jackson, 58 F.4th 1331, 1333 (11th Cir. 2023).
According to the presentence investigation report, the
amount of crack cocaine attributable to Mr. McCoy was
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21-13838 Opinion of the Court 4
approximately 2,848.5 grams. Because that amount was at least 50
grams and he had two prior felony drug convictions, triggering an
enhanced sentence under § 851, the 1988 version of
§ 841(b)(1)(A)(iii) mandated a term of life imprisonment. Other-
wise, the total offense level of 42 and criminal history category of
III would have provided for an imprisonment range of 360 months
to life under the Sentencing Guidelines.
Mr. McCoy did not object to the report. Nor did he contest
the drug quantity attributable to him at the sentencing hearing.
The district court adopted the report and imposed concurrent sen-
tences of life imprisonment. We subsequently affirmed the convic-
tions and sentence on direct appeal. See United States v. Smith, 41
F.3d 667 (11th Cir. 1994) (table).
In 2019, Mr. McCoy filed a series of counseled motions to
reduce his sentence under § 404(b) of the First Step Act. Following
a hearing, the district court denied him relief.
The district court concluded that it lacked authority to re-
duce the sentence because Mr. McCoy was already serving the low-
est statutory penalty available to him under the Fair Sentencing
Act, which was life imprisonment. The court reasoned that the
government provided him sufficient notice of his enhanced sen-
tence under § 851 and, pursuant to Jones, he could not relitigate his
judge-made drug quantity finding, such that he remained subject
to a sentence of life imprisonment even under the Fair Sentencing
Act’s amended penalties.
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Alternatively, the district court ruled that it would not have
exercised its discretion to reduce the sentence even if Mr. McCoy
was eligible. This was because of the large quantity of crack co-
caine attributable to him and his “ongoing and excessive discipli-
nary infractions” while incarcerated. 1
Mr. McCoy now appeals.
II
When Mr. McCoy was sentenced, the statutory penalties for
his narcotics offenses involving crack cocaine were equal to the
statutory penalties for the same offenses involving 100 times as
much powder cocaine. See Jones, 962 F.3d at 1296. To illustrate,
“[a] statutory range of 10 years to life imprisonment applied to drug
traffickers dealing in 50 grams or more of crack cocaine or 5,000
grams or more of powder cocaine.” Id. (citing the 2006 version of
§ 841(b)(1)(A)). And offenders like Mr. McCoy who had prior fel-
ony drug convictions were subject to enhanced statutory penalties.
See § 841(b)(1)(A) (1988 version).
In 2010, Congress enacted the Fair Sentencing Act to reme-
diate the vast disparity in sentences for narcotics offenses involving
crack and powder cocaine. See Dorsey v. United States, 567 U.S. 260,
268-69 (2012). As relevant here, the Act increased the drug amount
required to trigger the highest mandatory minimum sentence for
crack cocaine offenses from 50 grams to 280 grams (for the
1 Given our resolution of Mr. McCoy’s appeal, we do not address the district
court’s alternative ruling.
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statutory range of 10 years to life). See id. at 269; Fair Sentencing
Act, § 2(a)(1). But the Act applied only to defendants sentenced on
or after its effective date. See Jones, 962 F.3d at 1297.
In 2018 Congress enacted the First Step Act, which made the
Fair Sentencing Act’s crack cocaine changes retroactive. See First
Step Act, § 404(a). As a general matter, federal courts do not have
the authority to modify a term of imprisonment except to the ex-
tent expressly authorized by statute. See 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c); United
States v. Diaz-Clark, 292 F.3d 1310, 1319 (11th Cir. 2002). But
§ 404(b) of the First Step Act granted district courts which had im-
posed a sentence for a “covered offense” the authority to “impose
a reduced sentence as if [§§] 2 and 3 of the [Fair Sentencing Act]
were in affect at the time the covered offense was committed.”
First Step Act, § 404(b).
III
“We exercise plenary review in determining whether a dis-
trict court has authority to reduce a sentence under the First Step
Act.” United States v. Gonzalez, 71 F.4th 881, 884 (11th Cir. 2023).
The question for us is whether Mr. McCoy was eligible for
relief under the First Step Act. To answer that question, we utilize
a two-part framework. See Jones, 962 F.3d at 1301-03.
We first ask whether Mr. McCoy has a “covered offense.” A
movant has a covered offense if he was “sentenced before the ef-
fective date of the Fair Sentencing Act for an offense that includes
as an element the quantity of crack cocaine described in
§ 841(b)(1)(B)(iii).” United States v. Clowers, 62 F.4th 1377, 1380
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(11th Cir. 2023). Everyone agrees that Mr. McCoy has a covered
offense.
We turn, therefore, to the “as-if” clause in § 404(b) of the
First Step Act. In Jones, 962 F.3d at 1303, we held that the “as-if”
clause imposes two relevant limits. First, it precludes a district
court from reducing a sentence “if [the movant] received the low-
est statutory penalty that also would be available to him under the
Fair Sentencing Act.” Id. Second, “in determining what a movant’s
statutory penalty would be under the Fair Sentencing Act, the dis-
trict court is bound by a previous finding of drug quantity that
could have been used to determine the movant’s statutory penalty
at the time of sentencing.” Id.
A
As to the first limitation, we agree with the district court that
Mr. McCoy received the lowest statutory penalty that would be
available to him under the Fair Sentencing Act. Our reasoning is
straightforward. Because he was found responsible for over 2.8 kil-
ograms of crack cocaine, increasing the drug quantity threshold
from 50 grams to 280 grams would have no effect on his statutory
penalty range of 10 years to life, and the mandatory sentence under
§ 851 would still be life imprisonment. Compare § 841(b)(1)(A)(iii)
(2018 version) with § 841(b)(1)(A)(iii) (1988 version). And, as we
will explain, the district court was entitled to rely on the prior
judge-made, pre-Apprendi, drug quantity finding.
Mr. McCoy’s attempt to revisit the prior drug-quantity find-
ing is based on the “could have been used” language from Jones.
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But we have explained what that phrase means, and he is bound by
ink past spilled. Nothing prohibits a district court “from relying on
earlier judge-found facts,” including those made pre-Apprendi. See
Jones, 962 F.3d at 1302-03. “If the jury—or the court, acting before
Apprendi—made a drug-quantity finding that could have been used
at the time of sentencing to determine the defendant’s statutory
penalties, the district court must use the same quantity to decide
what the defendant’s statutory penalties would have been if § 2 of
the Fair Sentencing Act had been in effect at the time of the of-
fense.” Clowers, 62 F.4th at 1382.
In Concepcion, 142 S. Ct. at 2404, the Supreme Court held
that district courts, after determining that a defendant is eligible for
relief under § 404 of the First Step Act, can “consider intervening
changes of law or fact” as factors in deciding whether to exercise
their discretion to grant relief. After Concepcion, however, we again
rejected the contention that the First Step Act gives district courts
“the authority to ignore [an] earlier judge-made drug quantity find-
ing in calculating [a movant’s] statutory sentencing range.” Jack-
son, 58 F.4th at 1336, 1337 (holding that, where Apprendi was de-
cided during the pendency of movant’s direct appeal, a motion un-
der the First Step Act could not be used to correct an error based
on Apprendi). In so doing, we held that a movant cannot use a First
Step Act motion to relitigate factual predicates for sentencing en-
hancements. See id. at 1338. Accord Concepcion, 124 S. Ct. at 2402
n.6 (stating that 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”).
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At its core, Mr. McCoy’s First Step Act motion is an attempt
to relitigate his drug quantity finding. Under Jones and Jackson, this
is something he cannot do. See United States v. Williams, 63 F.4th
908, 912 (11th Cir. 2023) (rejecting the use of a First Step Act mo-
tion as a “veiled collateral attack”). The sentencing court was con-
stitutionally empowered to make a drug quantity finding at the
1991 sentencing hearing. As a result, its finding that over 2.8 kilo-
grams of crack cocaine were attributable to Mr. McCoy was
properly used to determine his statutory penalty. See Jones, 962
F.3d at 1303. For that reason, he is not entitled to relief under the
First Step Act.
Mr. McCoy attempts to create a distinction between what
he refers to as statutory drug quantity findings and Sentencing
Guidelines drug quantity findings. He argues that, because in 1991
the crack cocaine amount required to trigger his statutory penalty
range was 50 grams, any finding above that threshold was merely
advisory. In his view, the sentencing court’s finding that he was
responsible for just over 2.8 kilograms of crack cocaine was effec-
tive only for purposes of the Sentencing Guidelines (the Sentencing
Guidelines finding) and the only amount that could have been used
to determine his statutory penalty range was 50 grams (the statu-
tory finding).
We reject this proposed distinction. There are, of course,
situations where a district court declines to make certain factual
findings because they make no difference to the sentence to be im-
posed. But when a sentencing court makes a finding on the
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amount of narcotics attributable to a defendant—a factual determi-
nation on a historical matter—that finding controls for purposes of
the statutory sentencing range and for purposes of the Sentencing
Guidelines. See United States v. Coy, 19 F.3d 629, 636-37 (11th Cir.
1994).
B
Apparently understanding that we have shut the door on us-
ing § 404(b) of the First Step Act to mount a belated Apprendi-type
challenge, McCoy pivots to a different argument in an attempt to
avoid the sentencing court’s drug quantity finding. He maintains
that the retroactive application of the Fair Sentencing Act vis-à-vis
the First Step Act—as interpreted in cases like Jones and Jackson—
violates due process. His argument goes like this. If we go back
and pretend, as we must, that the Fair Sentencing Act was in effect
at the time of his 1991 sentencing hearing, he was never put on
notice that the Act’s amended version of § 841 would later provide
that a drug quantity finding of 280 grams or more would trigger a
statutory range of 10 years to life. Without such notice, he had no
reason to object to the drug quantity amount at sentencing or on
direct appeal. As a result, it would be unfair (and unconstitutional)
to bind him now to the finding that he was responsible for over 2.8
kilograms of crack cocaine.
In effect, Mr. McCoy asks us to hold that due process re-
quires that a defendant receive notice at the time of sentencing of
how hypothetical, future, and ameliorative criminal legislation
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might affect his rights, even though the terms of such legislation
are then unknown. The argument is creative, but it fails. 2
As a general mater, “[d]ue process traditionally requires that
criminal laws provide prior notice both of the conduct to be pro-
hibited and of the sanction to be imposed,” International Union,
United Mine Workers of America v. Bagwell, 512 U.S. 821, 836 (1994),
but Mr. McCoy is not complaining about a punitive law which was
retroactively applied to him. He is, instead, asserting that he did
not have to object to a drug-quantity finding at his original sentenc-
ing hearing because he did not know (and was not told) that the
finding could one day make a difference if Congress chose to pass
remedial sentencing legislation like the Fair Sentencing Act and the
First Step Act.
Because the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment
“contains no description of those processes which it was intended
to allow or forbid,” and “does not even declare what principles are
to be applied to ascertain whether it be due process,” the Supreme
2 We acknowledge Judge Grimberg’s concern that defendants like Mr. McCoy
are placed in a difficult situation. But, as we have explained and as Judge Grim-
berg acknowledges, Supreme Court and Eleventh Circuit precedent does not
allow Mr. McCoy to use a First Step Act motion to relitigate factual findings
made at his sentencing hearing. See Concepcion, 124 S. Ct. at 2402 n.6 (explain-
ing that 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”); Clowers, 62 F.4th 1384 (“What Congress did not do is . . .
vacate drug-quantity findings that would have triggered that minimum at the
time of the movant’s offense.”).
