Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-15-03063/USCOURTS-caDC-15-03063-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
James Antonio Jones
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 21, 2016 Decided January 24, 2017 

No. 15-3063 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

APPELLEE

v. 

JAMES ANTONIO JONES, ALSO KNOWN AS TONIO, 

APPELLANT

Consolidated with 15-3064 

Appeals from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:89-cr-00162-4) 

(No. 1:89-cr-00162-2) 

Tony Axam Jr., Assistant Federal Public Defender, argued 

the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs was A.J. 

Kramer, Federal Public Defender. 

Nicholas P. Coleman, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the 

cause for appellee. With him on the briefs were Elizabeth 

Trosman, Chrisellen R. Kolb, William B. Wiegand, and John 

Dominguez, Assistant U.S. Attorneys. 

USCA Case #15-3063 Document #1657024 Filed: 01/24/2017 Page 1 of 12
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Before: KAVANAUGH and WILKINS, Circuit Judges, and 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

WILLIAMS. 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge: Appellants Melvin 

Butler and James Antonio Jones are each serving lengthy 

prison sentences for drug offenses. Based on a recent 

retroactive amendment to the United States Sentencing 

Guidelines, they sought reductions of those sentences under 

18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2). Although the district court agreed 

that it could reduce their sentences, it declined to do so after 

considering the relevant factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). 

United States v. Butler, 130 F. Supp. 3d 317 (D.D.C. 2015). 

Appellants challenge those denials as substantively 

unreasonable. Before reaching the merits, we must consider 

our statutory basis to hear these appeals and whether that 

authority extends to reviewing the reasonableness of the 

district court’s decisions. Since we find that 28 U.S.C. § 1291 

permits such review, we consider the underlying denials and, 

finding them to be reasonable, we affirm. 

* * * 

Section 3582 of Title 18 sets out the statutory background 

for the district court proceedings that we review. While it 

starts with the general proposition that a court may not modify 

a term of imprisonment “once it has been imposed,” it goes on 

to create exceptions, notably § 3582(c)(2). Where a defendant 

has been sentenced to a term “based on a sentencing range 

that has subsequently been lowered by the Sentencing 

Commission . . . , the court may reduce the term of 

imprisonment, after considering the factors set forth in section 

3553(a) . . . if such a reduction is consistent with applicable 

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policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission.” Id. 

§ 3582(c)(2); see U.S.S.G. § 1B1.10(a) (policy statement on 

reductions); see also Dillon v. United States, 560 U.S. 817, 

826-27 (2010) (further explaining the framework). 

Along with several others, appellants were convicted in 

1989 of conspiracy to distribute large amounts of cocaine. 

After post-trial motions and appeals (the details of which are 

not relevant here), the district court determined that, based on 

the quantity of drugs and various enhancements, the thenmandatory Sentencing Guidelines provided a range of 324 to 

405 months for both Butler and Jones. The district court then 

imposed sentences at or near the top of that range—405 

months for Butler and 393 months for Jones. According to 

the Bureau of Prisons, Butler is scheduled to be released on 

October 14, 2017 and Jones on February 23, 2018. 

Roughly twenty years later, the Sentencing Commission 

adopted amendments that authorized retroactive reduction of 

the sentences for most drug offenses. Unlike prior 

amendments that targeted specific substances, Amendment 

782 worked an across-the-board reduction in the offense 

levels for most drug crimes. And in Amendment 788 the 

Commission provided for courts to apply the reduction 

retroactively after determining that offense levels had 

previously been set unnecessarily high and “that a reduction 

would be an appropriate step toward alleviating the 

overcapacity of the federal prisons.” U.S.S.G. Supp. to App’x 

C, Amend. 788 at 86. But the Commission built a one-year 

delay into its retroactivity amendment (until November 1, 

2015), “to give courts adequate time to obtain and review the 

information necessary to make an individualized 

determination . . . of whether a sentence reduction is 

appropriate” based on the § 3553(a) factors. Id. at 87; see also 

U.S.S.G. § 1B1.10(e)(1). 

