In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 19-2092 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

HECTOR URIARTE, 

Defendant-Appellee.

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. 

No. 1:09-cr-00332-3 — Joan B. Gottschall, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED MAY 13, 2020 — DECIDED SEPTEMBER 15, 2020

 A disagreement between the panel assigned in this case and the panel 

assigned in United States v. Bethany, 19-1754, on the interpretation of the 

First Step Act was submitted to the entire court pursuant to Circuit Rule 

40(e). The members of the court in regular active service determined that 

en banc consideration was appropriate. The en banc court, including a 

senior circuit judge assigned to the panels in both cases, then determined 

that, because the arguments were ably set forth in the parties’ briefs and 

arguments before the panels, additional oral argument before the en 

banc court would be an inefficient use of judicial resources. Accordingly, 

the case was taken under advisement by the en banc court on the briefs 

and oral arguments submitted to the panels. 
2 No. 19-2092 

____________________ 

Before SYKES, Chief Judge, and FLAUM, EASTERBROOK,

RIPPLE, KANNE, ROVNER, WOOD, HAMILTON, BARRETT,

BRENNAN, SCUDDER, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges. 

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge. Section 403 of the First Step Act of 

2018 amended the mandatory minimum sentence for certain 

firearm offenses. Although sentencing reform is generally 

prospective, Congress specifically mandated that these 

amendments were to apply to an offense committed before 

enactment “if a sentence for the offense has not been 

imposed as of such date of enactment.” First Step Act of 

2018, Pub. L. No. 115-391, § 403(b), 132 Stat. 5194, 5222 

(codified at 18 U.S.C. § 924 note). We vacated, on unrelated 

grounds, Hector Uriarte’s initial sentence before the 

enactment of the First Step Act. United States v. Cardena, 842 

F.3d 959 (7th Cir. 2016). At resentencing, the district court 

ruled that he was entitled to be sentenced under the 

provisions of the Act. We agree with the district court and 

therefore affirm its judgment. 

I 

BACKGROUND 

Hector Uriarte was a member of a gang that conspired to 

kidnap and rob drug dealers for money and drugs. He was 

indicted for, and convicted of, several federal offenses, 

including racketeering, drug crimes, and two counts of using 

a firearm to commit a kidnapping in violation of 18 U.S.C. 

§ 924(c). A conviction for a single count of using a firearm to 

commit a crime of violence like kidnapping carries a 

mandatory minimum penalty of five years’ imprisonment. 
No. 19-2092 3

Id. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i). That mandatory minimum is elevated to 

seven years if the firearm was “brandished” during the 

course of the crime. Id. § 924(c)(1)(A)(ii). 

Before the First Step Act, a second violation of § 924(c) 

triggered a much higher 25-year mandatory minimum, even 

if the two counts were asserted in a single indictment. The First 

Step Act amended § 924(c) so that only a second § 924(c) 

violation committed after a prior conviction for the same 

offense will trigger the 25-year minimum. First Step Act 

§ 403(a); see United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319, 2324 n.1 

(2019). 

At the time of Mr. Uriarte’s sentencing in 2013, the 

district court calculated that he was subject to a mandatory 

minimum of 42 years’ imprisonment: 10 years from the 

various racketeering and drug charges, 7 years for the first 

firearm offense because the court determined that it had 

involved brandishing a weapon, and 25 years for the second 

firearm offense. The court sentenced Mr. Uriarte to 50 years 

in prison, a sentence above the mandatory minimum but 

well below the Guidelines recommendation. 

Along with several codefendants, Mr. Uriarte appealed 

his convictions and sentence. Cardena, 842 F.3d 959. Among 

other arguments, we reviewed a challenge to his sentence 

based on the Supreme Court’s decision in Alleyne v. United 

States, 570 U.S. 99 (2013). Alleyne held that brandishing is an 

element of the § 924(c) offense that must be found by a jury. 

In Mr. Uriarte’s case, the court rather than the jury had 

found the element of brandishing. Cardena, 842 F.3d at 1000–

02. We therefore vacated his sentence and remanded so that 
4 No. 19-2092 

Mr. Uriarte could be resentenced without the brandishing 

enhancement for the first firearm offense.1

 

At the time of the enactment of the First Step Act, 

Mr. Uriarte was a convicted, but unsentenced, federal 

defendant. When the time for his sentencing arrived, he 

asked the district court to apply § 403 of the Act. The court 

agreed, and over the Government’s objection, it sentenced 

him under the provisions of the First Step Act. As 

Mr. Uriarte’s second firearm offense no longer triggered a 

25-year mandatory minimum, the court sentenced him to 20 

1 Specifically, in United States v. Cardena, we concluded that, in light of 

Alleyne v. United States, 570 U.S. 99, 103 (2013), Mr. Uriarte was 

“improperly subjected to a 7-year mandatory minimum on count 8 for 

brandishing a firearm where the jury only convicted [him] of using or 

carrying a firearm.” 842 F.3d 959, 1000 (7th Cir. 2016). We explained that, 

when sentencing Mr. Uriarte, “the district court departed downward 

from life to 18 years and then imposed the consecutive 7-year and 

25-year mandatory minimums, for a total term of 50 years’ 

imprisonment. Because the mandatory minimum of 7 years went into the 

district court’s determination of [Mr. Uriarte’s] ultimate sentence[], we 

cannot say that the Alleyne error was harmless.” Id. at 1001. 