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Court sometimes looks to the “settled usages and modes of pro-
ceeding existing in the common and statute law of England . . . and
which are shown not to have been unsuited to their civil and polit-
ical condition by having been acted on by them after the settlement
of this country.” Murray’s Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co.,
59 U.S. 272, 276-77 (1855). But in other instances, the Court has
said that due process is not a concept limited by English law at the
time of the Constitution’s adoption. Because the “broad and gen-
eral maxims of liberty and justice [in the Constitution] ha[d] in our
system a different place and performed a different function from
their position and office in English constitutional history and law,
they would receive and justify a corresponding and more compre-
hensive interpretation,” and “it would be incongruous to measure
and restrict them by the ancient customary English law[.]” Hurtado
v. California, 110 U.S. 516, 532 (1884) (interpreting and applying the
Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment). Regardless of
the appropriate constitutional vantage point, we have not been
able to find any authority—foreign or domestic, old or new—for
the proposition that a criminal defendant must be advised of the
possible consequences of hypothetical, future, and ameliorative
criminal legislation whose terms are unknown.
We are not surprised by the lack of authority supporting Mr.
McCoy’s argument. Courts are not oracles of things to come, and
it is impossible for them to provide notice of a hypothetical future
law whose passage is at best uncertain and whose operative text is
anyone’s guess. Cf. William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Macbeth,
Act I, Scene 3, lines 58-60 (1606) (Banquo to the Three Witches: “If
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you can look into the seeds of time / And say which grain will grow
and which will not / Speak then to me . . . ”).
The little we have been able to find, though not directly on
point, cuts against Mr. McCoy’s vision of a clairvoyant Due Process
Clause. For example, in Williams v. United States Department of
Transportation, 781 F.2d 1573, 1579 (11th Cir. 1986), we rejected the
due process claim of a pilot that the Coast Guard, in seeking to im-
pose civil penalties on him for negligence, should have provided
him with “heightened due process protections because his state pi-
lot’s license was at stake.” We said that “[t]his claim [was] specula-
tive at best [in part because] . . . any allegation regarding potential
future consequences [was] purely hypothetical.” Id. In addition,
the Supreme Court has rejected collateral challenges to guilty pleas
based on future legal developments. See United States v. Addonizio,
442 U.S. 178, 186-87 (1979) (although changes in the Parole Com-
mission’s policies affected a defendant’s eligibility for parole, the
claimed error—“that the judge [at sentencing] was incorrect in his
assumptions about the future course of parole proceedings”—was
not, among other things, a claim of a constitutional violation sub-
jecting the sentence to collateral attack under 28 U.S.C. § 2255);
Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 756-57 (1970) (holding that a
defendant who pled guilty to federal kidnapping could not impugn
the propriety of his plea under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 based on a later
development striking down the death penalty for that offense).
Again, these cases are not controlling, but they confirm our con-
clusion that Mr. McCoy was not entitled to notice in 1991 of what
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the Fair Sentencing Act and the First Step Act would provide dec-
ades later.
IV
We affirm the district court’s denial of Mr. McCoy’s motion
under § 404(b) of the First Step Act.
AFFIRMED.
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21-13838 GRIMBERG, J., Concurring 1
GRIMBERG, District Judge, concurring:
I join in the judgment of the majority, affirming the district
court’s denial of McCoy’s motion under § 404(b) of the First Step
Act. I agree with the majority’s assessment that, at its core,
McCoy’s motion seeks to litigate the drug quantity finding made at
his sentencing, which is forbidden by our precedents. I write sepa-
rately to express two concerns with this outcome.
First, I am troubled by what I perceive as a due process dou-
ble standard. To be sure, due process requires that a defendant be
given pre-sentence notice of drug quantities that could trigger an
enhanced sentence. United States v. Coy, 19 F.3d 629, 637 (11th Cir.
1994). At the time McCoy was sentenced, that quantity was 50
grams or more of crack cocaine, and he indisputably received that
notice. McCoy’s position, however, is that because he was only on
notice that a drug quantity finding of 50 grams or more (not 280
grams) would trigger an enhanced penalty, he had no reason to ob-
ject to any drug quantity finding beyond 50 grams, whether that be
51 grams or, as it turned out, 2,848.5 grams. In other words, once
his drug quantity finding hit 50 grams, there was no reason for him
to dispute the finding since the enhanced penalty had already
kicked in.
