United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted October 25, 2022*

Decided November 16, 2022 

Before

DIANE S. SYKES, Chief Judge

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge

No. 22-1542 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

TIMOTHY FREDRICKSON, 

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Central District of Illinois. 

No. 17-40032 

Michael M. Mihm, 

Judge. 

O R D E R

Timothy Fredrickson, a federal inmate, seeks compassionate release under 

18 U.S.C. § 3582(c). The Bureau of Prisons declined to move for his release, and the 

district judge denied Fredrickson’s own motion, which contended (among other things) 

that his sentence is invalid and that the Bureau should have moved for his release. We 

affirm. Fredrickson cannot argue that alleged errors at sentencing constitute an 

* 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION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. 22-1542 Page 2 

extraordinary and compelling reason for release, and we cannot review the Bureau’s 

decision not to bring a motion. 

Fredrickson solicited and received sexually explicit videos from a 16-year-old 

whom he met online. A jury convicted him in 2020 of sexual exploitation of a minor, 

see 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a), (e), and the district judge sentenced him to 200 months’ (about 

17 years) imprisonment. We affirmed on direct appeal. See United States v. Fredrickson, 

996 F.3d 821, 822 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 386 (2021). 

Less than two years after being sentenced, Fredrickson asked the Bureau of 

Prisons to file a compassionate-release motion on his behalf. He requested relief for 

several reasons, including health concerns, but he revives only one of those reasons on 

appeal: He argued that his 200-month prison term for sexually exploiting a minor was 

unjust because his victim was above the age of consent and his conduct was nonviolent. 

The Bureau denied the request, saying that his health and other concerns were not 

“extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant[ing]” a reduced sentence. 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3582(c)(1)(A)(i). Fredrickson appealed administratively. He asserted that the Bureau 

ignored his argument that U.S.S.G. § 1B1.13 cmt. n.1(D) allows the Bureau to bring a 

motion for “other reasons,” which, he insisted, included the unjust sentence that he 

believed he faced. The Bureau denied his appeal, repeating that he had not identified an 

extraordinary and compelling reason.

Fredrickson next moved for compassionate release in district court. As relevant 

here, he maintained that alleged sentencing errors constituted an extraordinary and 

compelling reasons for a reduced sentence. First, he argued that he received an 

unconstitutional “trial penalty” when, after he rejected a plea deal involving a 10-year 

statutory maximum, he was prosecuted and convicted under a statute with a 15-year 

mandatory minimum. Second, he repeated that the length of his sentence was unjust 

because his conduct did not involve physical violence and his victim could have legally

consented to sexual conduct. He also asked the judge to review what he thought was

the Bureau’s arbitrary and capricious failure to consider his argument that the Bureau 

should have moved for his release for “other reasons” under § 1B1.13 cmt. n.1(D). 

The district judge denied the motion, concluding that Fredrickson had not shown 

any extraordinary and compelling reason for release. The judge explained that 

Fredrickson had not received an impermissible penalty just because he went to trial and 

received a higher sentence than if he had pleaded guilty; plus, the judge continued, the

supposed unfairness of a sentence is not an extraordinary and compelling ground for 

compassionate release. See United States v. Thacker, 4 F.4th 569, 574 (7th Cir. 2021), cert. 
No. 22-1542 Page 3 

denied, 142 S. Ct. 1363 (2022). Fredrickson sought reconsideration, stating that the judge 

ignored his argument that the Bureau wrongly failed to move for compassionate release 

based on an unjust sentence. The judge denied the motion, concluding this was a new 

argument that Fredrickson had not adequately developed earlier. 

On appeal, Fredrickson repeats his argument that he showed extraordinary and 

compelling reasons for release because, he says, his sentence reflects an unconstitutional

penalty and is unjust. He admits that Thacker and its progeny block inmates from 

arguing that alleged sentencing errors are extraordinary and compelling reasons for 

compassionate release. But, he says, Thacker is not binding because, in his view, it 

invalidly “overrule[d]” United States v. Black, 999 F.3d 1071, 1075 (7th Cir. 2021), without 

an en banc hearing; the panel in Thacker merely circulated the opinion to this court’s 

judges, see CIR. R. 40(e), and this, he contends, was procedurally insufficient.

Frederickson’s argument for ignoring Thacker is frivolous. Thacker did not 

purport to overrule Black—nor did it do so. Rather, Thacker clarified the difference 

between threshold eligibility for a reduced sentence (having an extraordinary and 

compelling reason for release) and what a district judge can consider once an inmate 

has cleared that threshold. See 4 F.4th at 575–76. And even if Thacker had sought to 

overrule Black—which, again, it did not—the Thacker panel followed proper procedure. 

It circulated the proposed opinion to the full court, and no member in active service 

favored rehearing the case en banc. See id. at 576; CIR. R. 40(e). The text of Rule 40(e) 

refutes Fredrickson’s contention that an en banc hearing, rather than circulation, was 

necessary for overruling circuit precedent.

