We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

LET ME HELP YOU OUT A LITTLE…

Actions have consequences, even when the action is just sending your judge a from-the-heart letter asking for a break.

Oniel Russell found that out. Back in 2006, he was convicted of a crack offense and sentenced to 262 months. But after the First Step Act passed, Oniel heard that maybe he was entitled to a sentence break. He didn’t really understand the effect of a newly-retroactive Fair Sentencing Act, so he wrote to his sentencing judge to ask that a lawyer be appointed to assist him.

Nothing in Oniel’s short letter discussed the merits of whether he was eligible for, or should be awarded, a sentence reduction. But the district court couldn’t see the need for Oniel to waste a second stamp on an actual motion. Instead, the court helpfully construed Oniel’s letter to be a First Step Section 404 sentence reduction motion, and directed the government to respond.

The government opposed reduction because the maximum penalty for his offense stayed the same under the Fair Sentencing Act. In a two-paragraph order, the district court agreed, and held that Oniel was ineligible for the sentence reduction he had never asked for. Even if he were, the district court said, it did “not believe that Congress intended to give Defendant and others similarly situated to get the benefit of a sentence reduction.”

Last week, the 11th Circuit reversed.

In the wake of the Circuit’s Jones decision last June, it was clear that Onielwas eligible for a Section 404 reduction. Although the district court had said it would not grant a reduction even if it could, the Circuit found

not enough here to permit meaningful appellate review of the district court’s initial order… We cannot discern from the record the basis for the district court’s decision not to exercise its discretion. When the district court issued this order, the court had before it nothing from the parties addressing whether the court should exercise its discretion. Russell had merely sent the court a one-page letter requesting appointed counsel to assist him in seeking a sentence reduction under the First Step Act when the court sua sponte converted his request into a motion for a sentence reduction. The government submitted a response to the construed motion opposing any sentence reduction, but it addressed only Russell’s eligibility for relief under the First Step Act, not whether, if Russell were eligible, the court should exercise its discretion… We cannot affirm based on the order because neither the order itself nor the record sheds any light on the district court’s reasons for declining to exercise its discretion.

United States v. Russell, Case No. 19-12717, 2021 US App LEXIS 10743, (11th Cir., April 15, 2021)

– Thomas L. Root