United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

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No. 15-1437

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United States of America

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Byron A. Brown

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Missouri - Cape Girardeau

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 Submitted: June 25, 2015

Filed: July 16, 2015

[Published]

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Before WOLLMAN, LOKEN, and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

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PER CURIAM.

Byron Brown appeals from the district court’s denial of his motion for a

sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2). For the following reasons, we

reverse the court’s ruling that Brown is ineligible for a reduction. See United States

v. Long, 757 F.3d 762, 763 (8th Cir. 2014) (standard of review).
Brown pleaded guilty to distributing cocaine base, see 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1),

in accordance with a written plea agreement with the government in which the parties

agreed that the final sentence to be imposed, “pursuant to [Federal Rule of Criminal

Procedure] 11(c)(1)(C), shall be the greater of the minimum sentence under the

U.S.S.G. range as determined by the District Court, or 100 months.” The court

accepted the plea agreement, and sentenced Brown to 100 months in prison. In 2011,

Brown moved for a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2), which

authorizes a court to reduce “a term of imprisonment based on a sentencing range that

has subsequently been lowered by the Sentencing Commission.” The government

agreed that Brown was entitled to a reduction, and the court reduced Brown’s

sentence to 70 months. In November 2014, Brown brought the instant motion for a

further reduction based on 2014 amendments to the Guidelines. The government

argued thistime, however--and the district court agreed--that Brown was not eligible

for a reduction, because he had not been sentenced based on a Guidelines sentencing

range, but based on a Rule 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement. Brown argues, as he did

below, that his plea agreement shows that a Guidelines range was used to establish

his sentence, and that the government should be bound by its position in 2011

favoring the grant of a reduction.

Upon careful review, we conclude that because the Rule 11(c)(1)(C) agreement

wasfor the greater of 100 months or the court-determined Guidelines minimum, “the

agreement itself employs the particular Guidelines sentencing range applicable to the

charged offenses in establishing the term of imprisonment,” and thus Brown “is

eligible to have his sentence reduced under § 3582(c)(2).” Freeman v. United States,

131 S. Ct. 2685, 2698 (2011) (Sotomayor, J., concurring). We reject the

government’s contention--contrary to its 2011 interpretation of the agreement in

supporting a reduction--that an uninitialed partial alteration ofthe plea agreement can

establish that Justice Sotomayor’s controlling opinion in Freeman does not squarely

apply. In any event, “[w]here a plea agreement is ambiguous, the ambiguities are

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construed against the government.” See United States v. Lewis, 673 F.3d 758, 763

(8th Cir. 2011).

Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s ruling that Brown is ineligible for

a section 3582(c)(2) sentence reduction, and remand for exercise of the court’s

discretion whether to grant the authorized reduction.

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