Fredrickson alternatively argues that Thacker does not apply because it concerned

nonretroactive sentencing amendments while his case is about the constitutionality of 

his sentence. The difference is immaterial. As we have emphasized in cases since 

Thacker, an inmate cannot use a compassionate-release motion to argue that any kind of 

error in sentencing is an extraordinary and compelling reason for release under 

18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i). See United States v. Brock, 39 F.4th 462, 464–65 (7th Cir. 2022);

United States v. Martin, 21 F.4th 944, 946 (7th Cir. 2021) (citing Thacker, 4 F.4th at 574–75). 

Next, Fredrickson—in his untimely reply brief1—contends that Concepcion v. 

United States, 142 S. Ct. 2389 (2022), undermines Thacker. Concepcion held that a district 

1 We previously extended the deadline for Fredrickson to file his reply until 

October 3, 2022. He dated his reply October 10. So, even applying the prison-mailbox 
No. 22-1542 Page 4 

judge may consider intervening factual or legal changes when resentencing a defendant 

under the First Step Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-391, § 404(b), 132 Stat. 5194, 5222 

(2018). 124 S. Ct. at 2396. As part of its reasoning, the Court said that only Congress or 

the Constitution can “limit[] the scope of information that a district court may consider 

in deciding whether, and to what extent, to modify a sentence.” Id. Fredrickson argues 

that nothing in the text in § 3582(c) bars a judge from considering a sentencing error as 

an extraordinary and compelling reason for early release, and thus, he continues, 

Thacker wrongly cabined judges’ discretion by preventing judges from considering 

those errors.

Our circuit’s compassionate-release framework squares with Concepcion. That 

framework proceeds in two steps: (1) does the inmate have an “extraordinary and 

compelling” reason justifying a sentence reduction, and (2) do the factors from 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3553(a) justify a reduction? Thacker, 4 F.4th at 576; see also United States v. Kurzynowski, 

17 F.4th 756, 759 (7th Cir. 2021). At the second step, a district judge has “broad 

discretion to consider all relevant information,” Concepcion, 124 S. Ct. at 2398,

potentially including the issues Fredrickson raises. See United States v. King, 40 F.4th 594, 

596 (7th Cir. 2022). The only limits at this step, as Concepcion said, come from the 

Constitution or Congress. 124 S. Ct. at 2396. But a judge has this discretion only if an 

inmate is eligible for a modified sentence, and that is what step one concerns. The 

Supreme Court has not said judges have a similar wide-ranging discretion when 

deciding if an inmate is eligible for a modified sentence. King, 40 F.4th at 596 (citing 

Terry v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 1858 (2021)). Rather, to be eligible, an inmate must 

supply a reason that is “extraordinary and compelling,” and supposed legal errors are 

neither; indeed, they are routine enough to have their own procedures for addressing 

them: direct appeals and collateral attacks. See id. at 595; Thacker, 4 F.4th at 574. 

Finally, Fredrickson argues that we should review the Bureau of Prisons’ 

decision not to move for his release. The Bureau, he says, failed to exercise its authority

to move to reduce his sentence under a policy statement in the Guidelines that allows 

the Bureau to bring a motion based on “other reasons.” See U.S.S.G. § 1B1.13 cmt. 

n.1(D). He insists that this failure was “arbitrary and capricious,” in violation of the 

Administrative Procedure Act. 

rule, see FED. R. APP. P. 25(a)(2)(A)(iii), the reply is untimely. We interpret his late-filed 

brief as a motion to file it instanter, and we grant that motion.
No. 22-1542 Page 5 

Fredrickson is not entitled to judicial review of the Bureau’s decision. Review of

an agency’s action under the Administrative Procedure Act is possible only if statutes

or regulations contain “judicially manageable standards ... for judging how and when 

an agency should exercise its discretion.” Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 830 (1985); 

Peterson v. Barr, 965 F.3d 549, 552 (7th Cir. 2020). But no authority controls the Bureau’s 

discretion to decide not to bring a motion for compassionate release. The authority that 

empowers the Bureau to bring such a motion, 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), simply says that 

the Bureau can bring a motion. And the applicable regulations merely set forth the 

procedure the Bureau uses to process an inmate’s request and file a motion; they do not 

suggest substantive criteria for deciding whether to bring one. See 28 C.F.R. §§ 571.60–

.64. Likewise, the policy statement that Fredrickson cites merely allows for the Bureau 

to bring motions for “other reasons” “[a]s determined by the Director of the Bureau of 

Prisons.” U.S.S.G. § 1B1.13 cmt. n.1(D). But it does not suggest the allowable reasons. 

Thus, because the decision of the Bureau not to file a compassionate-release motion on 

Fredrickson’s behalf is committed to the Bureau’s full discretion, the Administrative 

Procedure Act does not authorize review of that decision. See 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2). 

AFFIRMED