under the st step act but refuse to apply the current binding th circuit law showing that mr haygood is not a career offender the st step act provides a court that imposed a sentence for a covered  impose a reduced sentence as if sections two dollars and three dollars of the fair sentencing act were in effect at the time of the offense the district court here applied the st step act reduced the maximum sentence to twenty years and the guideline range two hundred and fifty one t hundred and eighty one months but it refused to apply this court's two thousand and seventeen case and tanks lee which showed that mr haygood is not a career offender and that the career offender guidelines should not have been applied the district court erred in not  applying tanks lee the four hundred and four b of the st but step act explicitly says that the court is authorized to impose a reduced sentence in light foot this court made clear that when a court is imposing a sentence the st three thousand five hundred and fifty three dollars a factors which include the current guidelines must be applied to the word reduced the word reduced does not dictate what statute it comes under and by the way the it is different to impose a reduced sentence them to reduce impose sentence it didn't say the court can only can only modify impose sentence it said the court may impose a sentence now when you the word reduced comes into play because as treatises like professor lafave straightest say when a statutory maximum is reduced you are dealing with a less severe crime so since congress was reducing the statutory maximum it was giving the authority to impose a new sentence for any less severe crime so that's how the word reduced comes into play and you know on top of that congress knows how to use the word imposed versus the word in modified it had to be aware of the supreme court's opinion in dealin which dealt with the word modified not with the word imposed and then clark versus martin as the supreme court makes clear that when a word is used more than once in the statute it must be given the same meaning and in this statute the word imposed is used twice  it talks about when the court originally imposed a sentence and then it gives the court the authority to impose a sentence so under clark versus martinez you have to interpret those words in the same way so it's clear th congress knew how to use the word impose it's clear it was aware of deal and still chose to use the word imposed it's clear that it was aware of three thousand five hundred and eighty two dollars c two and one which use the word modify and i chose not to use the word modified but if we needed any further reason to just not interpret the words as they're written i believe the court could just look at the st step back the st step back as you as the thousand and this particular law for four is under title four which is entitled sentencing reform and the other provisions of the st step act give courts the authority to impose a new sentence on the elderly and infirm inmates and just to release them from jail so this is a sentence this is a statute that was passed by a different congress with a different goal then the fair step act which was passed just to give the benefit of the crack guideline this is a statute that was passed by a congress that wanted to release prisoners and give them give the court   st step back and talks about it being a reform statute so if we need any reason to impose to interpret the language as it's written which we don't because the law tells us that we interpret words by the ordinary meaning and we interpret words presuming that congress knows the law already if we need any further reason we could just look at the st step act and see that it was a sentencing reform provision designed to relieve inmates through a new sentencing from the draconian crack sentences of the ninety's and early two thousand so is it your view that any of the sentencing here is that he would have jurisdiction to have just sentencing and then on everything your honor in this particular case i don't believe so i believe that the court  can focus on what was a number one what was objected to which was not imposing tanks lee number two that's what's on appeal and that's what the court's going to rule on and number three it's going to get re mandated so there are i guess two reasons why the core it wouldn't open up everything to the court number one the law of the case doctrine is it's not going to open up everything because that was only what was objected to but number two i think th tanks lee is linked to the very reduction that was authorized by the st step back so it's not like even whatever rule you write for this case it's not going to open up minor role it's not going to open up organizer leader it's not going to open up all those other things because what happened here is the statutory maximum got reduced under the st that which has led to the career offender guideline being reduced and so what was in consideration given the st step back and what congress did was the career offender guideline and that's what got opened up and that's why tanks the applies so for two reasons your honor they wouldn't open everything up and i think the court could write the opinion narrowly to say look this is what book that opened up this is what got objected to this is what the guideline that was affected and tanks lee applies to that guideline that was affected now i think there's a nd thing that comes into play i don't know how you write in your opinion or whether you do but i think the court could also recognize that mathis as as this court lock which just myth was on the panel mathis is not a new rule of law so you're not applying you're not saying oh this is some new rule tanks lee applied math this and math is the supreme court expressly stated this is a straight forward application of twenty five years of precedent under taylor so and that's why people when they do you know a nd he's quick prediction can't get relief because mathis applied as it always applied to mr headway and so you're not even applying a new rule of law and you're not even up opening up something that's not related to the guideline that came into play and that was objected to so it's all wrapped around the same ball of career offender and mathis for these reasons your honor i'm we would request that you they keep the same list and remain without the application of the career standard guideline thank you very much but didn't really respond at all to his arguments my intent always goes up when the absolutely really doesn't make any effort to respond to the appellants main main argument i hope you'll give us a little bit of help on that because it looks to me as though you're trying to avoid tanks lee your honor not at all and if i could have the government's position as in it i think the weight of us already is on our side on this point with regards to what can be considered and what shouldn't be considered in this context for purposes of reducing a sentence under the st step back to intensely falls right in there and there's cases that have been decided since the briefing that shed light with regards as counsel acknowledged and so it has no it's not a rule a new rule of constitutional law and to allow consideration of any changes in law that has to do with your application in the guidelines would open the door to many types of changes being applied and and it would also impact the finale of a judgment under thirty five million eight hundred and twenty two thousand two hundred and fifty five's i mean the finale of judgment is  in a limited proceeding such as this that they can only should only consider similar to one b one point one it informs this proceeding as well that you only look at the change in law that has to do with the penalty changes the changes that became retroactive which is increasing the the reducing the disparity between crack and powder the whole purpose was to reduce the disparity in the penalties the fair set of the fair sentencing act already did that and the guidelines  sentencing commission put all that into place or anything that occurred after october put it once it's one step that's it to one side for a moment just take a case typical criminal case on appeal with that it only applies to reducing a sentence in very limited circumstances and the limited circumstances are just discretionary they do not have to occur similar to three