United States v. Morris

147 F. Supp. 3d 1349, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 161980, 2015 WL 7756138
CourtDistrict Court, M.D. Alabama
DecidedDecember 3, 2015
DocketCRIMINAL ACTION NO. 3:07cr261-MHT
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 147 F. Supp. 3d 1349 (United States v. Morris) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, M.D. Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Morris, 147 F. Supp. 3d 1349, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 161980, 2015 WL 7756138 (M.D. Ala. 2015).

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER

Myron H. Thompson, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

In 2014, Amendment 782 to the United States Sentencing Guidelines revised the [1350]*1350guidelines applicable to the drug-trafficking offense for. which this court-sentenced defendant Rasheek Morris. The Sentencing Commission simultaneously promulgated Amendment 788, making Amendment 782 retroactive. This court established a Retroactivity Screening Panel to determine whether a defendant might be eligible for a 'sentence reduction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2).

Morris’s case was submitted for review, but the Panel has been unable to reach a unanimous recommendation due to a disagreement over the applicable law. When Morris was originally sentenced in 2007, the court departed downward by two levels on the basis of substantial assistance, pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1, which resulted in a sentence below the mandatory minimum,. as authorized by.- 18 U.S.C. § 3553(e). The Eleventh Circuit held in United States v. Glover, 686 F.3d 1203 (11th Cir.2012), that such a below-mandatory-minimum sentence cannot be reduced based on a retroactive amendment to the guidelines. After Glover, in 2014, the Commission promulgated Amendment 780, which states that a reduction should be made without regard to the mandatory minimum when the court originally departed below it based on a substantial-assistance motion. The parties were ordered to brief the question whether Glover or Amendment 780 controls.

Both the government and Morris agree that his eligibility for a sentence reduction is governed by Amendment 780 (and that he is therefore eligible); the court concurs, albeit for somewhat different reasons. Furthermore, the court agrees with the parties both that a sentence reduction is warranted in Morris’s case and as to the extent of that reduction.

I. CONTROLLING LAW

Congress has authorized federal district courts to reduce the term of imprisonment 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) ... after considering the factors set forth in [18 U.S.C. §] 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).

In United States v. Glover, 686 F.3d 1203 (11th Cir.2012), the appellate court held that a defendant who initially received a below-mandatory-minimum sentence, even based on a departure for substantial assistance, is not eligible for a reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) when the guideline range that would have applied— absent the mandatory minimum — was subsequently and retroactively reduced. Id. at 1206-07 (citing United States v. Mills, 613 F.3d 1070 (11th Cir.2010)). It explained that the low end of such a defendant’s guideline range was determined by the mandatory minimum, which, pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 5G1.1, “trumped” any portion of the otherwise-applicable guideline range below it. Relying on the Sentencing Guideline’s then-current policy statement on sentence reductions, it concluded that a reduction is unavailable in such cases because the relevant “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).” Id. at 1206 (citing U.S.S.G. § 1B1.10 cmt. n. 1(A) (emphasis omitted)).

Last year, however, the Sentencing Commission adopted Amendment- -780, which states that courts are to ignore the trumping provision in calculating retroactive sentence reductions in substantial-assistance cases. Amendment 780 modified [1351]*1351U.S.S.G. § 1B1.10, the policy statement, regarding 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2). ¡sentence reductions on which Glover relied, by adding a new subsection (c): “If the case involves a statutorily' required minimum sentence and the court had the authority to impose a sentence below the statutorily required minimum sentence pursuant to a government motion to reflect the defendant’s substantial assistance to authorities, then for purposes of this policy statement the amended guideline range shall1 be 'determined without regard to the operation of § 5G1.1 and § 5G1.2.”1

In its Reason for Amendment, the Sentencing Commission made clear that it intended tó resolve a circuit split regarding “when, if at all, § 1B1.10 provides that a statutory minimum continues to liihit the amount by which a defendant’s sentence may be reduced under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) when the defendant’s original sentence was below the statutory minimum due to substantial assistance.” U.S.S'.G. supp. to app. C, amend. 780 (Nov. 1, 2014). It went on to expressly reject the decision in Glover and adopt the contrary view taken by the Third and D.C. Circuits; in order to “ensure[ ] that defendants who' provide substantial assistance to the government in the investigation and prosecution of others have the opportunity to receive the full benefit of a reduction that accounts-for that assistance.”’ Id.

As the government concedes, Amendment 780 — not Glover — controls. This is true for two reasons. First, Glover’s conclusion derives entirely from its interpretation of the pre-Amendment 780 version of U.S.S.G. § 1B1.10. Now that the text of the provision has changed, Glover’s analysis is simply inapposite. (By the same token, if an appellate court determines that a federal statute creates no private right of action, and then,Congress amends the statute to .do so, the circuit’s decision obviously no longer controls.)

Second, Amendment 780 must be controlling because the section of the Sentencing Guidelines in which it appears— U.S.S.G. § 1B1.10(c)— is binding on district courts hearing motions for sentence reductions. While • the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), made many of the guidelines advisory, courts still must abide by the policy statement at issue here. See Dillon v. United States, 560 U.S. 817, 824-28, 130 S.Ct. 2683, 177 L.Ed.2d 271 (2010) (emphasizing the “substantial role Congress gave the Commission with respect to sentence-modification proceedings” in holding that 18 U.S.C.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
147 F. Supp. 3d 1349, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 161980, 2015 WL 7756138, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-morris-almd-2015.