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Page Number: 19

14 

CONCEPCION v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

sentence.6  The “as if ” clause does not, however, limit the 
information a district court may use to inform its decision 
whether and how much to reduce a sentence. 

B 
Consistent with this text and structure, district courts de-
ciding First Step Act motions regularly have considered ev-
idence  of  postsentencing  rehabilitation  and  unrelated 
Guidelines  amendments  when  raised  by  the  parties.    By
definition, First Step Act movants have amassed prison rec-
ords of over a decade.  See §404(a), 132 Stat. 5222 (requiring 
the movant to have been sentenced for an offense “commit-
ted before August 3, 2010”).  Those records are naturally of
interest to judges authorized by the First Step Act to reduce
prison sentences or even to release movants immediately. 
See, e.g., United States  v. Crawford, 483 F. