UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN 

SOUTHERN DIVISION 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Case Number 14-20250 

 Plaintiff, 

-vs- Hon. ROBERT H. CLELAND 

YOUSIF AL-HASSAN, 

 Defendant. 

________________________________/ 

GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSE TO DEFENDANT’S MOTION 

TO REDUCE SENTENCE UNDER 18 U.S.C. §3582(c)(1)(A) 

I. Background 

 Yousif Al-Hassan and Ali Abdallah committed a series of armed 

robberies at local gas stations in Detroit, Michigan. On January 18, 

2014, Defendant Al-Hassan trained an assault rifle on an employee and 

threatened to shoot customers who were patronizing a Citgo. Al-Hassan 

stormed the service counter and stole cigarettes and cash. The duo 

struck again on February 5, 2014. Al-Hassan and Abdallah entered the 

Obama gas station. Al-Hassan brandished a firearm and ordered the 

clerk to give him access to the cash register. The clerk complied out of 

fear for his life. Al-Hassan stole money, cigarettes, and lottery tickets. 

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As a result of his conduct, Al-Hassan was charged and later convicted 

on two counts of interference with commerce by robbery, a violation of 

Title 18, United States Code, Section 1951, and two counts brandishing 

a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, a violation of 

Title 18, United States Code, Section 924(c)(1)(A). (Plea Agreement, 

ECF No. 28). At the time Al-Hassan was sentenced, he faced a 

mandatory minimum sentence of 7 years for his first 924(c) conviction 

and a mandatory consecutive sentence of 25 years for his second 924(c) 

conviction. Although his sentencing guideline range was 417-425 

months (Id., Page ID 93), Al-Hassan received a variance and he was 

sentenced to 222 months in federal prison. (Judgment of Sentence, ECF 

No. 34). 

 On February 22, 2021, Al-Hassan filed a motion to reduce his 

sentence. There, he essentially complains that the Fair Sentencing Act 

should be retroactive. (Defendant’s Motion, ECF. 52). Al-Hassan 

believes the legislative change, his youth, and rehabilitative efforts 

qualify as extraordinary and compelling reasons to grant his motion 

under Title 18, United States Code, Section 3582(c)(1)(A). For the 

reasons that follow, this request must be denied. 

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II. Al-Hassan has not shown an extraordinary 

and compelling reason for compassionate release. 

Compassionate release would be improper because Al-Hassan has 

not satisfied the statutory requirement of showing that “extraordinary 

and compelling reasons” warrant a sentence reduction. That statutory 

requirement means that a defendant’s reasons for release must satisfy 

two strict criteria. 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i). The defendant’s reasons 

must be “extraordinary”—meaning exceptional or uncommon. United 

States v. Shah, No. 16-20457, 2020 WL 1934930, at *2 (E.D. Mich. Apr. 

22, 2020); United States v. Sapp, No. 14-CR-20520, 2020 WL 515935, at 

*3 (E.D. Mich. Jan. 31, 2020). The reasons must also be “compelling”—

meaning “so great that irreparable harm or injustice would result if the 

relief is not granted.” Sapp, 2020 WL 515935, at *3. A defendant must 

establish both criteria to satisfy the statute’s eligibility threshold. AlHassan has satisfied neither. 

The First Step Act’s non-retroactive changes to § 924(c)’s stacking 

requirements do not qualify as “extraordinary and compelling reasons” 

for release. Congress expressly opted not to make those changes 

retroactive to defendants, like Al-Hassan, who had already been 

sentenced when the First Step Act was enacted. First Step Act § 403(b)

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(Dec. 21, 2018); United States v. Richardson, 948 F.3d 733, 748 (6th Cir. 

2020). 

When amending § 924(c) in § 403 of the First Step Act, Congress 

could have authorized district courts to consider sentence reductions for 

defendants sentenced under prior versions of § 924(c). For example, in 

§ 404 of the First Step Act, Congress authorized full retroactive 

applications of sections 2 and 3 of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010. 