We further noted that the case was “unusual because it is not often 

that the guidelines range is only life imprisonment.” Id. Thus, in order to 

identify “a lower bracket for purposes of deciding what sentence to 

give” Mr. Uriarte, the district court “treat[ed] the mandatory minimum” 

as that “lower bracket.” Id. at 1001–02. The Government had argued in 

Cardena that the Alleyne error “‘had absolutely no effect’” on the district 

court’s calculation of Mr. Uriarte’s sentence because the sentence was 

“above the mandatory minimum.” Id. at 1001 (citation omitted). We 

rejected this argument because the district court had “in effect” used the 

mandatory minimum as the starting point in its calculation. Id. at 1001. 

We held that Mr. Uriarte was therefore “entitled to resentencing.” Id. at 

1002. 
No. 19-2092 5

years’ imprisonment based on its recalculation of the 

mandatory minimum: 10 years for the various drug and 

racketeering offenses, 5 years for the first firearm offense 

without the brandishing enhancement, and 5 years for the 

second firearm offense.2

 The Government now appeals 

Mr. Uriarte’s new sentence. 

2 The actions of both the district court and the parties reflect the 

understanding that our remand in Cardena was for a plenary 

resentencing. Our instructions in Cardena, read in light of our settled law, 

make clear that the remand was for a full, or plenary, resentencing.

As a general matter, we have distinguished three types of remand. 

United States v. Simms, 721 F.3d 850, 852 (7th Cir. 2013). The two more 

limited remands are (1) those in which “the appellate court seeks a ruling 

or advice from the trial court and[,] pending its receipt of that ruling or 

advice[,] retains jurisdiction over the appeal,” and (2) those in which “the 

appellate court returns the case to the trial court but with instructions to 

make a ruling or other determination on a specific issue or issues and do 

nothing else.” Id. (emphasis added). Cardena does not implicate either of 

these limited remands. 

In the third and “most common form of remand,” the “general 

remand[,] the appellate court returns the case to the trial court for further 

proceedings consistent with the appellate court’s decision, but 

consistency with that decision is the only limitation imposed by the 

appellate court.” Id. Moreover, we have noted that, when we disturb one 

aspect of a sentencing package, our preference is for a full resentencing: 

Because a criminal sentence is normally a package that 

includes several component parts (term of 

imprisonment, fine, restitution, special assessment, 

supervised release), when one part of the package is 

disturbed, we prefer to give the district court the 

opportunity to reconsider the sentence as a whole so as 

to “effectuate its sentencing intent.” Pepper v. United 

States, 562 U.S. 476, 507 (2011). Vacating the sentence 

(continued ... ) 
6 No. 19-2092 

( ... continued) 

and returning the case to the district court for imposition 

of a new sentence allows the district court to 

“reconfigure the sentencing plan” so as to “satisfy the 

sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).” Id. 

United States v. Mobley, 833 F.3d 797, 801 (7th Cir. 2016). 

“[I]t is possible in some cases for us to reverse and remand on certain 

issues and yet not unbundle the package.” United States v. Smith, 103 F.3d 

531, 534 (7th Cir. 1996). “In other cases,” however, “our action may likely 

undermine the entire sentencing intent of the district judge. In the latter 

cases, full resentencing is appropriate.” Id.

Both the language that we employed in our Cardena remand, and the 

nature of the error that formed the basis of Mr. Uriarte’s initial 

sentencing, point clearly to the conclusion that our remand required 

plenary resentencing. In Cardena, we stated: “We VACATE the sentence[] 

of ... Hector Uriarte on count 8 and REMAND for resentencing 

consistent with this opinion.” 842 F.3d at 1002. This broad language 

mandates a complete resentencing. See United States v. Young, 66 F.3d 

830, 836 (7th Cir. 1995) (stating that the language, “‘[w]e therefore vacate 

the district court’s sentence and remand the case for resentencing 

consistent with this opinion’” was “broad,” and that the language, we 

“‘vacate[] and the case [is] remanded for resentencing on the issue of 

obstruction of justice’” was “limited” (emphasis added)). Additionally, the 

district court had structured Mr. Uriarte’s sentence on the basis of an 

Alleyne error, and we determined that it was impossible to “unbundle” 

this error from the rest of his sentence. Cardena, 842 F.3d at 1001–02 

(noting that the district court used the mandatory minimum as the 

starting point of its calculation); see also United States v. White, 406 F.3d 

827, 832 (7th Cir. 2005) (“We recognize that in a sentencing 

determination potential enhancements are inter-connected and the 

district court’s original sentencing intent may be undermined by altering 

one portion of the calculus.”); cf. Pepper, 562 U.S. at 507) (“[A]n appellate 

court when reversing one part of a defendant’s sentence ‘may vacate the 

entire sentence.’” (quoting Greenlaw v. United States, 554 U.S. 237, 253 

(continued ... ) 
No. 19-2092 7

II 

DISCUSSION 

A. 

Mr. Uriarte’s case presents a straightforward factual 

situation and an equally straightforward legal issue for our 

resolution. 

At the time of the enactment of the First Step Act, 

Mr. Uriarte was a convicted, but unsentenced, federal 

defendant. He was awaiting sentencing. An earlier 

sentencing proceeding, conducted before the enactment of 

the First Step Act, had resulted in a sentence that we decided 

could not stand. We vacated that sentence, rendering it a 

nullity, and directed the district court to resentence 

Mr. Uriarte. See Cardena, 842 F.3d at 1000–02; Pepper v. United 

States, 562 U.S. 476, 508 (2011) (Vacatur “wipe[s] the slate 

clean.”); United States v. Barnes, 948 F.2d 325, 330 (7th Cir. 