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Appellants filed unopposed motions invoking 

Amendment 782 to reduce their sentences to time served as of 

November 1, 2015. The district court agreed that appellants 

were each eligible for a reduction under Amendment 782, 

which reduced their sentencing ranges to 262 to 327 months. 

Butler, 130 F. Supp. 3d at 321. (Although by that point 

appellants had each served more than 327 months, the terms 

of Amendment 788 limited their maximum benefit to release 

on its November 1, 2015 start date.) Despite appellants’ 

eligibility for reductions, the district court considered 

defendants’ motions in light of the § 3553(a) factors and held 

that any reductions were unwarranted. See id. Accordingly it 

denied the sentence-reduction motions. We address this 

reasoning in detail when we reach the merits. 

* * * 

Until now we haven’t seriously considered our authority 

to review § 3582(c)(2) sentence reductions, or denials of such 

reductions, either pursuant to our broad authority to review 

any final order of the district courts, 28 U.S.C. § 1291, or the 

more specific power in 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a)(1), which we 

have read as allowing us “to review any sentence for 

reasonableness,” United States v. Dorcely, 454 F.3d 366, 373-

74 & n.4 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (relying on United States v. Booker, 

543 U.S. 220 (2005)). Our prior decisions either silently 

assumed jurisdiction, e.g., United States v. Lafayette, 585 F.3d 

435 (D.C. Cir. 2009), or merely stated without analysis that it 

existed, e.g., United States v. Kennedy, 722 F.3d 439, 442 

(D.C. Cir. 2013) (jurisdiction under § 1291); United States v. 

Cook, 594 F.3d 883, 885 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (jurisdiction under 

both § 1291 and § 3742). Of course, those cursory and 

unexamined statements of jurisdiction “have no precedential 

effect.” Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 

91 (1998); see Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 352 n.2 (1996). 

But as the Sixth Circuit has found in United States v. Bowers, 

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615 F.3d 715 (6th Cir. 2010), that it could not hear a nearly 

identical appeal under either 28 U.S.C. § 1291 or 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3742, we thought it necessary to grapple with the issue more 

explicitly and ordered supplemental briefing. 

Denials of sentence reductions are unquestionably “final 

decisions of [a] district court[]” because they close the 

criminal cases once again. 28 U.S.C. § 1291; see Midland 

Asphalt Corp. v. United States, 489 U.S. 794, 798 (1989) 

(decision is final when it leaves nothing further to be done). 

So § 1291 obviously looks promising. But a would-be 

appellant cannot use that broad grant of jurisdiction to 

circumvent statutory restrictions on sentencing appeals in 

§ 3742. In re Sealed Case, 449 F.3d 118, 121 (D.C. Cir. 

2006). Thus the presence of § 3742 might pose an obstacle if 

an appeal under that section were available and if its 

provisions barred review for reasonableness, as Bowers held, 

615 F.3d at 723-28. Indeed, the government invokes our preBooker decision in United States v. Hazel, 928 F.2d 420, 422-

25 (D.C. Cir. 1991), which read § 3742 to bar such review. 

Section 3742(a) allows a defendant to appeal on ground of 

“violation of law,” “incorrect application of the sentencing 

guidelines,” or any upward departure from the Guideline 

range, and Hazel read those specifics to have a negative 

implication, precluding appeals claiming only 

unreasonableness. We look at the situation first in light of our 

circuit law, which in fact now allows review for 

reasonableness in § 3742 appeals. This completely moots the 

theory that use of § 1291 would undercut § 3742’s limitations. 

We will then briefly consider the situation independent of the 

“undercutting” theory. 

While Hazel would be binding in the absence of Booker, 

that case radically changed the landscape by eliminating the 

Guidelines’ mandatory character. With a sentencing judge’s 

departure from a specified “range” no longer subject to the 

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special requirements of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b)(1), any negative 

implications from the specific provisions of § 3742(a) or (b) 

made little sense, and Booker tidied the situation up by 

declaring that the Sentencing Reform Act “implicitly” 

provided for review for reasonableness. 543 U.S. at 260-62. 