However, Congress declined to extend the benefit of the § 924(c) 

penalties to previously sentenced defendants. First Step Act, § 403, 132 

Stat. at 5222 (“This section, and the amendments made by this section, 

shall apply to any offense that was committed before the date of 

enactment of this Act, if a sentence for the offense has not been imposed 

as of such date of enactment.”). Congress did not use the procedural 

amendment of § 3582(c)(1)(A) as a mechanism to modify § 924(c) 

penalties on an ad hoc basis. Nor did Congress use that amendment to 

indirectly alter the sentencing scheme, affording individual judges a 

parole-like power that Congress specifically acted in 1984 to abolish, or 

a clemency function that the Constitution affords exclusively to the 

President. Thus, Al-Hassan cannot use the compassionate-release 

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statute to re-litigate the fairness of his final sentence. See United 

States v. Dotz, 455 F.3d 644, 648 (6th Cir. 2006) (“[I]n the sentencing 

context, there is simply no such thing as a ‘motion to reconsider’ an 

otherwise final sentence.”). Allowing defendants to do so would 

undermine the finality of sentences, a concept “essential to the 

operation of our criminal justice system.” Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 

309 (1989) (explaining that, “[w]ithout finality, the criminal law is 

deprived of much of its deterrent effect.”). 

In addition to the case law cited above,the Sixth Circuit just 

issued United States v. Tomes, Case No. 20-6056 (6th Cir. March 9, 

2021) (published) (Westlaw citation pending), affirming a district court’s 

denial of a defendant’s motion for compassionate release. The defendant 

in Tomes pointed to the First Step Act and argued that “he should 

receive compassionate release because if he were sentenced today for 

the same crime, he would not have gotten the sentence he did.” Id. at 7. 

Al-Hassan basically makes the same argument by attacking the “gross 

disparity created by the legislative changes which mitigated the 

harshness in the sentencing scheme to which I was exposed.” (See ECF 

No. 52, Page ID 301). 

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In Tomes, the Sixth Circuit applied the non-retroactivity clause in 

§ 401(c) covering “prior drug felonies”—which is identical to the nonretroactivity clause in § 403(b) that covers § 924(c) offenses. See First 

Step Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-391, §§ 401(c) and 403(b), 132 Stat. 

5221. The defendant’s sentence in Tomes had “been imposed as of the 

Act’s enactment, making § 401 inapplicable.” Tomes at 7 (citing United 

States v. Wiseman, 932 F.3d 411, 417 (6th Cir. 2019)). The same timing 

applied for Al-Hassan’s sentence and § 403. See id. (citing United States 

v. Richardson, 948 F.3d 733, 748 (6th Cir. 2018) (“Congress has, in 

essence, drawn a line in the sand. Defendants sentenced after 

December 21, 2018, may benefit from Congress’s amendment to 

§ 924(c), but defendants sentenced before that date, [like Al-Hassan], 

cannot.”)). The Court refused to “render § 401(c) useless by using § 

3582(c)(1)(A) as an end run around Congress’s careful effort to limit the 

retroactivity of the First Step Act’s reforms.” Id. at 7. Al-Hassan cannot 

skirt the identical provision in § 403(b). Section “3582(c)(1)(A) [i]s not 

an appropriate vehicle for [a defendant] to attack his sentence.” Id. 

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III. Conclusion 

For the reasons set forth above, Al-Hassan’s motion for a 

reduction in sentence must be denied. 

 Respectfully Submitted, 

 SAIMA S. MOHSIN 

 Acting United States Attorney 

 s/Jeanine Brunson 

Jeanine Brunson 

 Assistant US Attorney 

 211 W. Fort Street, Suite 2001 

 Detroit, Michigan 48226 

 (313) 226-9597 

Date: March 16, 2021 jeanine.brunson@usdoj.gov 

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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE 

I certify that on March 16, 2021, I electronically filed the foregoing 

document with the Clerk of the Court for the Eastern District of 

Michigan using the ECF system, which will send notification of the 

filing to all ECF users of record. 

I further certify that the pro se litigant in this case cannot be 

served by the Court’s ECF system and would traditionally be served by 

mail. Travel restrictions imposed by the partial closure of our office due 

to the Covid-19 pandemic have limited the access of USAO personnel to 

printers and postage and the frequency of trips to a post office. As such, 

by March 23, 2021 at the latest, the government will mail this response 

to: 

Yousif Al-Hassan 

Reg. No. 49862-039 

FCI Gilmer 

P.O. Box 6000 

Glenville, WV 26351 

s/Jeanine Brunson 

Jeanine Brunson 

 Assistant US Attorney 

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