1991) (“[T]he effect of the order to vacate was to nullify 

[Mr. Uriarte’s] sentence.”). While Mr. Uriarte was awaiting 

sentencing, Congress enacted the First Step Act.

The Act’s language is also quite simple. Congress 

amended the law so that contemporaneous § 924(c) 

convictions no longer trigger a 25-year mandatory minimum 

sentence. First Step Act of 2018, § 403(a), Pub. L. No. 115-391, 

132 Stat. 5194, 5221–5222 (Dec. 21, 2018). The cases to which 

the amendment applies are set forth in § 403(b), which states: 

( ... continued) 

(2008))). Thus, our remand in Cardena required that the district court 

conduct a plenary resentencing. 
8 No. 19-2092 

APPLICABILITY TO PENDING CASES.—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. 

When Congress drafted this language, it departed explicitly 

from the usual rule that criminal sentencing statutes are 

applicable only to crimes committed after the effective date 

of the statute. See Dorsey v. United States, 567 U.S. 260, 272–73 

(2012) (explaining the default rule that, pursuant to the 

federal saving statute, 1 U.S.C. § 109, the reduced penalties 

of a criminal statutory amendment are generally not 

applicable to offenses committed before the statute was 

enacted). 

Congress thereby ensured that all individuals awaiting 

sentencing in the United States courts on the effective date of 

the Act would be sentenced in accord with the policy 

decisions it had just made. To accomplish this goal, 

Congress made no distinction between defendants who had 

never been sentenced and those whose sentence had been 

vacated fully and who were awaiting the imposition of a 

new sentence. In this way, Congress stanched, to the degree 

that it could without overturning valid and settled 

sentences, the mortmain effect of sentencing policies that it 

considered no longer in the Nation’s best interest. It ensured, 

moreover, all persons awaiting sentencing on the effective 

date of the Act would be treated equally, a value long 

cherished in our law. Id. at 276–77. 

This interpretation is both straightforward and 

compatible with the purpose of the First Step Act. We begin 
No. 19-2092 9

with the language at issue here: “if a sentence for the offense 

has not been imposed as of such date of enactment.” 

§ 403(b). Congress writes statutes against the backdrop of 

the existing legal landscape. The Supreme Court has 

reminded us that our “elected representatives, like other 

citizens, know the law.” Cannon v. Univ. of Chi., 441 U.S. 677, 

696–97 (1979). When Congress crafted this statutory 

language, it well understood that vacating a sentence 

“wipe[s] the slate clean.” Pepper, 562 U.S. at 508; see also 

United States v. Mobley, 833 F.3d 797, 802 (7th Cir. 2016) 

(“When we vacate a sentence and order a full remand, the 

defendant has a ‘clean’ slate—that is, there is no sentence 

until the district court imposes a new one.”). We presume 

that Congress is aware of the established meaning of legal 

terms. NLRB v. Amax Coal Co., 453 U.S. 322, 329 (1981) 

(“Where Congress uses terms that have accumulated settled 

meaning under either equity or the common law, a court 

must infer, unless the statute otherwise dictates, that 

Congress means to incorporate the established meaning of 

these terms.”). 

Here, Congress has not given any indication that it 

intended to depart from settled principles. See Chambers v. 

NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 47 (1991). Therefore, we read 

§ 403(b) against the background principle that a court 

resentences “on a clean slate.” Krieger v. United States, 842 

F.3d 490, 505 (7th Cir. 2016). Nothing in the text of the 

statute suggests that Congress intended to create an 

exception to the ordinary effect of the vacatur of a sentence. 

Indeed, it is clear that the statute reflects a congressional 

intention that its policy decision apply to both pre-Act 

offenders who have never been sentenced and to pre-Act 

offenders whose sentences had been vacated before the date 
10 No. 19-2092 

of enactment, but who had not been resentenced as of that 

date. 3

Whether an unsentenced defendant falls into one group 

or the other, he lacks a sentence. The statutory language 

makes clear that, on sentencing day, both should be treated 

under the same congressional policy. 

B. 

Despite this straightforward application of the text, 

which is compatible with the statute’s manifest remedial 

purpose, it is possible, to borrow a phrase from Lewis 

Carroll, to take select words of the statute and “pay them 

extra”4 to come up with a plausible alternative reading. This 

approach introduces a significant amount of ambiguity and 

internal contradiction into the basic interpretative inquiry. 

Let us see why this alternative approach falls on its own 

sword. 

We could take the phrase “a sentence ... has not been 

imposed,” § 403(b), and read it—as the Government 

proposes—as referring to the sentence that we held null and 

3 Although Mr. Uriarte, who was sentence-less when the First Step Act 

was enacted, falls neatly within the statute’s language, the same would 

not be true for a defendant who was under a sentence at the time of 

enactment, but subsequently had his sentence vacated. Nevertheless, 

that scenario is not before us. 

4 Lewis Carroll, Through a Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There 133 

(Boston, Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 1893) (“‘When I make a word do a lot 

of work like that,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘I always pay it extra.’”). When 

applying plain-meaning methodology, one should not have to pay 

words extra.
No. 19-2092 11

void long before the enactment of the First Step Act. The first 

issue with this approach is that it would require, of course, 

that we read this statutory phrase solely through an 

historical lens and pay no attention at all to a “legal lens.” 

But, as we already have explained, Congress writes statutes 

against the background of existing law, and nothing in the 

statutory language suggests that Congress meant to abandon 

its usual course of legislating in light of existing law. 

