Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-09-07702/USCOURTS-ca4-09-07702-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Marcel Barnes
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 09-7702

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

MARCEL BARNES, a/k/a Larry Kevin Brown,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of Virginia, at Norfolk. Rebecca Beach Smith, District 

Judge. (2:94-cr-00052-RBS-3)

Submitted: June 9, 2010 Decided: July 19, 2010

Before WILKINSON, NIEMEYER, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Marcel Barnes, Appellant Pro Se. Laura Marie Everhart, 

Assistant United States Attorney, Norfolk, Virginia, for 

Appellee. 

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Marcel Barnes appeals the district court’s order 

denying his 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) (2006) motion for reduction 

of sentence. We affirm. 

Under § 3582(c)(2), the district court may reduce the 

term of imprisonment “of a defendant who has been sentenced 

. . . based on a sentencing range that has subsequently been 

lowered . . . if such a reduction is consistent with applicable 

policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission.” 18 

U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2); see also U.S. Sentencing Commission Manual

§ 1B1.10, p.s. (2009). Further, “[a] reduction in the 

defendant’s term of imprisonment is not consistent with this 

policy statement and therefore is not authorized under . . . 

§ 3582(c)(2) if . . . an amendment listed in subsection (c) does 

not have the effect of lowering the defendant’s applicable 

guideline range.” USSG § 1B1.10(a)(2)(B), p.s. 

A defendant may obtain relief under § 3582(c)(2) only 

if an amendment to the sentencing guidelines has lowered the 

defendant’s advisory guidelines range. Barnes was therefore not 

entitled to relief under § 3582(c)(2) based on his claims that 

his criminal history points were incorrectly tallied and that 

his sentence violated the rules of Gall v. United States, 552 

U.S. 38 (2007), United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), 

Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), and other cases.

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Barnes maintained that under Amendment 709 of the 

Guidelines, a misdemeanor conviction for assault on a female, 

for which he received one criminal history point, would now not 

be counted, placing him in a lower criminal history category. 

Amendment 709, which addressed in part whether and when certain 

misdemeanor and petty offenses are included in the criminal 

history score, does not apply retroactively. See USSG 

§ 1B1.10(c), p.s. Therefore, Barnes was not entitled to a 

reduction based on Amendment 709. 

We accordingly affirm. We dispense with oral argument 

because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented 

in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the 

decisional process.

AFFIRMED

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