[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

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No. 15-14834

Non-Argument Calendar

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D.C. Docket No. 6:09-cr-00041-DHB-GRS-2

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

JONATHAN LUTHER JONES, 

a.k.a. Black Dog,

 Defendant-Appellant.

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Georgia

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(April 7, 2017)

Before HULL, WILSON, and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges.

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PER CURIAM: 

Jonathan Luther Jones, proceeding pro se, appeals the district court’s denial 

of his motion to reduce his sentence, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2), based on 

Amendment 782 to the Sentencing Guidelines. On appeal, in a pro se brief, Jones 

argues that the district court erred by determining that Amendment 782 did not 

apply to his sentence because the court’s finding, that the guideline range was 

based upon Count 49 (the firearm offense) was factually inaccurate. He argues 

that Amendment 782 is applicable to reduce his sentence, because he was 

sentenced to a 190-month term on Count 38 (the drug offense) and to only 120 

months on Count 49. We affirm the district court’s decision. 

We review the district court’s conclusions about the scope of its legal 

authority under § 3582(c)(2) de novo. United States v. Colon, 707 F.3d 1255, 1258 

(11th Cir. 2013). 

A district court may modify a defendant’s term of imprisonment if the 

defendant was sentenced based on a sentencing range that was later lowered by the 

Sentencing Commission. 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2). A reduction, however, must be 

consistent with the Sentencing Commission’s policy statements. Id. When the 

district court considers a § 3582(c)(2) motion, it must first recalculate the guideline 

range under the amended guidelines. United States v. Bravo, 203 F.3d 778, 780 

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(11th Cir. 2000). When recalculating the guideline range, it can only substitute the 

amended guideline and must keep intact all other guideline decisions made during 

the original sentencing. Id. A defendant is not eligible for a sentence reduction 

under § 3582(c)(2) when an amendment listed in U.S.S.G. § 1B1.10(d) does not 

lower the defendant’s guideline range. U.S.S.G. § 1B1.10(a)(2)(B). A district 

court is not authorized to reduce a defendant’s sentence under § 3582(c)(2) where a 

retroactively applicable Guidelines amendment reduces his base offense level but 

does not alter the guideline range upon which his sentence was based. United 

States v. Moore, 541 F.3d 1323, 1330 (11th Cir. 2008). 

Section 5G1.2 of the Sentencing Guidelines provides that when a defendant 

is sentenced on multiple counts of conviction, “if the sentence imposed on the 

count carrying the highest statutory maximum is adequate to achieve the total 

punishment, then the sentences on all counts shall run concurrently. . .” U.S.S.G. 

§ 5G1.2(c). Amendment 782 provides a two-level reduction in the base offense 

levels for most drug quantities listed in the Drug Quantity Table in U.S.S.G. 

§ 2D1.1(c). Id. App. C, amend. 782. 

The district court did not err by denying Jones’s motion for a sentence

reduction: Amendment 782 did not lower his guideline range. Although the

presentence investigation report (“PSI”) calculated Jones’s base offense level for 

Count 38 (the drug offense) under § 2D1.1, the grouping rules in §§ 3D1.2(c) and 

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3D1.3(a) were applied and required the district court to use the higher of Jones’s 

adjusted offense levels; the higher was his adjusted offense level on Count 49 (the 

firearm offense) as the offense level for the grouped counts. Therefore, the district 

court calculated his guideline range using his base offense level not under § 2D1.1, 

but under § 2K2.1. 

Jones appears to attempt to argue that the district court had actually based 

his guideline range on Count 38 (the drug offense) because it imposed a higher 

190-month sentence on Count 38 and only a 120-month sentence on Count 49 (the 

firearm offense). Thus, he argues, his guideline range is affected by Amendment 

782. Jones’s argument is based on a misunderstanding, however. The district 

court explained in its denial of Jones’s motion for reconsideration that it had 

imposed -- as directed by § 5G1.2 -- a 190-month sentence on Count 38 (the drug 

offense) to achieve a total punishment within the 188 to 235 month guideline 

range, which the court had calculated based on Count 49: Count 38 had the higher 

statutory maximum of the two counts. U.S.S.G. § 5G1.2(c). For Count 49, the 

court imposed a lesser 120-month sentence, the statutory maximum for that 

offense, to run concurrently, also in accordance with the Guidelines. U.S.S.G. § 

5G1.2(c). 

Therefore, the court’s imposition of a higher sentence on the drug offense 

than the firearm offense was a function of the drug offense’s higher statutory 

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maximum and does not undermine that the guideline range was based on the 

firearm count. Thus, Amendment 782 did not lower Jones’s applicable guideline 

range because Amendment 782 did not change his base offense level under 

§ 2K2.1. See Moore, 541 F.3d at 1330; U.S.S.G. § 1B1.10(a)(2)(B). Accordingly, 

the district court correctly concluded that Jones was ineligible for a sentence 

reduction based on Amendment 782 and we affirm.

AFFIRMED.

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