We also could pay the words of the statute a great deal 

extra by departing completely from the text and invoking 

our own policy preferences. In United States v. Hodge, the 

Third Circuit, after deciding that the defendant had not been 

granted a full resentencing, wrote in pure dicta that 

“drawing the line at initial-sentence imposition is preferable 

to drawing the line at ultimate-sentence imposition. If we let 

all defendants awaiting resentencing capitalize on the First 

Step Act, we would favor defendants whose appeals—for 

whatever reason—took longer to resolve.” 948 F.3d 160, 164 

(3d Cir. 2020). 

Preferable? To whom? Neither the Third Circuit nor the 

Seventh Circuit has the prerogative of policy choice in this 

matter. As the Supreme Court noted in Dorsey, and as we 

noted in Pierson, any reduction of criminal penalties will 

involve difficult line drawing with respect to pending cases. 

Dorsey, 567 U.S. at 280; United States v. Pierson, 925 F.3d 913, 

927 (7th Cir. 2019), vacated on other grounds, 140 S. Ct. 1291 

(2020). Here, Congress, attempting to cure what it saw as an 

inappropriate sentencing structure, determined that its 

revision should control any situation where a district court 

still had to impose a sentence. Considering that Congress 

had determined that the earlier sentencing structure resulted 
12 No. 19-2092 

in sentences that were too long and unfair, it is difficult to 

fault Congress for ensuring that those sentences would not 

be imposed on defendants yet to be sentenced. It wanted the 

unfair practice stopped upon enactment. Period. 

Nor should we ignore the Supreme Court’s discussion in 

Dorsey that Congress generally tries to avoid “radically 

different sentences” for individuals “who each engaged in 

the same criminal conduct ... and were sentenced at the same 

time.” Dorsey, 567 U.S. at 276–77 (emphasis added). 

There is no reason to think that Congress excluded from 

its remedy pre-Act offenders facing plenary resentencing. 

Pre-Act offenders whose sentences have been vacated are 

similarly situated to individuals who have never been 

sentenced. The text of the Act is silent as to any intent of 

Congress to inflict on them the exact harsh and expensive 

mandatory minimum sentences that § 403 restricts and 

reduces. That result would be fundamentally at odds with 

the First Step Act’s ameliorative nature. When “construing a 

statute, courts ought not deprive it of the obvious meaning 

intended by Congress, nor abandon common sense.” United 

States v. Bhutani, 266 F.3d 661, 666 (7th Cir. 2001) (citation 

omitted).

If we are striving to pay the text extra, there is one more 

argument that we might tease out of the text. We could rest 

on the fact that the statute turns on the imposition of “a

sentence,” not “the sentence,” “the final sentence,” or “a 

sentence that continues to legally bind the defendant.” 

According to this argument, because “a” is an indefinite 

article, it “points to a nonspecific object, thing, or person that 
No. 19-2092 13

is not distinguished from the other members of a class.”5

Therefore, the argument goes, the phrase “a sentence” refers 

to the long-ago vacated sentence rather than the sentence to 

be imposed by the sentencing court in the future.

To make this one-letter article support the weight of a 

“plain meaning” argument, we would have to pay it much 

more than a little extra. The Government draws significance 

from the fact that, if Congress had intended § 403 to apply to 

cases which had not reached a final disposition, “it easily 

could have”6 employed language such as “the final 

sentence” or “a sentence that continues to legally bind the 

defendant.” By the same token, however, one could draw 

significance from the fact that Congress did not use the 

words “an original sentence” or “an initial sentence.” 

Congress did not qualify the terms of the statute because it 

clearly applied to all defendants awaiting a valid sentence at 

the time of its enactment. The Government’s reading places 

great weight on a single article, “a.” Yet the text of the First 

Step Act gives reason to doubt that the word “a” was 

intended to carry such import. Had Congress intended the 

phrase “a sentence” to convey a very broad meaning, it 

could have used the word “any,” as it did earlier in the same 

sentence: “This section ... shall apply to any offense ... if a 

sentence ... has not been imposed ... .” § 403(b) (emphasis 

added). 

5 BRYAN A. GARNER, GARNER’S MODERN ENGLISH USAGE 991 (4th ed. 

2016).

6 Appellee’s Br. 16. 
14 No. 19-2092 

Further, the surrounding text of the statute indicates that 

Congress intended § 403 to apply to all defendants awaiting 

sentence at the time of its enactment. Courts have “long 

refused to construe words ‘in a vacuum.’” Gundy v. United 

States, 139 S. Ct. 2116, 2126 (2019) (quoting Davis v. Michigan 

Dep’t of Treasury, 489 U.S. 803, 809 (1989)). “[R]easonable 

statutory interpretation must account for both ‘the specific 

context in which ... language is used’ and ‘the broader 

context of the statute as a whole.’” Util. Air Reg. Grp. v. EPA, 

573 U.S. 302, 321 (2014) (quoting Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 

U.S. 337, 341 (1997)). 

Section 403 is distinctive in that it contains a provision 

that specifically addresses its application to pending cases. 

Congress took great care to ensure that defendants who had 

been convicted but not sentenced would not be denied the 

benefits of § 403. Congress made crystal clear that § 403 

reaches all defendants whose sentences had not been 

imposed before enactment—even those who had been 

convicted before the Act. The text gives us no reason to 

believe that Congress excluded from this expansive reach 

certain defendants awaiting sentencing just because those 

defendants previously had received invalid sentences.

Paying extra to rely on this argument is a poor deal 

indeed.7

7 Because the plain language of the statute requires reversal of the 

district court’s judgment, we need not address the rule of lenity. 

