United States v. Dwayne Smith

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 16-6173
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
DWAYNE SMITH,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Norfolk. Raymond A. Jackson, District
Judge. (2:12-cr-00171-RAJ-DEM-1)
Submitted: September 20, 2016 Decided: November 1, 2016
Before DUNCAN, DIAZ, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.
Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Dwayne Smith, Appellant Pro Se. Darryl James Mitchell,
Assistant United States Attorney, Norfolk, Virginia, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Dwayne Smith appeals district court’s order denying relief
on his 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) (2012) motion under Amendment 782
of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, which reduced the Guidelines
range for various drug offenses. We vacate the district court’s
order and remand for further proceedings.
We review de novo a district court’s ruling as to the scope
of its legal authority under § 3582(c)(2). United States v.
Williams, 808 F.3d 253, 256 (4th Cir. 2015). Under U.S.
Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 1B1.10(b)(2)(A), p.s. (2015), a
“court shall not reduce the defendant’s term of imprisonment
under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) and this policy statement to a term
that is less than the minimum of the amended guideline range
determined [through application of the Sentencing Amendment].”
We conclude that the district court erred in holding that
it did not have the discretion to reduce Smith’s sentence below
the statutory minimum. Our decision in United States v.
Williams, 808 F.3d 256 (4th Cir. 2015), which abrogated United
States v. Hood, 556 F.3d 226 (4th Cir. 2009), and which controls
the outcome of this case, had been issued only a month before
the district court’s order. As stated in Williams, because this
case implicates USSG § 1B1.10(c), p.s., the district court was
required to consider Smith’s new Guidelines range. Thus, the
district court erred in ruling that it did not have the
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authority to grant Smith a sentence reduction, and we remand to
allow the district court to exercise its discretion on this
issue.
Accordingly, we vacate the judgment of the district court
and remand for further proceedings. 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
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