See also Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 341 (2007) (“The 

federal courts of appeals review federal sentences and set 

aside those they find ‘unreasonable.’”). Congruent with if not 

absolutely compelled by Booker, we have made it clear that 

§ 3742 allows us to review “any sentence” for reasonableness, 

“whether within the Guidelines range or not.” Dorcely, 454 

F.3d at 374 (emphasis added); see also United States v. 

Olivares, 473 F.3d 1224, 1231 (D.C. Cir. 2006). Thus § 3742 

presents no problem for review under § 1291. 

Of course the proposition that an appellant can’t avoid 

restrictions under a path of review designed for his case by 

proceeding along a more general avenue of review 

presupposes that the path avoided was actually available. In 

fact we have serious doubt as to whether a statute specifically 

directed at appeals of sentences (§ 3742) also extends to those 

challenging the denial of a § 3582(c)(2) reduction. Section 

3742 provides for appeals “of an otherwise final sentence.” 

But “a district court proceeding under § 3582(c)(2) does not 

impose a new sentence in the usual sense.” Dillon, 560 U.S. at 

827. Indeed, reasoning that an order modifying a sentence “is 

not, properly speaking, a sentence,” at least one circuit has 

held that § 3742 is inapplicable to any appeal from a sentencereduction decision, thus leaving free rein for § 1291. United 

States v. McAndrews, 12 F.3d 273, 277 (1st Cir. 1993) (Rule 

35(b) reduction). But see, e.g., United States v. McDowell, 

117 F.3d 974, 977 & n.3 (7th Cir. 1997) (reasoning that a 

granted reduction results in a new, modified sentence and so 

falls within § 3742). Particularly since here the district court’s 

denials of appellants’ sentence-reduction motions resulted 

only in final orders—not new sentences by any definition—it 

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appears that at least the most obvious reading of § 3742 

renders it inapplicable. Cf. United States v. Washington, 759 

F.3d 1175, 1180 (10th Cir. 2014) (finding jurisdiction under 

§ 1291 albeit based on different reasons); United States v. 

Colson, 573 F.3d 915, 916 (9th Cir. 2009) (reaching the same 

conclusion but providing little in the way of reasoning). 

In any event, the availability of appeal under § 3742 need 

not detain us, given the absence of any obstacle to review for 

reasonableness under § 1291. 

* * * 

Thus we reach the merits, and start with a review of the 

evidence on which the appellants were convicted. The two 

were key members of a drug ring that brought massive 

amounts of Colombian cocaine into the District over the 

course of the 1980s. Led by Rayful Edmond III, the group 

sold the bulk of that cocaine in an open-air drug market in 

Northeast D.C. known as “the Strip.” See United States v. 

Edmond, 52 F.3d 1080, 1084-86 (D.C. Cir. 1995). Because 

Butler supplied the organization with the Colombian cocaine 

that fueled its growth, he occupied a position at the very top of 

the organization (essentially equal to Edmond himself). Once 

the drugs arrived in the District, Jones (along with a few 

others) managed their distribution—overseeing day-to-day 

drug dealing on the Strip and supervising the “lieutenants” 

(who supplied street-level dealers and collected the proceeds 

of their sales). As one of the gang’s “enforcers,” Jones 

“use[d] force . . . to keep rival drug distributors from” dealing 

in their territory and “to ensure that no one interfered with the 

daily operation . . . on the ‘Strip.’” Pre-Sentence Report ¶ 33 

(Feb. 13, 1990). After a lengthy jury trial, eleven members of 

the gang (including Butler and Jones) were convicted of 

conspiracy to distribute cocaine. The trial judge calculated a 

range of 324 to 405 months under the Guidelines and 

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sentenced Butler at the very top and Jones just below (393 

months). (It is unclear why Jones’s sentence was lower.) As 

we noted at the start, the reduced range applicable under 

Amendment 782 was 262 to 327 months. 