thousand five hundred and eighty two dollars and they only apply to a small group of defendants and those would be the defendants that were sentence prior to august rd two thousand and ten so that they will have the same position as the ones that were sentenced after august or august rd two thousand and ten so as i think the congress his intent was to place them in the same position as  defendants that were sentenced after the fair sentencing act it did not encompass all of these other changes in the law with them and if you if you want to go back and put them in the original position that would have been the end but for the statute the t sentencing commission to input things consistent with thirty five million eight hundred and twenty three thousand five hundred and fifty three they did not allow for defendants to go into all these other things unrelated to the change in the penalties dealing with the disparity between crack and powder to allow that of the courts to get into all these other things that are unrelated to what congress did would open up the door to complete new sentencings my argument to that question would be post two thousand and ten defendants are not getting that out so why would same thing with regards the guidelines of congress to have a say you know what we're going to allow the defendants prior to two thousand and ten to have that same advantage at that they didn't expect to give them a higher or more favorable advantage and then the post fair sentencing act defendants who were who were being construed for exactly the same thing they limited it to all we wanted to do was to recognize the disparity we're recognizing that disparity we're not going to open the door to all these other sentencing clients under thirty five any two so if you look at dillon even th the judgment is already final all we're doing is modifying it in a very narrow way that is allowed by the st step back the st step back all it says is you can we can see you may reduce and impose a can be considered just as as the post two thousand and ten defendants or it does not say you know you can resign answer you can vacate you can have further sentencing proceedings that basically says impose a reduced sentence which there is only one provision that would apply in that situation  sentencing that would consider consider all issues who i'm with you when pork that this is not an extraordinary interpretation that you're given this is quite consistent with dylan but what about the language if i could answer that question or i think for three reasons one if you look at the way they use the word imposed in the st step back they use it in two different ways not that it has different meanings but it has different contexts the st time they use it they say they talk about you  n if you imposed a previously if you impose a sentence as a covered off meaning as an office it has the penalties reduced according to these provisions that's one context i was talking about a previous imposition and in the  regards to how narrow it is every fear is so it's it is deemed to be referring to a proceeding to reduce it doesn't use the words further recent in saying vacating a recent and saying such as the other statutes where those things are allowed including twenty to fifty five's if you look at the twenty to fifty five language they use those words re sentencing vacating the same thing with three thousand seven hundred and forty two when they're talking about re man for a complete new sentencing further it qualifies that with reduction and when you're talking about reduction of it's not affecting the finale the finale the judgment the judgment is final it's just allowing some modification in a very narrow exception to the finality and so if we go beyond that then we're we're we're hampering the rules anality by allowing you know when to where do we draw the line in this case we say well you know that we can consider these other things because we want to what happens the next time when someone says a what about me why can't we consider these other things that have nothing to do with the statute the statute talks about the change in the statutory penalties based on crack cocaine it does not say if you are sentenced you know you can be sentenced based on what if you had committed the of seems clear the congress meant to put the those category or that group of defendants in the same place as the post fair sentencing act offense but not in a better position than those defendants and i think that you know this with the court can consider the policy statements don't know what the relief would be if it was as with a sentence with and the correct range if the court came back and said i think that you're a career fair i'm going to reduce your levels by two levels because now they've been affected by the  i mean at that point i get the the government puts out of my question if the court had gone and applied tax leigh and we our position would be that was incorrect that's outside the scope of this and we would you know that we would be the in a position to decide whether to en as mandatory because that's not incorporated the st step back our position would be as the court shouldn't vary downward from the career offender provision based on that information but i don't think the courts prohibited from varing downward but if the court was just is considering things totally unrelated to what the st step back in the narrow press crags of that act that is now considering retroactive law that has that is is affects the finality of the judgment and it's not it's just we're reducing that final judgment i mean it's not we're not increasing it now if those a completely sentencing you could increase it based on the whole package we're not doing that we're in a narrow confines of a reduction in the same situation w sure i'm sort of a member of points st of all the government has why would congress allow why would congress allow the court doesn't have to ask such a speculative question the court can just look at the language of the statu and see that congress knowing about dealing with the onset about modified knowing about three thousand five hundred and eighty to see one in two and knowing about cases like this court case on life or chose to use the word impose we don't have to g and knowing about clarke versus martinez now the government says that the fair sentencing act is the same as the st that act it's not the st sensing act only the the st step only adopted sections two dollars and three of the of the fair sentencing act and included nothing about the guidelines or the commission and i had a lot more to say but when i heard the end of the government's argument i decided i just need to say one more thing r that says you can only make the changes that the change in the guideline allows the reason dylan decided would be decided was is that a sense modification of th to make policy statements that are consistent with this and the one we want point ten in its policy statement say you can only modify it to the extent that the guideline is modified so if you say one b one point one is not part of the st step back you've just given away everything in addition your honour's congress as i said knew how to use the word impose versus modified the government keeps saying the judgement is final the judgment is not final the statutory maximum has been reduced congress has once courts to impose a sentence not to modify one so the judgment is not final and your honor again i don't  you be one point one in front of me so i'm just going from memory but i believe that that's the thing that cabins why you can't go to other guidelines but even if i'm wrong about that for all the good the reasons i've stated this court uniform my nd answer is more colloquial and forgive me those district courts that say three thousand five hundred and eighty two you see wanting to apply are like the new couple who got the family recipe for the roast beef they said you cut off morning charm one and one each on the other and they went to their parents and they said why do we do this and the parents said because we've always done it that way ask your grandparents and so they went to the grandparents and the grandparents  because we've always done it that way esther great came grandparents and so they went to the great grandparents in the great big grandparents said because we didn't have the pan big enough to fit the roast beef all right so the answer is