Tag Archives: sentence package doctrine

6th Extends Section 404 Reduction to Sentence Packages – Update for October 21, 2025

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

A “PACKAGE” DEAL

“Best Friends” sounds like a warm and cuddly name for a gang, more like a gaggle of 6-year-old girls back in the 1980s swapping Cabbage Patch Kids. But the 1980s and 1990s Motor City’s “Best Friends” gang was a little more into drug distribution, for-hire murders and drive-by shootings than ugly-faced little dolls with birth certificates.

In 1995, four of the principals were convicted of conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine, possession of crack, and several counts of intentional killing in furtherance of a continuing criminal enterprise in violation of 21 USC § 848(e)(1)(A), with a few 18 USC § 924(c) use-of-gun counts tossed in for good measure. The four besties were all convicted and received life sentences.

After the First Step Act was passed, the four filed for sentence reductions under Section 404, which allowed for retroactive application of the Fair Sentencing Act’s reduction in statutory punishments for crack cocaine offenses. After a tortuous trek through the district court to the court of appeals and back again, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan deemed the four amigos eligible for a Section 404 reduction. After a 2022 hearing, the district court reduced their sentences for the drug conspiracy and homicide convictions from life imprisonment to various terms of years.

The government appealed, and last week, the 6th Circuit reversed and remanded.The Circuit rejected the District Court’s interpretation of Section 404 that would allow unlimited resentencing authority for any offense if a covered offense happened to also present. The 6th concluded that such a reading of the section did not align with the First Step Act’s purpose of resentencing “as if sections 2 and 3 of the Fair Sentencing Act were in effect.”

After all, the 6th reasoned, even if the Fair Sentencing Act had been in force when the four best friends were sentenced in 1998, the homicide life sentences under § 848(e) would still have been permitted independent of the crack possession and conspiracy convictions.

The “sentencing package doctrine” recognizes that sentencing multiple counts is an inherently interrelated, interconnected, and holistic process, and that when an appellate court vacates a sentence and remands for resentencing, the sentence becomes void in its entirety and the district court is free to revisit any rulings it made at the initial sentencing. In this case, the 6th held that when sentences are interdependent or form a ‘package,’ modifying one sentence may require reconsideration of the entire sentencing scheme to maintain the court’s original sentencing intent. Finding that the ‘sentencing package‘ doctrine is consistent with First Step Section 404’s text and context, the Circuit vacated everyone’s resentencings and remanded for the District Court to determine whether each defendant’s homicide sentence was part of a ‘sentencing package’ with the covered crack drug offense.

The holding aligns with decisions by the 4th and 7th Circuits.

United States v. Dale, Case No. 23-1050, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 26682 (6th Cir. October 14, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root

Resentencing the Whole Crack Defendant – Update for April 1, 2024

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

PACKAGE STORE

More than a few prisoners seeking sentence reductions under Section 404 of the First Step Act – the provision that made the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act apply retroactively to crack cocaine sentences – were denied reductions because they had other non-crack counts of conviction that weren’t covered by Section 404 and kept the sentences high.

gift211222In the case of Nathaniel Richardson, his sentence was life for crack distribution and a second life term for a 21 USC § 848 continuing criminal enterprise count. The district court found that the crack distribution count was a covered offense and reduced Nate’s life sentence to 360 months. But on the CCE count, the district court relied on 4th Circuit precedent, holding that CCEs were not covered offenses under Section 404 and left the life term intact. That life term was unchanged.

Last week, the 4th Circuit reversed, holding that the district court had the discretion to reduce both covered and noncovered offenses under Section 404 of the First Step Act “if they function as a package.”

The 4th said it has “upheld the use of the sentencing package doctrine in the habeas context, and resentencing under the First Step Act similarly provides district courts with broad discretion to fashion a remedy.” The Circuit ruled that “allowing judges to utilize the sentencing package doctrine is in line with how district judges practically sentence defendants and in accordance with the purpose of the First Step Act… The sentencing package doctrine is applicable here because where one count of a package is remanded, the district judge must be given the discretion to reconfigure the sentencing plan to ensure it remains adequate to satisfy the statutory sentencing factors.

District judges are entrusted with “enormous responsibility,” the 4th said, “and must be given adequate discretion in resentencing, especially in light of the changing landscape of new statutory schemes.”

United States v. Richardson, Case No. 22-6748, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 6618 (4th Cir., March 20, 2024)

– Thomas L. Root

Opening a Sentence Package – Update for March 27, 2019

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

UNDOING A SENTENCE PACKAGE IS UP TO DISTRICT COURT

Jim Troiano was sentenced concurrently to 17 years on three counts, one of which was a felon-in-possession enhanced under the Armed Career Criminal Act. After the Supreme Court decision in Johnson v. United States, he got the ACCA sentence vacated, but the district court refused to resentence on the other two counts. Jim’s sentence remained at 17 years (plus seven more for an 18 USC 924(c) conviction).

gift190327Jim appealed, arguing that his sentence was a “package,” and the district court could not change the sentence on just one count without resentencing on all of the counts and giving him a lesser aggregate sentence. Last week, the 9th Circuit disagreed. It said in a resentencing, the decision to unbundle a sentencing package – that is, to conduct a full resentencing on all remaining counts of conviction when one or more counts of a multi-count conviction are undone – rests within the sound discretion of the district court.

Troiano v. United States, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 8596 (9th Cir. Mar. 22, 2019)

– Thomas L. Root