However, if both readings render the text ambiguous, the rule of lenity 

favors the interpretation set forth in this opinion. United States v. Bass, 

404 U.S. 336, 348 (1971) (“[W]here there is ambiguity in a criminal 

statute, doubts are resolved in favor of the defendant.”).
No. 19-2092 15

Just as we could pay the words of the statute extra to 

support a meaning other than the obvious one, we could 

also enlist our own precedent and “pay it extra” by forcing 

the precedent to spread its dominion into unintended fields. 

We could say, as the Government requests, that our recent 

opinion in Pierson, 925 F.3d 913, is consistent with employing 

an exclusively historical lens to the Act’s use of the word 

“imposed.” The Government’s argument relies heavily on 

our statement in Pierson that, “[i]n common usage in federal 

sentencing, a sentence is ‘imposed’ in the district court, 

regardless of later appeals.” Id. at 927. 

To use Pierson as a weight-bearing pillar, we would have 

to pay it a great deal extra. Pierson addressed an entirely 

different question. Pierson appealed his original sentence 

and, while his appeal was pending, the First Step Act 

became effective. We held, correctly, that because Pierson 

had a sentence in place at the time of the Act’s enactment, 

the Act did not apply to him. Pierson’s situation gave us no 

cause to consider whether plenary resentencing awaited 

Pierson in the future. 

Moreover, the language from Pierson, “regardless of later 

appeals,” 925 F.3d at 927, has never been construed to apply 

to defendants whose sentences were vacated. Other cases 

that have relied upon Pierson for this principle have involved 

a defendant either directly appealing his sentence or seeking 

a reduction of a sentence that was imposed long before the 

Act’s enactment.8

 In Pierson, we held that “the Act cannot 

8 See United States v. Gonzalez, 949 F.3d 30, 42–43 (1st Cir. 2020), petition 

for cert. filed (U.S. June 22, 2020) (No. 19-8783); United States v. Aviles, 938 

F.3d 503, 510 (3d Cir. 2019) (“Congress did not refer to ‘finality,’ and 

(continued ... ) 
16 No. 19-2092 

justify a reduction” to a sentence that was imposed prior to 

the Act. United States v. Jackson, 940 F.3d 347, 353 (7th Cir. 

2019). Pierson did not address the situation here: whether the 

Act applies to a defendant who was not subject to a sentence 

when the Act became effective. 

Pierson is consistent with Congress’s intent not to reopen 

finished proceedings because of the change in the law 

effected by the First Step Act. In choosing not to write 

§ 403(b) to allow reductions to valid sentences that already 

had been imposed, Congress expressed a policy preference 

in favor of settled expectations and ease of administration. 

Nevertheless, in crafting clarifying legislation—in 

attempting to “set things right”—Congress naturally wanted 

to reach all cases where there was not already a sentence in 

( ... continued) 

imposition and finality are two different concepts.”); United States v. 

Jordan, 952 F.3d 160, 171–72 (4th Cir. 2020), petition for cert. filed (U.S. Sept. 

1, 2020); United States v. Richardson, 948 F.3d 733, 748–50 (6th Cir. 2020), 

petition for cert. filed (U.S. July 1, 2020) (No. 19-8878); United States v. 

Jackson, 940 F.3d 347, 353 (7th Cir. 2019); United States v. Sullivan, 781 F. 

App’x 553, 554 (7th Cir. 2019); United States v. Ruff, 795 F. App’x 796, 797 

(11th Cir. 2020); United States v. Gelin, 810 F. App’x 712, 726 (11th Cir. 

2020), petition for cert. filed (U.S. July 27, 2020) (No. 20-5178); United States 

v. Garcia, No. 17-13992, 2019 WL 7503482, *1 (11th Cir. July 9, 2019); 

Young v. United States, 943 F.3d 460, 462 (D.C. Cir. 2019); United States v. 

Williams, 03-CR-795, 2019 WL 3842597, at *4 n.5 (E.D.N.Y. Aug. 15, 2019);

United States v. Garcia, No. 6:05-cr-00006-1, 2019 WL 4039638, at *1 (W.D. 

Va. Aug. 27, 2019); United States v. King, No. 1:03-cr-00182, 2020 WL 

1274998, at *1–2 (S.D. Ind. Mar. 16, 2020); State v. Hinton, No. 2019-097, 

2020 WL 4380703, at *4 (Vt. July 31, 2020). United States v. Hodge, 948 F.3d 

160 (3d Cir. 2020), discussed supra at page 11, is also distinguishable 

because it involved a limited remand. 
No. 19-2092 17

place. There were no countervailing considerations 

suggesting that Congress wanted to deprive anyone without 

a set sentence of the benefit of these new, preferred 

sentencing standards. And, as we already have noted, 

Congress generally strives to avoid “radically different 

sentences” for defendants “who each engaged in the same 

criminal conduct ... and were sentenced at the same time.” 

Dorsey, 567 U.S. at 276–77. 

III 

The First Step Act is an historic, bipartisan attempt by 

Congress to take the lessons of the past and to formulate a 

new sentencing policy for the United States.9

 Although it 

elected not to reopen sentences in place on the date of 

enactment, Congress carefully crafted a provision to ensure 

that its new policy determination effectively controlled 

every sentence after that date. We may disagree with where 

and how Congress drew the line, but it was Congress’s 

prerogative to draw that line. It had a difficult task. We 

ought not make the task more difficult by ignoring the clear 

command of the legislative directive. 

9 In a parallel case pending before the Ninth Circuit, members of the 

Legislative Branch, who were the principal drafters of the First Step Act, 

submitted an amici curiae brief seeking to preserve Congress’s “intent to 

allow pre-Act offenders whose sentences are vacated to benefit from the 

Act’s ameliorative provisions at resentencing.” Brief for United States 

Senators Richard J. Durbin, Charles E. Grassley, and Cory A. Booker as 

Amici Curiae in Support of the Defendant-Appellant, 2–3, United States v. 

