We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.
COMPASSIONATE RELEASE AIN’T JUST ANOTHER 2255
Stephen Fine pled guilty in 2014 to a methamphetamine distribution conspiracy (21 USC § 846) and money laundering (18 USC § 1956). At sentencing, the district court found Steve was a Guidelines career offender (USSG § 4B1.1) based on two prior state drug convictions.
As regular readers know, being christened a “career offender” exposes a defendant to dramatically higher Guidelines sentencing ranges.
After conviction, Steve attacked his conviction in a 28 USC § 2255 habeas corpus action, alleging his lawyer had been ineffective. The motion failed. Then in July 2019, Steve filed an 18 USC § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) sentence reduction motion, asking the court for what is generally known as “compassionate release.”
A momentary frolic into grammar and language: The statute calls the action of a court modifying a sentence in response to a proper motion under § 3582(c) as a “sentence reduction.” Originally, the § 3582(c)(1)(A) motion could only be brought on a prisoner’s behalf by the Bureau of Prisons, something that happened seldom enough to make a Blue Moon seem commonplace by comparison. Nevertheless, the BOP started referring to the motion it alone was authorized to bring as “compassionate release,” and the term – like a brandnomer – stuck. Think “tissue” (sentence reduction) versus “Kleenex” (compassionate release).
A § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) compassionate release motion must show “extraordinary and compelling reasons” for a sentence reduction. Steve’s extraordinary and compelling reasons were (1) his “post-sentencing rehabilitation” and (2) that he was actually innocent of his sentence, because court decisions since his sentencing had held that the state convictions his judge relied on in declaring him a career offender should not have been counted in that calculus.
His district court turned down the compassionate release motion. Last week, the 8th Circuit agreed.
Citing Guideline § 1B1.13 (which, by the way, the 2nd, 4th, 6th and 7th have held does not apply to an inmate-filed compassionate release motion), the 8th Circuit held that rehabilitation alone was not a proper basis for a sentence reduction motion. As for Steve’s claim that he was not properly a career offender – his other extraordinary and compelling reason – the Court noted that his “challenge to the career offender determination was still a challenge to his sentence. A federal inmate generally must challenge a sentence through a § 2255 motion, and a post-judgment motion that fits the description of a motion to vacate, set aside, or correct a sentence should be treated as a § 2255 motion… Even an intervening change in the law does not take a motion outside the realm of § 2255 when it seeks to set aside a sentence… The district court was therefore correct that his challenge to the career offender determination and resulting sentence was an unauthorized successive motion to vacate, set aside, or correct a sentence.”
In a compassionate release motion, a defendant who has established an extraordinary and compelling reason must also show that grant of the motion would be reasonably consistent with the sentencing factors set out in 18 USC § 3553(a). That was where Steve’s sentence argument would have fit. Had he suggested that a sentence reduction would have been consistent with § 3553(a) factors, because the correct punishment – and thus, the punishment society suggests would be adequate but not too great – was really a lot less than what he got.
Of course, Steve still would have lost, because he was missing an “extraordinary and compelling reason.” Without one of those, none of the rest of § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) matters at all. For the want of a nail…
United States v. Fine, Case No 19-3485, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 38786 (8th Cir Dec 11, 2020)
– Thomas L. Root