In considering the appellants’ motions for relief under 

§ 3852(c)(2), the district court, as directed by that section, 

looked to the “factors set forth in section 3553(a)” of Title 18. 

See Butler, 130 F. Supp. 3d at 321-26. These require 

consideration of both the particular defendant and the public 

interest. Specifically, the district court must consider “the 

nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and 

characteristics of the defendant,” as well as “the need for the 

sentence imposed to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to 

promote respect for the law, [] to provide just 

punishment . . . [and] adequate deterrence to criminal conduct, 

[and] to protect the public from further crimes of the 

defendant.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1)-(2). Section 3553(a) also 

requires the district court to consider the “sentencing range” 

established by the Guidelines, “the need to avoid unwarranted 

sentencing disparities,” and, where relevant, “the need to 

provide restitution to any victims of the offense.” Id.

§ 3553(a)(4), (6), (7). 

The district court attached great weight to the fact that 

“[e]ach defendant was a key player in one of the largest drug 

conspiracies in the history of this city.” Butler, 130 F. Supp. 

3d at 321-22 (citing § 3553(a)(1)-(2)(A)). It stressed the 

consequences of their activities—how the Edmond gang 

“enabled drug use and addiction on a scale that up until that 

point was unprecedented and largely unimaginable in this 

city” and caused harm “across our city [that] is immeasurable 

and in many cases irreversible.” Id. at 322. Although 

acknowledging that appellants each had a “model disciplinary 

record” and had availed themselves of mentoring and 

educational opportunities while in prison, the court concluded 

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that such factors “do not outweigh the other, more 

commanding considerations,” presumably the serious nature 

of their crimes. Id. at 323-24. Based on those findings, the 

district court denied the sentence-reduction motions, giving no 

relief. 

Appellants claim that the denials of their sentencereduction motions were substantively unreasonable for three 

reasons. First, they argue that because the newly-amended 

Guidelines already accounted for the nature and seriousness of 

their offenses (through the weight of the drugs involved and 

the various role-related enhancements imposed), the district 

court couldn’t double-count those factors in denying their 

requested reductions. Particularly since the initial sentencing 

court concluded that these crimes fitted within the Guidelines 

(rather than requiring upward departures), appellants argue 

that it is unreasonable for the district court to now find that the 

same crimes are too serious for sentences within Amendment 

782’s newly-reduced range. 

Indeed one might reasonably think that the district court’s 

role under such a downshift in the Guidelines range would be 

simply to pick the spot in the new range corresponding to the 

spot chosen in the old one. But even apart from 

§ 3582(c)(2)’s direction to newly apply the § 3553(a) factors, 

Amendment 788 clearly ruled out any such automatic shift by 

making November 1, 2015 the earliest date for a release 

accelerated by Amendment 782, in order to allow district 

courts to make “individualized determination[s] . . . of 

whether [] sentence reduction[s] [are] appropriate.” U.S.S.G. 

Supp. to App’x C, Amend. 788 at 87. Section 3582(c)(2)’s 

directive to consider the § 3553(a) factors is in any event 

enough, and explains why we and other circuits have never 

adopted the view that a district court contemplating such a 

reduction motion is either required to apply the simple 

“downshift” notion or even to offer any special reasons 

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refusing to do so—so long as the court properly applies 

§ 3553(a). See Lafayette, 585 F.3d at 439; see also United 

States v. Jones, 836 F.3d 896, 899 (8th Cir. 2016); United 

States v. Dunn, 728 F.3d 1151, 1159-60 (9th Cir. 2013); 

United States v. Osborn, 679 F.3d 1193, 1196 (10th Cir. 

2012). Just as in an ordinary initial sentencing, the Guidelines 

provide the “starting point and the initial benchmark” but are 

“not the only consideration.” Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 

38, 49 (2007). 

