Case ID: f-appx_482/html/0927-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM: \n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee v. Jonathan SIMMONS, Defendant-Appellant.
    No. 12-30092
    Summary Calendar.
    United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
    Sept. 21, 2012.
    Carol Loupe Michel, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Diane Hollenshead Copes, Esq., Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney’s Office, New Orleans, LA, for Plaintiff-Ap-pellee.
    Gary V. Schwabe, Jr., Esq., Assistant Federal Public Defender, Federal Public Defender’s Office, New Orleans, LA, for Defendant-Appellant.
    Before SMITH, DeMOSS, and SOUTHWICK, Circuit Judges.
   PER CURIAM:

Jonathan Simmons, federal prisoner #30700-034, appeals the district court’s denial of his 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) motion for reduction of his sentence for possession of five grams or more of cocaine base with intent to distribute and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Simmons argues that the district court abused its discretion by denying his § 3582(c)(2) motion. He maintains that the district court improperly focused solely on his prison disciplinary offense instead of balancing that factor with positive factors such as his following the district court’s directive to pursue a GED. He asserts that he should not be negatively affected by the Bureau of Prisons’ (BOP) refusal to allow him to take vocational classes until he earns his GED, and he notes that under Tapia v. United States, — U.S. -, 131 S.Ct. 2382, 180 L.Ed.2d 357 (2011), a court may not lengthen a prison sentence to foster rehabilitation.

The district court ruled that Simmons was eligible for a sentence reduction, but it declined to grant such a reduction because of Simmons’s prison disciplinary offense. We need not consider the applicability of Tapia because the record shows that the district court merely expressed frustration with the BOP’s handling of Simmons’s rehabilitation, and it denied the § 3582(c)(2) motion because of the prison disciplinary offense. Simmons does not dispute that he committed the prison disciplinary offense. In light of Simmons’s serious prison disciplinary offense, the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Simmons’s § 3582(c)(2) motion. See United States v. Smith, 595 F.3d 1322, 1323 (5th Cir.2010).

AFFIRMED. 
      
       Pursuant to 5th Cir. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5th Cir. R. 47.5.4.