Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-13-02978/USCOURTS-ca7-13-02978-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Kevyn Taylor
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 13-2978

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

KEVYN TAYLOR,

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Southern District of Illinois.

No. 3:08-CR-30061-JPG — J. Phil Gilbert, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED DECEMBER 17, 2014 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 11, 2015

____________________

Before WILLIAMS, SYKES, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. Kevyn Taylor filed a motion

under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) seeking a reduced sentence on 

his convictions for drug trafficking. He argued that his imprisonment range under the United States Sentencing 

Guidelines had been lowered by retroactive Amendment 750, which, among other changes, made permanent the 

reduction to the amount of marijuana deemed equivalent to 

one gram of crack cocaine for purposes of determining ofCase: 13-2978 Document: 29 Filed: 02/11/2015 Pages: 10
2 No. 13-2978

fense levels in drug cases involving more than one drug. The 

district court concluded that Taylor’s sentencing range had 

not been lowered and that the court therefore lacked subjectmatter jurisdiction over his motion. We agree with the district court that Taylor’s motion lacks merit, but we take this 

occasion to clarify that § 3582(c)(2) does not limit a district 

court’s subject-matter jurisdiction to consider a motion

brought under that statute, even a motion that the court 

would not be authorized to grant. The denial of Taylor’s motion is affirmed on the merits.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

A jury found Taylor guilty in 2009 of conspiring to distribute crack, possessing and distributing powder cocaine, 

possessing a firearm as a felon, and possessing a firearm in 

furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime. All of the offenses 

were committed in 2005 and 2006. At sentencing the district 

court found that Taylor was responsible for 837 grams of 

crack and 396 grams of powder cocaine. The court also included as relevant conduct Taylor’s responsibility for 227 

kilograms of marijuana.

Because more than one drug was involved, Taylor’s base 

offense level was calculated by converting the crack and 

powder cocaine quantities to their “marijuana equivalent.” 

See U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1 cmt. n.8(B)–(D) (2013); United States v. 

Brazelton, 557 F.3d 750, 753 (7th Cir. 2009); United States v. 

Bothun, 424 F.3d 582, 585 (7th Cir. 2005). Under the 2008 

Guidelines in effect when Taylor was sentenced, the crack 

and powder cocaine plus the 227 kilograms of marijuana 

were together equivalent to 17,046 kilograms of marijuana. 

That amount corresponded to an offense level of 36 in the 

Drug Quantity Table. See U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(c)(2) (2008).

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No. 13-2978 3

At that time, however, Application Note 10(D) to § 2D1.1

provided for a two-level reduction if a drug offense involved 

both crack cocaine and another controlled substance.

See § 2D1.1 cmt. n.10(D) (2008); United States v. Chess, 610 

F.3d 965, 968 (7th Cir. 2010). Taylor’s base offense level thus

was set at 34. Two levels were added for obstructing justice

under § 3C1.1. With Taylor’s criminal history category of I, a 

total offense level of 36 yielded an imprisonment range for 

the drug counts of 188 to 235 months. The district court sentenced Taylor to concurrent terms of 180 months for those

crimes. The court also imposed a concurrent term of 120

months for possessing a firearm as a felon, as well as a mandatory consecutive sentence of 60 months for possessing that 

gun in furtherance of a drug crime. On direct appeal we affirmed Taylor’s convictions and the total sentence of 240

months. United States v. Taylor, 637 F.3d 812 (7th Cir. 2011).

In 2013 Taylor filed the § 3582(c)(2) motion at issue in this 

appeal. He asserted that Amendment 750, which made permanent and retroactive the temporary changes in Amendment 748, had reduced his base offense level from 34 to 32.

The Sentencing Commission adopted Amendments 748 

and 750 to implement the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, Pub. 

