United States v. Bobby Lee Ingram

Opinion

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit

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No. 19-11257

Non-Argument Calendar

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus BOBBY LEE INGRAM,

Defendant-Appellant.

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Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia D.C. Docket No. 5:94-cr-00002-WTM-BWC-2

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USCA11 Case: 19-11257 Document: 64-1 Date Filed: 05/17/2023 Page: 2 of 3

2 Opinion of the Court 19-11257

ON REMAND FROM THE

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Before GRANT, LUCK, and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM:

In this appeal, we originally affirmed in part and vacated in part the district court’s order denying Bobby Lee Ingram’s motion for a sentence reduction under section 404 of the First Step Act 2018. See United States v. Ingram, 831 F. App’x 454 (11th Cir. 2020) (unpublished). In pertinent part, * we concluded -- based on our decision in United States v. Jones, 962 F.3d 1290 (11th Cir. 2020) -- that the district court was bound by its earlier judge-made finding that Ingram was responsible for 4,167 grams of crack cocaine. Given that drug-quantity finding, we concluded that a “sentence of life imprisonment [was] still the lowest possible penalty that would be available to [Ingram] under the Fair Sentencing Act.” The district court thus lacked authority to reduce Ingram’s sentence for Count 1. See Ingram, 831 F. App’x at 458.

* Because we found the record ambiguous about whether the district court understood properly the scope of its authority to reduce Ingram’s sentence on Count 14, we vacated in part the district court’s denial and remanded for further proceedings. That portion of our decision is not at issue now.

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19-11257 Opinion of the Court 3

The Supreme Court later granted certiorari, vacated our decision , and remanded the case to us for additional consideration in the light of its decision in Concepcion v. United States, 142 S. Ct. 2389 (2022). See Ingram v. United States, 143 S. Ct. 70 (2022).

We have since concluded that the Supreme Court’s decision in Concepcion did not abrogate the reasoning of our decision in Jones, including our determination that “the district 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 sentence .” See United States v. Jackson, 58 F.4th 1331, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 2772 *1, *8-9 (11th Cir. 2023) (reinstating the Court’s prior decision affirming the denial of Jackson’s motion to reduce his sentence ).

Because our decision in Jones remains binding law, we reinstate our prior decision in this appeal.

OPINION REINSTATED; AFFIRMED IN PART, VACATED IN PART, AND REMANDED.