United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted August 30, 2022*

Decided September 8, 2022 

Before

DIANE S. SYKES, Chief Judge

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge

No. 21-2643 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

WALTER G. SANDERS, JR., 

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Southern District of Illinois.

No. 09–CR–40069–JPG

J. Phil Gilbert, 

Judge. 

O R D E R

Walter Sanders appeals the denial of his motion for a sentence reduction under 

the First Step Act. He argues that the district court procedurally erred by failing to

calculate his new guideline range. Because Sanders received the statutory minimum 

prison term, however, any error was harmless; we thus affirm.

* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and 

record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not 

significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. APP. P. 32.1
No. 21-2643 Page 2 

As relevant to this appeal, Sanders pleaded guilty in 2010 to distributing crack 

cocaine, for which he faced a statutory minimum sentence of 240 months in prison. 

See 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A) (2010). In sentencing Sanders, the judge calculated a 

guideline range of 292 to 365 months based on an offense level of 37 and a criminal 

history category of IV. The government and the probation office had proposed a 

criminal history category of VI, yielding a guideline range of 360 months to life. The 

judge rejected that designation because it “overrepresented” Sanders’ criminal 

background. He sentenced Sanders to 300 months in prison.

Four years later, in 2014, the judge granted the parties’ agreed motion to reduce 

Sanders’ sentence based on an amendment to the Guidelines. He adopted the parties’ 

calculation of Sanders’ amended guideline range based on a new offense level of 35 

and, as the judge originally determined, a criminal history category of IV. The agreedupon range was 235 to 292 months in prison. The judge then reduced Sanders’ sentence

to the statutory minimum of 240 months. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A) (2014). (Because 

the statutory minimum was 240 months in prison, it determined the lowest possible 

sentence, see United States v. Gibbs, 578 F.3d 694, 695 (7th Cir. 2009), and according to the 

Sentencing Table, U.S.S.G. Ch. 5, Pt. A, the top of the range was 293, not 292, months.) 

In 2019, Sanders moved to reduce his sentence further under Section 404(b) of the 

First Step Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-391, § 404(b), 132 Stat. 5194 (2018). This section

retroactively applied the lower penalties enacted in the Fair Sentencing Act, Pub. L. No. 

111–220, 124 Stat. 2372 (2010), to defendants who, like Sanders, committed covered 

offenses before August 2010. The government opposed the request. It attached a 

worksheet from the probation office stating that the statutory minimum remained 240 

months, the offense level had decreased to 33, and the criminal history category should 

be VI (not IV, as the parties proposed and the court applied in 2014). These criteria 

yielded a proposed guideline range of 240 to 293 months. 

The judge denied the motion. He noted that Sanders was eligible for relief

because the Fair Sentencing Act modified the penalties for his statute of conviction, 

21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A). See United States v. Shaw, 957 F.3d 734, 739 (7th Cir. 2020). But 

the judge reasoned that the sentencing factors under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) weighed 

against a second sentence reduction. Specifically, the judge noted, Sanders had

purchased large quantities of cocaine with a coconspirator, he was known as the 

“biggest crack cocaine dealer” in his area, and his statutory minimum had not changed. 

Before applying these sentencing factors, the judge did not refer to or adopt the 
No. 21-2643 Page 3 

government’s proposed guideline range of 240 to 293 months. The judge instead 

referred to his 2014 order granting the parties’ joint motion to reduce Sanders’ sentence. 

On appeal Sanders argues that the judge improperly denied his motion. 

Although the parties agree that the offense level is now 33, Sanders contends that the 

court procedurally erred by not specifying his criminal history category or the guideline 

range that it relied upon. The reference to the 2014 order is of no help, he insists, 

because the offense level in that order no longer applies to him. 

We review questions about proper sentencing procedures de novo. United States 

v. Fowowe, 1 F.4th 522, 526 (7th Cir. 2021). A judge’s discretionary determination 

whether to grant a motion under Section 404(b) must be informed by a calculation of the 

advisory sentencing range. United States v. Corner, 967 F.3d 662, 665–66 (7th Cir. 2020) 

(citing Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007)) (analogizing procedural requirements 

on First Step Act motion to requirements at sentencing, such as calculation of guideline 

range). But any errors in calculating the advisory guideline range are subject to 

harmless error analysis. United States v. Shelton, 905 F.3d 1026, 1031 (7th Cir. 2018). 

We see no reversible error. We will assume that, under Corner, the judge wrongly 

did not compute Sanders’ guideline range, but any error is harmless. In 2014, Sanders 

agreed to a criminal history category of IV, so he is bound to that concession. 

See United States v. Robinson, 964 F.3d 632, 639–40 (7th Cir. 2020) (explaining that 

agreement to drug quantity removed issue from the case). That category combined with 

the uncontested, new offense level of 33 yields an advisory range of 188 to 235 months. 

See U.S.S.G. Ch. 5, Pt. A (sentencing table). But the statutory minimum prison term that 

the government identified in the district court, and that Sanders did not contest, was

240 months. Sanders therefore gave the judge no reason or authority to sentence him to 

below 240 months; likewise, any lower guideline range could not have benefited him.

See U.S.S.G. § 5G1.1(b) (“Where a statutorily required minimum sentence is greater 

than the maximum of the applicable guideline range, the statutorily required minimum 

sentence shall be the guideline sentence.”)

We conclude with an observation about recent caselaw. In 2020, we decided that 

the Illinois conviction that the district judge relied on to enhance Sanders’s statutory 

minimum to 240 months no longer counts as a predicate “felony drug offense” for a 

sentencing enhancement under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C). United States v. Ruth, 966 F.3d 

642, 650 (7th Cir. 2020); see also United States v. McSwain, 25 F.4th 533, 539 (7th Cir. 

2022). Had Sanders raised this development with the judge when presenting his motion 
No. 21-2643 Page 4 

under Section 404(b) of the First Step Act, the judge could have considered whether 

Ruth lowered his statutory minimum prison term below 240 months, potentially 

providing him with more sentencing relief. See Concepcion v. United States, 142 S. Ct. 

2389, 2404 (2022); United States v. Fowowe, 1 F.4th 522, 531–32 (7th Cir. 2021). If Sanders 

now brings a different motion for sentencing relief and raises this issue under Ruth, we 

leave it to the district judge to decide whether (a) the issue warrants recruitment of 

counsel and (b) if the limitation in Section 404(c) of the First Step Act, which may 

preclude a court from considering a new motion under the Section 404(b) of the Act if a 

previous motion was denied, applies to the new motion that Sanders brings. But, to 

repeat, on the current record no reversible error occurred.

AFFIRMED