L. No. 111-220, 124 Stat. 2372. As relevant to offenses involving more than one kind of drug, Amendment 748 reduced

the marijuana equivalent of one gram of crack cocaine from

20 kilograms to 3,571 grams. The problem for Taylor’s motion is that the same amendment also revised the commentary to § 2D1.1 by striking Application Note 10(D) and thus 

eliminating the two-level decrease he had received for multiple-drug cases involving crack cocaine. See U.S.S.G. app. 

C., amend. 748, pp. 377, 382; see also United States v. RobinCase: 13-2978 Document: 29 Filed: 02/11/2015 Pages: 10
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son, 697 F.3d 443, 444 (7th Cir. 2012) (explaining effect of 

Amendments 748 and 750).

The district court found that the imprisonment range for 

Taylor’s drug crimes had not been lowered. The court explained that Application Note 10(D) had been deleted so that

the 2012 version of § 2D1.1 no longer provided a two-level 

reduction in setting the base offense level for cases involving 

crack cocaine and another drug. Taylor’s final offense level

remained 36 even under Amendment 750. The court did not 

deny Taylor’s motion on the merits but dismissed it for lack 

of subject-matter jurisdiction, citing United States v. Lawrence, 

535 F.3d 631, 637–38 (7th Cir. 2008), and United States v. Forman, 553 F.3d 585, 588 (7th Cir. 2009), which both treat eligibility for relief under § 3582(c)(2) as an issue of subjectmatter jurisdiction.

II. Analysis

A. Subject-Matter Jurisdiction

Two separate and conflicting lines of cases have emerged

in this circuit regarding whether a district court has subjectmatter jurisdiction to decide a § 3582(c)(2) motion on the 

merits even if the court has concluded that it lacks authority 

to grant the motion.

In the line of cases cited by the district court, we have

loosely but incorrectly described as a lack of “jurisdiction” 

those situations where the statutory criteria for a sentence 

reduction under § 3582(c)(2) have not been satisfied. See 

United States v. Irons, 712 F.3d 1185, 1189 (7th Cir. 2013); 

United States v. Davis, 682 F.3d 596, 610 (7th Cir. 2012); United 

States v. Woods, 581 F.3d 531, 536 (7th Cir. 2009); United States 

v. Forman, 553 F.3d 585, 588 (7th Cir. 2009); United States v. 

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No. 13-2978 5

Poole, 550 F.3d 676, 678–79 (7th Cir. 2008); United States v. 

Lawrence, 535 F.3d 631, 638 (7th Cir. 2008); United States v. 

Smith, 438 F.3d 796, (7th Cir. 2006) (describing § 3582(c)(2) as 

“a real ‘jurisdictional’ rule rather than a case-processing requirement”).

In the other line of cases, however, we have treated the 

statutory criteria of § 3582(c)(2) as non-jurisdictional. In 

United States v. Beard, 745 F.3d 288, 291–92 (7th Cir. 2014), we 

explained that § 3582(c)(2)’s statutory criteria create a “nonjurisdictional case processing rule” that does not deny district courts subject-matter jurisdiction to evaluate and deny

repeat motions. 745 F.3d at 291. That description applies 

equally to any § 3582(c)(2) motion. And in an opinion involving a different Mr. Taylor, we said explicitly that a district court has subject-matter jurisdiction to deny a 

§ 3582(c)(2) motion even if the inmate is statutorily ineligible. United States v. Taylor, 627 F.3d 674, 675–76 (7th Cir. 

2010).

While the difference will rarely have much practical significance, we take this opportunity to resolve the conflicting 

case law and to clarify that district courts have subjectmatter jurisdiction over—that is, the power to adjudicate—a 

§ 3582(c)(2) motion even when authority to grant a motion is 

absent because the statutory criteria are not met. See generally United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 629–31 (2002) (defining subject-matter jurisdiction as the constitutional or statutory power to adjudicate a matter); United States v. Ceballos, 

302 F.3d 679, 690–92 (7th Cir. 2002) (explaining that “judges 

and legislators sometimes use the term jurisdiction to erroneously refer to a court’s authority to issue a specific type of 

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remedy, rather than to the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction”).

