Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-09-03124/USCOURTS-caDC-09-03124-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
James Dunn
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 16, 2010 Decided February 15, 2011 

No. 09-3124 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

APPELLEE

v. 

JAMES DUNN, 

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:91-cr-00243) 

Mary Manning Petras, Assistant Federal Public 

Defender, argued the cause for appellant. With her on the 

briefs was A. J. Kramer, Federal Public Defender. 

Kristina L. Ament, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the 

cause for appellee. On the brief were Ronald C. Machen Jr., 

U.S. Attorney, and Roy W. McLeese III, T. Anthony Quinn, 

and Ann K.H. Simon, Assistant U.S. Attorneys. Mary B. 

McCord, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an appearance. 

Before: ROGERS, BROWN and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges. 

USCA Case #09-3124 Document #1293242 Filed: 02/15/2011 Page 1 of 6
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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH. 

GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: Appellant James Dunn is 

serving consecutive prison sentences for possession of crack 

cocaine and murder. After a retroactive change in the federal 

Sentencing Guidelines, the district court reduced his drug 

sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2), but concluded that it 

lacked authority to make that sentence concurrent rather than 

consecutive with his murder sentence. We affirm the district 

court’s judgment. 

I 

In 1989, James Dunn was arrested and charged with 

second-degree felony murder under the laws of the District of 

Columbia. While released pending trial in the D.C. Superior 

Court, Dunn was arrested and charged with a federal crime 

for possessing 95 grams of crack cocaine. In August 1991, he 

pled guilty to the D.C. murder charge. Several weeks later, he 

pled guilty to the federal drug charge. On November 6, 1991, 

the federal district court sentenced Dunn to 121 months in 

prison and five years supervised release for the drug offense, 

at the low end of the 121 to 151 months recommended by the 

Sentencing Guidelines. Two days later, the Superior Court 

sentenced Dunn to a consecutive prison term of 15 years to 

life for second-degree murder. 

In November 2007, the U.S. Sentencing Commission 

amended the Sentencing Guidelines to lower the penalties for 

crack-cocaine possession. See U.S.S.G. Supp. App. C, Amdt. 

706 (effective Nov. 1, 2007). The new sentencing range for 

Dunn’s drug offense was 97 to 121 months. Soon thereafter, 

the Commission made this reduction retroactive. See id., 

Amdt. 713 (effective Mar. 3, 2008). 

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Congress has provided a means for prisoners to benefit 

from such retroactive changes in the Guidelines. “[I]n the case 

of a defendant who has been sentenced to a term of 

imprisonment based on a sentencing range that has 

subsequently been lowered by the Sentencing 

Commission . . . the court may reduce the term of 

imprisonment . . . .” 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2). In March 2008, 

Dunn filed a pro se motion to reduce his sentence under this 

statute. In August 2009, he filed an amended motion through 

counsel with the additional request that his drug sentence be 

made concurrent with, instead of consecutive to, his murder 

sentence. 

In November 2009, the district court reduced Dunn’s 

cocaine sentence to the statutory minimum of 120 months, see 

21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A)(iii) (2006), but concluded that it 

lacked authority to change the consecutive nature of his 

sentences. United States v. Dunn, 668 F. Supp. 2d 220, 222 

(D.D.C. 2009). Dunn now appeals the latter holding. We 

review the district court’s legal conclusions de novo, 

exercising appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 

18 U.S.C. § 3742(a)(1).1

 

 

1

 Although the district court may have erred by reducing the length 

of Dunn’s completed prison term after he had served all 121 

months in prison for his drug offense, see United States v. Gamble, 

572 F.3d 472, 473-74 (8th Cir. 2009), the government agreed to the 

reduction and has not pressed the issue on appeal. The 

government’s litigation strategy does not relieve us of the 

obligation to assure ourselves of the district court’s jurisdiction, 

especially under a statute whose limitations we have described as 

having a “somewhat jurisdictional flavor.” United States v. Smith, 

467 F.3d 785, 789 (D.C. Cir. 2006). We are satisfied that the 

district court had jurisdiction here because § 3582(c)(2) “creates a 

class of cases that the district court is empowered to act upon—

cases where a defendant has been sentenced to a term of 

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II 

Dunn argues that a court granting a reduction under 

§ 3582(c)(2) has authority under 18 U.S.C. § 3584(a) to make 

the reduced sentence concurrent with the prisoner’s other 

sentences. Section 3584(a) states: “[I]f a term of 

imprisonment is imposed on a defendant who is already 

subject to an undischarged term of imprisonment, the terms 

may run concurrently or consecutively. . . .” According to 

Dunn, a § 3582(c)(2) proceeding “imposes” a new sentence 

and thereby triggers the court’s discretion under § 3584(a) to 

make the reduced sentence concurrent rather than 

consecutive. 

Dunn’s argument is foreclosed by the Supreme Court’s 

recent decision in Dillon v. United States, 130 S. Ct. 2683 

(2010), which made clear that a court’s authority in a 

sentence-reduction proceeding is strictly limited to shortening 

the length of a prison term and does not extend to collateral 

matters unrelated to the Guidelines change. Dillon was a 

prisoner serving a sentence subject to the same retroactive 

Guidelines modification that applied to Dunn. When Dillon 

moved to reduce his prison term pursuant to § 3582(c)(2), he 

also asked the court to grant him a variance below the new 

sentencing range and to correct various mistakes in his 

original sentence. Id. at 2687. The Court held that these 

matters fell outside the ambit of § 3582(c)(2), explaining that 

the statute’s “text, together with its narrow scope, shows that 

 

imprisonment and the guideline range has subsequently been 

lowered by the Commission.” United States v. Lawrence, 535 F.3d 

631, 638 (7th Cir. 2008). This case falls squarely within that 

jurisdictional grant. Thus, “the court had the ability to issue a 

binding decree on the defendant[]; it just (arguably) erred in 

applying the proper remedy.” Id. 

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Congress intended to authorize only a limited adjustment to 

an otherwise final sentence and not a plenary resentencing 

proceeding.” Id. at 2691. Because the requested variance and 

the alleged sentencing errors “were not affected by the 

[Guidelines amendment], they [were] outside the scope of the 

proceeding authorized by § 3582(c)(2), and the District Court 

properly declined to address them.” Id. at 2694. 

Dunn seeks to avoid the force of Dillon by seizing upon 

the Supreme Court’s use of the word “impose” in connection 

with a sentence reduction. See id. at 2691-92 (“Only if the 

sentencing court originally imposed a term of imprisonment 

below the Guidelines range does § 1B1.10 authorize a court 

proceeding under § 3582(c)(2) to impose a term ‘comparably’ 

below the amended range.”). As Dunn acknowledges, Dillon

also stated that “a district court proceeding under § 3582(c)(2) 

does not impose a new sentence in the usual sense.” Id. at 

2691. But he reads this to mean that “while a § 3582 

proceeding is not the same as an initial sentencing, the end 

result is that a sentence is imposed.” Appellant Reply Br. 10. 

Dunn contends that because his sentence reduction involved 

the “impos[ition]” of a new sentence, the district court had 

authority under § 3584(a) to make the sentence “run 

concurrently or consecutively” with his other sentence. 

We need not parse the Supreme Court’s passing use of 

the word “impose” because the Court clearly stated that the 

sole remedy permitted under § 3582(c)(2) is “a sentence 

reduction within the narrow bounds established by the 

Commission.” Dillon, 130 S. Ct. at 2694. In the present case, 

the Commission modified the sentencing range for Dunn’s 

drug crime, which had nothing to do with the concurrent or 

consecutive status of his sentence. For this reason, Dunn’s 

effort to link § 3582(c)(2) with § 3584(a) must fail. 

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Dillon accords with our precedent, which has interpreted 

§ 3582(c)(2) to provide “a circumscribed opportunity for 

district courts to give sentencing relief when the Sentencing 

Guidelines are changed.” United States v. Lafayette, 585 F.3d 

435, 438 (D.C. Cir. 2009). This “circumscribed opportunity” 

is an “exception to the usual finality of sentencing decisions 

[and] is triggered only by a Guidelines amendment.” Id. It 

does not include changes to “features of earlier sentencing 

decisions” not affected by the change in the Sentencing 

Guidelines. Id. This is so because “it would be quite 

incongruous, to say the least, if section 3582(c)(2) provided 

an avenue for sentencing adjustments wholly unrelated to 

such an amendment.” Id. Indeed, if § 3582(c)(2) permitted 

sentencing adjustments unrelated to Guidelines modifications, 

“every retroactive Guidelines amendment would carry a 

significant collateral windfall to all affected prisoners, 

reopening every aspect of their original sentences.” Id. 

The district court properly concluded that it had no 

authority to grant Dunn the windfall he sought in this case. 

 

III 

For the foregoing reasons, the district court’s judgment is 

Affirmed.

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