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11TH CIRCUIT’S NOT GOING TO MAKE COMPASSIONATE RELEASE EASY

Quinton Handlon got a life sentence 11 years ago for coercing minors to produce child pornography. In 2021, he filed for compassionate release on the grounds that his father suffered poor health and needed 24/7 care.

The district court turned him down because caring for a parent was not defined in the old USSG § 1B1.13 as a basis for compassionate release at the time Quinton applied as an extraordinary and compelling reason for an 18 USC § 3582(c)(1) sentence reduction. The § 1B1.13 that became effective on Nov 1, 2023, however, does recognize parent care as an extraordinary and compelling reason.

Nevertheless, last week, the 11th Circuit turned him down.

In legal gyrations that only the 11th Circuit could love, the Court ruled that it could retroactively apply § 1B1.13 “amendment in this appeal only if it is a ‘clarifying’ amendment, not if it is a ‘substantive’ amendment.” The Circuit ruled that the § 1B1.13 change “altered the text of the guideline itself to allow for compassionate release in a new circumstance,” making it a substantive amendment. The 11th ruled that although Quinton can file a new compassionate release motion, “we cannot give it retroactive effect in this appeal.”

Of course, the Circuit could just as easily have remanded Quinton’s case to the district court for application of the new § 1B1.13 standard to the factual record. But that would have saved time and paperwork.

The decision is flawed for another more troubling reason. The district court turned Quinton down for lack of an “extraordinary and compelling reason” for compassionate release, not reaching the question of whether grant would be consistent with the 18 USC § 3553(a) sentencing factors and with applicable Sentencing Commission policy. Because all three conditions are necessary for grant of a compassionate release motion, “the absence of even one would foreclose a sentence reduction,” the 11th noted.

Such a decision is hardly uncommon. Only three months ago, the 11th agreed with a district court that a defendant’s “mother’s cancer diagnosis does not fall within the list of family circumstances that justify compassionate release,” footnoting that “[w]e need not reach the issue of whether the court abused its discretion by failing to consider the § 3553(a) factors because the district court’s order was not in error.”

But Quinton’s court was not detained by notions of judicial efficiency and restraint. While conceding that the district court was entitled to focus solely on the lack of an extraordinary and compelling reason, the Circuit was sufficiently offended by Quinton’s offense of conviction that it found it appropriate to lecture the district court on how it ought to decide Quinton’s § 3553 sentencing factors” if his case ever arose again.

The Circuit complained that the district court “did not have the opportunity to consider that sex offenders who have sexually abused children are a threat to continue doing so” because of the alleged high recidivism of sex offenders (a myth from 20 years ago that even the DOJ has renounced). Of course the district court did not: Circuit precedent dictated that it need not do so. Nevertheless, the 11th clearly gave the district court marching orders on how to decide this issue if Quinton came back with a new motion.

Whether Quinton is a danger to the community or not is a decision for the district court to make first. The 11th Circuit has in the past been happy to remind litigants that “we are a court of review, and we ordinarily do not decide in the first instance issues not decided below.” Apparently, when the defendant’s past is sufficiently offensive to the appellate panel, no such limitations apply.

United States v. Handlon, Case No. 22-13699, 2024 USAppLEXIS 7915 (11th Cir., April 3, 2024)

Dept of Justice, Recidivism of Sex Offenders Released from State Prison: A 9-Year Follow-Up (2005-14) (May 2019)

United States v. Ivanov-Tolpintsev, Case No. 23-10648, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 117  (11th Cir., Jan. 3, 2024)

Griggs v. Kenworth of Montgomery, Inc., 775 F.Appx 608, 613 (11th Cir. 2019)

– Thomas L. Root