Mapuatuli (9th Cir.) (No. 19-10233).
18 No. 19-2092 

Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is 

affirmed. 

AFFIRMED
No. 19-2092 19 

BARRETT, Circuit Judge, with whom BRENNAN and 

SCUDDER, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting. Hector Uriarte was 

initially sentenced for firearm offenses before Congress 

passed the First Step Act, but we vacated his sentence on unrelated grounds before the Act’s effective date. United States v. 

Cardena, 842 F.3d 959 (7th Cir. 2016). Despite the district 

court’s imposition of the initial sentence, the majority concludes that “a sentence for the offense ha[d] not been imposed 

as of [the] date of enactment” in Uriarte’s case. See First Step 

Act § 403(b). I respectfully disagree. 

As the majority sees it, a sentence “has not been imposed” 

as of the date of enactment if on that date the defendant is not 

subject to a legally binding sentence. The defendant might be 

in that position because he has never been sentenced; he 

might be in that position because he is waiting to be 

resentenced. Either way, the majority says, the defendant is 

sentence-free on the date that counts—the date that the First 

Step Act passed.1 

1 Because Uriarte was not subject to a legally binding sentence on the 

date of enactment, this case does not present the question whether a postenactment vacatur would retroactively have the same effect—that is, 

whether the post-enactment nullification of a sentence would also mean 

that for legal purposes “a sentence ha[d] not been imposed” as of the date 

of enactment. Cf. United States v. Jackson, No. 15-cr-453, 2019 WL 2524786 

(N.D. Ohio June 18, 2019) (addressing that factual scenario). Under that 

broader theory, the Act would apply to all plenary resentencings after the 

Act’s effective date, regardless of the date of vacatur. It bears emphasis 

that nothing in the majority opinion—which turns entirely on the fact that 

Uriarte was not subject to a sentence on the Act’s effective date—suggests 

an answer to that question. On the contrary, the majority expressly refrains from addressing it. See Maj. Op. at 10 n.3. 
20 No. 19-2092 

I find the government’s reading of the relevant language 

far more persuasive. The government argues that “a sentence ... has not been imposed” as of the date of enactment 

when, as a matter of historical fact, no sentence has ever been 

imposed before that date. Uriarte indisputably had been sentenced before the First Step Act took effect. Our subsequent 

vacatur of his sentence does not change that fact, so, the government contends, the Act does not apply to Uriarte. 

These competing readings reflect different takes on the 

statute’s use of the present-perfect tense in the phrase “has 

not been imposed.” The present-perfect tense “denotes an act, 

state, or condition that is now completed or continues up to 

the present.” THE CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE ¶ 5.132 (17th ed. 

2017). The government reads the phrase “has not been imposed” as denoting an act that has not been completed. That 

act—sentencing—had been completed in Uriarte’s case, even 

though it was subject to repetition; so, the government says, 

the First Step Act does not apply. The majority, by contrast, 

reads the phrase as denoting a condition that does not exist 

on the date of enactment. Because that condition—being subject to a valid sentence—did not exist for Uriarte on the relevant date, the majority concludes that the Act governs his resentencing. 

The grammatical structure conceivably leaves some room 

for either reading, but only the government’s is consistent 

with the specific words used in the sentence. First and foremost, the statute draws the line on the date when a sentence 

was “imposed.” In the context of sentencing, “imposed” connotes an action by a district court, rather than the status of a 

defendant. See Young v. United States, 943 F.3d 460, 463 (D.C. 

Cir. 2019) (“[I]n ordinary usage a sentence is ‘imposed’ when 
No. 19-2092 21 

a district court pronounces it.”). That is why it is perfectly coherent to describe the procedural posture of a case by saying, 

“a sentence was imposed last year, but it has since been vacated on appeal.” The imposition of a sentence is a historical 

fact that can be disaggregated from the legal status of the sentenced person. And the statute’s use of a verb that describes 

the action of the district court puts the focus on the historical 

fact. 

Consistent with this understanding, our opinion in United 

States v. Pierson interpreted the word “imposed” to denote a 

past act, not an ongoing condition. 925 F.3d 913, 927–28 (7th 

Cir. 2019). In determining whether a sentence had been “imposed” as of the date of enactment, we did not examine 

Pierson’s legal status to determine whether he was subject to 

an ongoing sentence on that date. Nor did we consider 

whether some plenary resentencing awaited Pierson in the future. Instead, we reasoned that a sentence had been imposed 

in the past. We explained, “a sentence is ‘imposed’ in the district court, regardless of later appeals.” Id. at 927. And later 

we noted that a sentence is imposed “when the district court 

sentenced the defendant.” Id. at 928. That language treats the 

district court’s action, not the defendant’s legal status, as the 

relevant marker. The former is a historical fact; the latter is a 

condition that is subject to change as a result of “later appeals.” The Third Circuit has read both the statute and Pierson

the same way. United States v. Hodge, 948 F.3d 160, 163–64 (3d 

Cir. 2020) (asserting that “a sentence is ‘imposed’ ... ‘within 

the meaning of’ the First Step Act once ‘a sentencing order has 

been entered by a district court’” (quoting Pierson, 925 F.3d at 

927–28)); see also id. at 163 (“[W]e conclude [that] the First Step 

Act intentionally subjected any defendant who had any sentence imposed to the original § 924(c) mandatory minimum, 
22 No. 19-2092 

even if their sentence was subsequently modified.” (emphasis 

added)).2 

As further support for the government’s reading, the statute turns on the imposition of “a sentence,” not “the sentence,” 

“the final sentence,” or “a sentence that continues to legally 

bind the defendant.”3 The word “a” is an indefinite article—

that is, it “points to a nonspecific object, thing, or person that 

is not distinguished from the other members of a class.” 