Our clarification here comports with Beard, 745 F.3d 

at 291–92, and Taylor, 627 F.3d at 675–76, as well as decisions 

from other circuits that distinguish between subject-matter 

jurisdiction to decide a § 3582(c)(2) motion and a defendant’s 

eligibility for relief. See United States v. Anderson, 772 F.3d 

662, 666-68 (11th Cir. 2014); United States v. Johnson, 732 F.3d 

109, 116 n.11 (2d Cir. 2013); United States v. Moore, 541 F.3d 

1323, 1326–27 (11th Cir. 2008). The D.C. Circuit has tentatively signaled its agreement. United States v. Smith, 467 F.3d 785, 

788 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (Supreme Court’s holding that time limits on post-trial motions were not jurisdictional calls into 

question a jurisdictional reading of § 3582), citing Eberhart v. 

United States, 546 U.S. 12 (2005).

Still other circuits, however, have seen the issue in jurisdictional terms. See United States v. Graham, 704 F.3d 1275, 

1279 (10th Cir. 2013) (concluding that § 3582(c)(2) motion 

should have been dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because defendant was ineligible for reduced sentence); United States v. Austin, 676 F.3d 924, 930 (9th Cir. 

2012) (stating that district court “lacked jurisdiction” to reduce sentence when statutory criteria of § 3582(c)(2) were 

not satisfied); United States v. Williams, 607 F.3d 1123, 1125–

26 (6th Cir. 2010) (citing our decision in Poole, 550 F.3d at 

678, as support for treating limits of § 3582(c)(2) as jurisdictional); United States v. Garcia, 606 F.3d 209, 212 n.5 (5th Cir. 

2010); United States v. Auman, 8 F.3d 1268, 1271 (8th Cir. 

1993).

The practical differences between our lines of cases are 

minimal. The most likely situation in which the jurisdictional 

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No. 13-2978 7

line would make a difference would be a case where a district court granted relief under § 3582(c)(2) and the government asserted on appeal an apparently winning argument it 

had not made in the district court. If the issue were truly jurisdictional, it could not be waived.

Whether a limit on a court’s power is truly jurisdictional 

is ultimately up to Congress. In a series of cases over the last 

dozen years, the Supreme Court has taken new care to distinguish between truly (i.e., non-waivable) jurisdictional 

rules and ordinary case-processing rules that may be mandatory and even strict, but which a court need not raise on its 

own. The general rule that has emerged is that “when Congress does not rank a statutory limitation on coverage as jurisdictional, courts should treat the restriction as nonjurisdictional in character.” Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 516 

(2006). Several signals persuade us that the limits on 

§ 3582(c)(2) relief are not jurisdictional.

First, § 3582 is not part of a jurisdictional portion of the 

criminal code but part of the chapter dealing generally with 

sentences of imprisonment. The section sets forth factors to 

consider when imposing a prison sentence and provides that 

a prison sentence is final and appealable. Nor is subsection 

(c) phrased in jurisdictional terms. It begins: “The court may 

not modify a term of imprisonment once it has been imposed,” with exceptions then specified. Since Congress has 

not framed the issue in terms of jurisdiction, the statutory 

indicators point against jurisdictional treatment.

We also have a cue from the Supreme Court, which has 

not addressed this precise question but has decided the 

reach of § 3582(c)(2) without referring to the statute’s limits 

as jurisdictional. In Freeman v. United States, 131 S. Ct. 2685 

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(2011), the Court considered whether § 3582(c)(2) was available to a defendant who had entered a binding plea agreement under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(C). 

All of the Justices—whether or not they joined the Court’s 

judgment—addressed the issue in terms of whether Freeman

was statutorily eligible for a sentence reduction, not whether 

the district court had subject-matter jurisdiction to decide his 

motion. See Freeman, 131 S. Ct. at 2692–93 (plurality opinion); id. at 2697–98 (Sotomayor, J., concurring); id. at 2701

(Roberts, C.J., dissenting). Freeman was decided after the Supreme Court’s recent stream of cases that try to be more 

careful about which rules are truly jurisdictional. E.g., Gonzalez v. Thaler, 132 S. Ct. 641, 648-49 (2012); Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. 

Muchnick, 559 U.S. 154, 160–62 (2010); Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp., 

546 U.S. 500 (2006); Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U.S. 443, 455 (2004). 

Accordingly, we do not view the silence about jurisdiction in 

Freeman as merely a “drive-by” jurisdictional ruling entitled 

to little or no weight. Cf. Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Environment, 523 U.S. 83, 91 (1998).

We conclude that the better view is stated in Beard and 

Taylor and that a district court has subject-matter jurisdiction 

to consider a motion for relief under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) 

regardless of whether the moving defendant is actually eligible for such discretionary relief.1

1 Because this opinion overrules several circuit precedents that have 

treated the scope of § 3582(c)(2) as affecting district courts’ subject-matter 

jurisdiction, we have circulated this opinion to the court under Circuit 

Rule 40(e). No judge favored hearing this case en banc.

 

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No. 13-2978 9

B. The Merits

The district court had subject-matter jurisdiction, but that 

does not help Taylor. The problem is that the net effect of 

Amendment 750 on Taylor’s guideline range was zero. 

While the amendment lowered the marijuana equivalent for 

crack, it also removed the application note directing a twolevel decrease from the offense level listed in the preamendment Drug Quantity Table when crack and other 

drugs were present in the same case. Taylor cannot prevail 

by relying on only the portion of Amendment 750 that helps 

him and ignoring the portion that offsets the same adjustment so that there is no net effect on his guideline range. 

Section 3582(c)(2) applies to 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” retroactively.

The “sentencing range” that must have been changed to 

permit relief under § 3582(c)(2) is not the base offense level 

or any other intermediate step in the guideline calculation, 

but the bottom-line, final range that was the basis for the 

sentence. Relief is not available if a retroactive amendment 

“does not have the effect of lowering the defendant’s applicable guideline range.” U.S.S.G. § 1B1.10(a)(2)(B); United 

States v. Taylor, 627 F.3d at 676 (relief not available under 

§ 3582(c)(2) where retroactive amendment reduced final offense level by one level but guideline imprisonment range 

remained 360 months to life); see also United States v. Robinson, 697 F.3d at 444 (relief not available under § 3582(c)(2) 

where final guideline range had been based on statutory 

mandatory minimum not affected by retroactive guideline 

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amendment). Taylor was not eligible for a sentence reduction because the sentencing range of 188 to 235 months for 

his drug crimes was not changed by Amendments 748 and 

750.

We conclude by noting that Taylor may be eligible for a 

future sentencing reduction based on retroactive Amendment 782 to the Guidelines, which has reduced by 2 levels 

the base offense levels assigned to drug quantities in § 2D1.1. 

See U.S.S.G. Supp. app. C., amend. 782, p. 71 (2014). After 

applying this amendment, his imprisonment range for his 

drug convictions would be 151 to 188 months. See id.

§ 2D1.1(c)(4). But for Taylor to benefit from this amendment, 

he would need to file a new motion under § 3582(c)(2) in the 

district court based on Amendment 782. See United States v. 

Hayden, No. 14-1812, 2014 WL 7375538, at *3 (7th Cir. Dec. 

30, 2014). If he is in fact eligible for relief, the district court 

would need to exercise its discretion under 18 U.S.C. 

§§ 3553(a) and 3582(c)(2).

We modify the judgment of the district court to deny 

Taylor’s motion for relief on its merits, and as modified that 

judgment is AFFIRMED.

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