Here the court considered the § 3553(a) factors at length 

(including the nature and seriousness of the offenses) and 

decided that nothing less than the original sentences would be 

enough. See Butler, 130 F. Supp. 3d at 321-324. In contrast 

to run-of-the-mill drug gangs, Edmond’s “organization 

regularly procured and distributed hundreds of kilos of 

cocaine and cocaine base” and “enabled drug use and 

addiction on a scale that up until that point was unprecedented 

and largely unimaginable in this city.” Id. at 322. Based on 

the appellants’ critical roles in that “unprecedented” drug ring, 

the court found that these crimes required stiffer sentences 

than the amended guidelines provided and justified the risk of 

potential disparities. Id. at 322-24. While we (or another 

district court) might have reached a different conclusion were 

the decisions ours to make, we cannot say that the court acted 

unreasonably. See Gall, 552 U.S. at 51; see also United States 

v. Gardellini, 545 F.3d 1089, 1093 (D.C. Cir. 2008). 

Second, appellants argue that the district court ignored 

the Sentencing Commission’s own findings that middle-aged 

offenders who served lengthy sentences (as appellants have) 

pose little risk of recidivism and that the sentence reductions 

enabled by Amendment 782 would not increase the risk of 

recidivism. See Appellants’ Br. at 25-26 (citing United States 

Sentencing Commission, Recidivism Among Offenders 

Receiving Retroactive Sentence Reductions: The 2007 Crack 

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Cocaine Amendment (May 2014) and United States 

Sentencing Commission, Measuring Recidivism: The 

Criminal History Computation of the Federal Sentencing 

Guidelines (May 2004)). As appellants would have it, those 

studies in combination show there should be little concern 

over their recidivism. But statistics can only speak to the 

likely results for the average offender, whereas under 

§ 3553(a) the district court must “consider every convicted 

person as an individual and every case as a unique study in the 

human failings that sometimes mitigate, sometimes magnify, 

the crime and the punishment to ensue.” Koon v. United 

States, 518 U.S. 81, 113 (1996). Although appellants are now 

in their fifties, the district court concluded that they pose a 

significant threat to the community because they “were 

critical to the design and execution of a dominant, enduring, 

and citywide drug operation” and accordingly “possess the 

skills, knowledge, and proven resolve necessary to procure 

and distribute illegal drugs on a massive scale.” Butler, 130 

F. Supp. 3d at 323. Again, we can’t say that the district 

court’s concerns were so baseless as to constitute reversible 

error. 

Finally, appellants argue that the district court ran afoul 

of Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660 (1983), by resting its 

denials of their reductions in part on their failure to make 

financial restitution to the victims of their drug gang. Of 

course, it would be highly questionable if the district court 

kept appellants in jail solely because they genuinely couldn’t 

afford to pay restitution—and possibly unconstitutional. See 

United States v. Burgum, 633 F.3d 810, 815 (9th Cir. 2011) 

(“[T]he Constitution prohibits imposition of a longer prison 

term based on the defendant’s poverty . . . .”); United States v. 

Plate, 839 F.3d 950, 956 (11th Cir. 2016). But appellants’ 

argument completely mischaracterizes what the district court 

did here. It made no reference whatever to financial 

repayments but instead considered the “immeasurable and in 

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many cases irreversible” harm done to the community at 

large. Butler, 130 F. Supp. 3d at 322. Although the court 

made a linguistic misstep by framing its discussion of the 

harms that appellants’ activities inflicted on the local 

population, wrongs concededly uncorrected, as a failure to 

provide restitution, id. at 322-23, it is plain from the context 

that it meant only to stress the magnitude of those harms, 

clearly part of the “seriousness of the offense” mentioned by 

§ 3553(a). Just as in United States v. Rangel, 697 F.3d 795, 

804 (9th Cir. 2012), the district court here used an inapt label 

for its consideration of victim impact, and here as there it is no 

reason for reversal.

* * * 

Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is 

 Affirmed. 

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