BRYAN A. GARNER, GARNER’S MODERN ENGLISH USAGE 991 

(4th ed. 2016). The statute’s use of the word “sentence” in a 

nonspecific sense is inconsistent with the majority’s contention that the statute refers exclusively to an extant sentence. 

Though the majority resists the word’s ordinary meaning, the 

indefinite article “a” is broad enough to refer to any sentence 

2 In Hodge, the Third Circuit had affirmed the defendant’s sentence as 

to his § 924(c) offense, vacated it as to his territorial offenses, and remanded it to the district court for partial resentencing. 948 F.3d at 161–62. 

The defendant was still awaiting partial resentencing on the First Step 

Act’s effective date, but because he remained subject to his § 924(c) sentence, that case is at least arguably distinguishable from this one—although I later address the possibility that the scope of our vacatur and remand in Cardena left Uriarte in the same position as the defendant in 

Hodge. Nonetheless, the Third Circuit’s reasoning did not turn on that distinction. Instead, its reasoning is consistent with mine: it treated the district court’s act of imposing a sentence, not the defendant’s legal condition, 

as determinative. See also id. at 162 (“[W]e hold [that] the new § 924(c) 

mandatory minimum does not apply to defendants initially sentenced before the First Step Act’s enactment.” (emphasis added)).

3 By contrast, in the immediately preceding subsection of the First Step 

Act, Congress made the application of mandatory minimums contingent 

on a “final” conviction. First Step Act § 403(a). It could easily have imposed the same requirement on the triggering “sentence” in section 403(b). 
No. 19-2092 23 

that has been imposed for the offense, even one that was subsequently vacated. Rather than being strained, as the majority 

suggests, this nonspecific meaning is consistent with common 

usage. If asked in 2016 whether “a sentence” had been imposed on Uriarte, one could easily respond “yes, but it was 

vacated on appeal.” 

Dismissing what it perceives to be an excessive focus on 

the statute’s language, the majority grounds its reasoning in 

nontextual background principles. In particular, it asserts that 

resentencing happens on a “clean slate” after vacatur and that 

a vacated initial sentence therefore no longer carries any legal 

effect. See Krieger v. United States, 842 F.3d 490, 505 (7th Cir. 

2016). Congress, it claims, must have legislated against this 

background principle when it enacted the First Step Act. And 

finding no evidence that Congress intended to depart from 

this principle, the majority presents its interpretation as selfevident. 

There are several problems with this reasoning, and the 

first is that the majority significantly overreads what it means 

to say that the defendant will be sentenced on a “clean slate.” 

A complete vacatur wipes the slate clean insofar as the defendant will be sentenced anew. Pepper v. United States, 562 

U.S. 476, 507–08 (2011) (holding that the law of the case doctrine does not bind the district court in a de novo resentencing); United States v. Atkinson, 979 F.2d 1219, 1223 (7th Cir. 

1992) (“[T]he district court will be writing on a clean slate and 

may entertain any and all objections, even those not raised at 

the earlier sentencing.”). But a complete vacatur does not require the district court to proceed as if the initial sentencing 

never happened. In fact, the Sentencing Reform Act instructs 
24 No. 19-2092 

district courts to do the very opposite: a district court imposing a sentence on remand must apply the Sentencing Guidelines “that were in effect on the date of the previous sentencing of 

the defendant prior to the appeal.” 18 U.S.C. § 3742(g)(1) (emphasis added); see also Dorsey v. United States, 567 U.S. 260, 275 

(2012) (describing the Sentencing Reform Act as a background 

principle against which Congress legislates). The Sentencing 

Reform Act does not control this case because the disputed 

part of Uriarte’s sentence is dictated by statute rather than derived from the Guidelines. Still, the Act’s default rule for resentencing—that the Guidelines apply as they existed at the 

time of the initial sentencing—belies the majority’s claim that 

Congress legislates against a background understanding that 

a vacatur erases the initial sentence for all purposes. On the 

contrary, it’s not unusual for the date of the initial sentencing 

to control the law applicable to a resentencing—even when 

more favorable law is enacted in the interim. See United States 

v. Hughes, 733 F.3d 642, 645–47 (6th Cir. 2013) (holding the Fair 

Sentencing Act inapplicable to a defendant who was awaiting 

resentencing on the Act’s effective date). 

But even if the majority’s “clean slate” principle were 

sound, a background principle cannot overcome statutory 

text.4 The majority’s interpretation turns almost entirely on 

what it thinks Congress must have considered during the legislative process. See Walton v. United Consumers Club, Inc., 786 

4 It bears emphasis that because the traditional tools of statutory interpretation yield an answer to the statute’s meaning, the rule of lenity 

does not apply. See United States v. Shabani, 513 U.S. 10, 17 (1994) (“The 

rule of lenity ... applies only when, after consulting traditional canons of 

statutory construction, we are left with an ambiguous statute.”). 
No. 19-2092 25 

F.2d 303, 310 (7th Cir. 1986) (“Courts should confine their attention to the purposes Congress sought to achieve by the 

words it used. We interpret texts.”). It posits that Congress 

wanted to treat a vacatur as giving a defendant a fresh start 

on the law as well as on the weighing of the facts so that the 

benefit of this remedial statute would extend more broadly. 