The majority frames McCoy’s position as arguing that he
did not have to object to a drug-quantity finding at his original sen-
tencing hearing because he did not know (and was not told) that the
finding could one day make a difference. I see it slightly differently.
McCoy could not have known that a quantity finding beyond 50
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21-13838 GRIMBERG, J., Concurring 2
grams could one day make a difference. This distinction colors my
perspective on the due process question. I agree that the Constitu-
tion does not require that criminal defendants be advised of possi-
ble consequences of hypothetical, future, ameliorative criminal
legislation. That is impractical. But equally impractical is the no-
tion that McCoy should have preserved his rights on the off-chance
that doing so might make a difference in some hypothetical, future,
ameliorative criminal legislation. Hence, the double standard:
while courts are not oracles of things to come, neither are criminal
defendants.
We recognize this principle when it comes to intervening
changes in our precedent. For example, our circuit recently recog-
nized an exception to the doctrine of invited error in the “harsh
circumstances” where settled law changed while the case was on
appeal. United States v. Duldulao, --- F.4th ---, Case No. 20-13973, 2023
WL 8251507, at *8 (11th Cir. Nov. 29, 2023). In so doing, our circuit
observed that the defendant in that case had not demonstrated a
“‘lack of diligence . . . but merely a want of clairvoyance.’” Id.(quoting Joseph v. United States, 574 U.S. 1038, 135 S. Ct. 705, 706
(2014) (Kagan, J., respecting the denial of certiorari)). The same can
be said to describe McCoy.
My second concern is a pragmatic one and builds on the
first. As a district judge, I know first-hand how busy our trial courts
are. And so it is the proverbial music-to-my-ears when counsel dur-
ing a sentencing hearing announces that he or she will not contest
or will even withdraw an objection to a certain factual finding in
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21-13838 GRIMBERG, J., Concurring 3
the presentence report after recognizing that the finding does not
materially change the sentencing options for the defendant.
Is the take-away from this opinion and our circuit precedents
that doing so risks forfeiting a criminal defendant’s rights under
some unforeseeable criminal legislation in the future? Must counsel
now preserve their client’s eligibility for some possible future law
by litigating each and every factual finding in the presentence re-
port, no matter how meaningless it might seem at the time? If so,
it does not take clairvoyance to see scenarios where a district judge
might find himself or herself sitting through a lengthy sentencing-
turned-bench trial where he or she must decide whether a defend-
ant should be held accountable for, say, 290 grams of cocaine rather
than only 280 grams of cocaine, even though the sentencing op-
tions (on that day) will be the exact same. Because one never knows
what the hypothetical, future, ameliorative “Second Step Act”
might allow.
I see the flip side of this point, too. If limited judicial re-
sources are the concern it could likewise strain them to allow de-
fendants previously sentenced to litigate factual findings years, if
not decades, later. Although, given the choice, I would prefer to
spend my time on cases where those factual findings most certainly
matter over the aforementioned cases where they only hypotheti-
cally might. The larger issue, of course, is that allowing retroactive
litigation of sentencings imposes a burden of proof on the govern-
ment that could be very difficult to satisfy given the passage of
time.
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21-13838 GRIMBERG, J., Concurring 4
Unfortunately I do not have a solution, and I do not know
that it’s my role to suggest one even if I did. But I raise these issues
to make the broader point that legislation which allows for any de-
gree of retroactivity in our criminal laws, no matter how well-in-
tended, can create practical implications that make it incredibly dif-
ficult to administer fairly and equitably.
McCoy waived his right to litigate the drug quantity at his
sentencing, but he did so at a time when he could not have known the
implications that waiver would later have on his eligibility for crim-
inal justice reform legislation. That strikes me as fundamentally un-
fair. But that is what our law requires.