NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION

File Name: 16a0654n.06

Case No. 16-1338

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

CARLOS VANCE WATTS, 

Defendant-Appellant.

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ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED 

STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR 

THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF 

MICHIGAN

BEFORE: GIBBONS, SUTTON, and WHITE, Circuit Judges.

SUTTON, Circuit Judge. Carlos Watts pleaded guilty to drug and firearms charges and 

was sentenced to 156 months’ imprisonment under the terms of a binding plea agreement. The 

Sentencing Commission later retroactively amended and reduced the guidelines range applicable 

to his drug conviction. Watts moved for a sentence reduction in light of that amendment. The 

district court denied his motion on the ground that it lacked the authority to reduce a sentence 

based on a binding plea agreement rather than the guidelines. Because the 156-month sentence 

in Watts’s plea agreement is not expressly based on the guidelines, we agree and affirm.

18 U.S.C. § 3582(c) authorizes district courts to reduce sentences “based on a sentencing 

range that has subsequently been lowered by the Sentencing Commission.” But a sentence 

imposed under a mandatory plea agreement, see Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(c)(1)(C), may be reduced in 

light of a guidelines amendment “only when that guideline range is explicitly referenced in a plea 

agreement.” United States v. McNeese, 819 F.3d 922, 927 (6th Cir. 2016) (emphasis in original)
Case No. 16-1338

United States v. Watts

2

(quotation omitted). That rule derives from Justice Sotomayor’s controlling concurrence in 

Freeman v. United States, which held that sentences in Rule 11(c)(1)(C) agreements are 

generally “based on” the agreements themselves rather than the guidelines, except where an 

agreement “expressly uses a Guidelines sentencing range . . . to establish the term of 

imprisonment.” 564 U.S. 522, 534 (2011) (Sotomayor, J., concurring); see McNeese, 819 F.3d at 

927.

This plea agreement does not explicitly refer to any guidelines range, and Watts is thus 

ineligible for a sentence reduction under § 3582(c). The agreement, in relevant part, explains 

that the parties “agree to a sentence of 156 months’ imprisonment . . . [after] independent

evaluation of the time, risks, and potential outcomes associated with a trial. Both parties have 

also independently concluded, after referencing the United States Sentencing Guidelines and 

potential litigation associated with their application, that the agreed-upon term of imprisonment 

is substantively reasonable.” R. 47 at 7. The agreement does not provide, as the Freeman 

agreement did, that Watts was to be sentenced within any particular guidelines range. See 

Freeman, 564 U.S. at 542. Nor does it otherwise use a particular guidelines range as “the basis 

for the specified term” of imprisonment. McNeese, 819 F.3d at 927; see Freeman 564 U.S. at 

539. It says instead that a 156-month sentence was agreed to after the parties “independently 

concluded” that not just the guidelines, but the costs and risks of trial as well, made this an 

equitable sentence. That means that the sentence is explicitly based on “a whole range of 

considerations,” R. 85 at 3, and does not “expressly use[]” any particular guidelines range. 

Freeman, 564 U.S. at 539.

Confirming the point is the reality that the parties never agreed on what the proper 

guidelines range was. The presentence report calculated a guidelines range of 248–295 months. 
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United States v. Watts

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At the sentencing hearing, where the district court heard argument on the guidelines in order to 

assess the reasonableness of the agreement, Watts objected to three of the enhancements in the 

presentence report’s calculation. The government argued that two of those three enhancements, 

for leadership in a conspiracy and obstruction of justice, were appropriate. The district court 

sustained Watts’s objections to two of the three enhancements and eventually settled on a range 

of 190–222 months before accepting that the agreement’s 156-month sentence was reasonable. 

The parties cannot have agreed to a guidelines range they did not agree on, which means this 

Rule 11(c)(1)(C) agreement cannot be “based on” the guidelines.

Watts responds that he is eligible for a reduction under Freeman because the agreement 

“repeatedly referenced the sentencing guidelines.” Appellant’s Br. 23. But general references to 

the guidelines, which clarify that the parties and the court independently considered them, is not 

the same as expressly using a particular “Guidelines sentencing range” to determine the 

sentence. Freeman, 564 U.S. at 539 (emphasis added). The agreement’s references to the 

guidelines show that the parties had not agreed on a guidelines range because they contemplated 

an eventual dispute over the proper range at the sentencing hearing. There was no guideline 

calculation worksheet attached to the agreement, as there was when we allowed a sentence 

reduction in United States v. Smith, 658 F.3d 608, 613 (6th Cir. 2011). The agreement did not 

cap the possible sentence at the top of a particular guidelines range or specify an “Agreed 

Guideline Range,” as in United States v. Garrett, 758 F.3d 749, 751 (6th Cir. 2014). And Watts 

received a specific term of imprisonment far below even the revised guidelines range. That 

means his sentence is no more “based on” the guidelines than any sentence imposed under a Rule 

11(c)(1)(C) agreement that does not depend on the guidelines themselves. Rather, his sentence is 

“based on” the agreement itself. Watts is therefore ineligible for relief under § 3582(c).
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United States v. Watts

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For these reasons, we affirm.