We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.
SECTION 404 – WHERE LESS IS LESS, EVEN WHEN IT’S MORE
A lot of times, prisoners – who are rightly focused on the substance of their claims – skip over the finer points of procedure. After all, procedure is kind of boring. But paying attention can bring dividends, or – as the old proverb goes – “God is in the details.”
Ask Nolan Edwards. He was doing life for a crack offense when the First Step Act passed, letting him seek retroactive application of the Fair Sentencing Act. First Step Act § 404(b) provides that the court that originally sentenced a defendant for a crack offense may, when certain conditions are met, “impose a reduced sentence.” Meanwhile, 18 USC § 3582(c)(1)(B) (the section many § 404 motions cite), is similar but not identical. It authorizes a district court to “modify an imposed term of imprisonment to the extent otherwise permitted by statute…”
Nolan filed a motion under First Step Act § 404 and § 3582(c)(1)(B). The district court reduced his sentence to time served, but concluded the First Step Act required it to impose an 8-year supervised release term. Nolan appealed the supervised release term, arguing that § 404 only empowers a court to subtract from a sentence, not add to one.
Last week, the 11th Circuit agreed. A § 404 motion “is self-contained and self-executing,” the Circuit said, and does not need to rely on 18 USC § 3582(c)(1)(b) to be granted. Therefore, a district court is entitled only to reduce a prisoner’s overall sentence pursuant to a § 404 motion.
But that didn’t help Nolan. The 11th said that the focus was on the overall sentence, not just the components. So if the “unitary” sentence – imprisonment and supervised release considered together – was reduced, First Step Act § 404’s requirements were met. Here, Nolan’s life sentence was cut to 260 months and eight years of supervised release. That was clearly a reduced sentence, the Circuit said, despite the fact supervised release went from zero to 8 years.
United States v. Edwards, Case No. 19-13366, 2021 U.S.App. LEXIS 14140 (11th Cir., May 13, 2021)
– Thomas L. Root