Case ID: f-appx_518/html/0722-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

UNITED STATES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Efrem STUTSON, a.k.a Cooky, Defendant-Appellant.
    No. 12-11491
    Non-Argument Calendar.
    United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.
    May 3, 2013.
    Ramona Albin, Michael B. Billingsley, James Dennis Ingram, Daniel Stice Tara-belli, Joyce White Vance, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Birmingham, AL, for Plaintiff-Ap-pellee.
    Efrem Stutson, Florence, CO, pro se.
    Before WILSON, JORDAN, and FAY, Circuit Judges.
   PER CURIAM:

Efrem Stutson appeals the district court’s denial of his motion for a reduction of sentence. See 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2). For the reasons which follow, we affirm.

In 1994, a jury found Mr. Stutson guilty of conspiring to possess cocaine, cocaine base, marijuana, and PCP with the intent to distribute. See 21 U.S.C. §§ 846, 841(a)(1) & (b)(1)(A). Because Mr. Stut-son had three prior felony drug convictions, and because the government had filed a notice of intent to seek an enhanced penalty, see 21 U.S.C. § 851, the district court sentenced him in 1998 (following a remand from this court) to a statutory minimum term of life imprisonment. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A).

In 2011, Mr. Stutson filed the § 3582(c)(2) motion that is the subject of this appeal. In that motion, he sought a sentence reduction based on Amendment 750 to the Sentencing Guidelines. The district court denied the motion, concluding that Amendment 750 did not change Mr. Stutson’s statutory minimum term of life imprisonment.

The arguments Mr. Stutson makes in favor of reversal are foreclosed by our precedent. First, we have held several times that a § 3582(c)(2) motion is properly denied where — as here — the defendant was sentenced to a statutory minimum term of imprisonment. See, e.g., United States v. Williams, 549 F.3d 1337, 1341 (11th Cir.2008); United States v. Mills, 613 F.3d 1070, 1077-78 (11th Cir.2010); United States v. Glover, 686 F.3d 1203, 1206-07 (11th Cir.2012). Second, as we explained in United States v. Lawson, 686 F.3d 1317, 1320-21 (11th Cir.2012), the Supreme Court’s decision in Freeman v. United States, — U.S. -, 131 S.Ct. 2685, 180 L.Ed.2d 519 (2011), did not abrogate our prior cases holding that a § 3582(c)(2) reduction is unavailable to narcotics defendants whose sentence is not based on USSG § 2B1.1. Third, a § 3582(c)(2) motion cannot be used to revisit findings and rulings made at the original sentencing hearing. See United States v. Bravo, 203 F.3d 778, 781 (11th Cir.2000). Fourth, our recent decision in United States v. Hippolyte, 712 F.3d 535, 540-42 (11th Cir.2013), holds that (a) the new definition of “applicable guideline range” in Amendment 759 does not provide § 3582(c)(2) relief for defendants who received statutory minimum terms of imprisonment, and (2) the Fair Sentencing Act does not apply retroactively in a § 3582(c)(2) proceeding to defendants sentenced before the Act’s effective date.

AFFIRMED.