But every statute requires a resolution of competing policy interests, and Congress “may, for all we know, have slighted 

policy concerns on one or the other side of the issue as part of 

the legislative compromise that enabled the law to be enacted.” Artuz v. Bennett, 531 U.S. 4, 10 (2000). And on the other 

side of that compromise are some benefits to Congress’s decision that the majority does not acknowledge. 

For example, the majority’s approach puts a great deal of 

weight on the precise decretal language of an appellate 

opinion. Consider a potential problem posed by the appellate 

opinion in this very case. The majority says that in Cardena, 

we vacated Uriarte’s sentence as a whole, albeit with 

instructions clarifying that the scope of the remand only 

covered the first firearm offense. See Cardena, 842 F.3d at 1002 

(explaining that Uriarte is “entitled to resentencing” because 

his entire below-guidelines sentence was anchored to the 

Alleyne error on the sentence for the first firearm offense). I 

have assumed that this reading of Cardena is correct because 

it does not affect my reasoning in this case. But the final words 

of Cardena invite another possibility—that we vacated only 

the sentence for Uriarte’s first firearm offense, leaving the 

remainder of the sentence—including the sentence for the 

second firearm offense—intact. See id. (“We VACATE the 

sentences of Tony Sparkman ... and Hector Uriarte on count 8

[the first firearm offense] and REMAND for resentencing 

consistent with this opinion.” (emphasis added)). The 
26 No. 19-2092 

practical difference between a narrow vacatur and a complete 

vacatur can be slight. See United States v. Barnes, 660 F.3d 1000, 

1006 (7th Cir. 2011) (clarifying that an opinion vacating an 

entire sentence can still limit the scope of a remand). But 

under the majority’s interpretation of section 403, the 

applicability of the First Step Act to Uriarte’s second firearm 

offense would depend entirely on which way we read 

Cardena. If we vacated his entire sentence, he was not subject 

to a sentence for any firearm offense on the date that the First 

Step Act was enacted. But if we only vacated the sentence for 

the first firearm offense, then the sentence for Uriarte’s second 

firearm offense was not “wiped clean,” and he remained 

subject to it on the date of enactment. Cf. Hodge, 948 F.3d at 

163 & n.4 (holding the First Step Act inapplicable when a 

limited vacatur left the federal firearm offense intact). It takes 

the majority a three-page footnote to parse whether the 

remand in Uriarte’s case was limited or plenary. Drawing the 

line at the date of the initial sentencing, by contrast, makes it 

much easier to determine whether the Act applies to a given 

defendant. I am not persuaded by the majority’s assumption 

that Congress must have subordinated this administrability 

advantage to the policy advantages that the majority invokes 

in support of its interpretation. 

After all, the superiority of one policy advantage over another is not self-evident—instead, it lies in the eye of the beholder. The majority champions its interpretation as the most 

equitable one because it ensures that “all persons awaiting 

sentencing on the effective date of the Act would be treated 

equally, a value long cherished in our law.” Maj. Op. at 8. But 

the majority’s interpretation produces its own problematic 

disparities, as illustrated by this very case. 
No. 19-2092 27 

Uriarte had a codefendant, Tony Sparkman. See United 

States v. Sparkman, No. 17-3318, 2020 WL 

5247575, --- F.3d --- (7th Cir. 2020). They were convicted for 

the same offenses, both were sentenced before the First Step 

Act passed, and both sentences were vacated in the same consolidated opinion. But Uriarte pushed his resentencing date 

back by seeking several continuances so that he could fire and 

then rehire counsel for his case. The majority’s interpretation 

gives Uriarte a sentence 20 years shorter than Sparkman’s—

despite, it should be noted, Uriarte’s greater participation in 

the crime—because he delayed the court with continuances. 

See Hodge, 948 F.3d at 164 (considering a similar hypothetical 

disparity and rejecting an interpretation that might allow it);

Hughes, 733 F.3d at 646 (noting that the “disparities that the 

Court cited in Dorsey were those between initial sentencings 

that occurred on the same day,” as opposed to equally objectionable disparities “between initial sentencings and sentencings ‘upon remand.’”). As the Third Circuit observed in 

United States v. Hodge, “drawing the line at initial-sentence imposition is preferable to drawing the line at ultimate-sentence 

imposition. If we let all defendants awaiting resentencing capitalize on the First Step Act, we would favor defendants 

whose appeals—for whatever reason—took longer to resolve.” Id. The majority thinks it is most equitable to treat Uriarte as similarly situated to defendants awaiting sentencing in 

other cases rather than to the codefendant with whom he was 

tried and initially sentenced. I am much less confident either 

that this is the most equitable result or that Congress shared 

the majority’s view. Speculating about congressional desires 

is a dicey enterprise, which is one reason among many that 

we should stick to the text. 
28 No. 19-2092 

As we have said before, “[a]ny reduction in criminal penalties or in a Sentencing Guideline can pose difficult linedrawing in applying the reduction to pending cases.” Pierson, 

925 F.3d at 927. Here, Congress picked a line: the applicability 

of the First Step Act turns on whether a sentence had been 

imposed on the defendant before the date of enactment. The 

majority is certainly correct that the vacatur of Uriarte’s initial 

sentence altered his legal status and required the court to resentence him de novo. But that does not change the historical 

fact that the district court did in the past impose a sentence 

for his firearm offense. Nor does it mean that what was imposed by the court in 2013 was not then “a sentence.” Vacatur 

may metaphorically “wipe the slate clean,” but it is not a time 

machine. Under the plain text of the statute, the First Step Act 

does not apply to Uriarte.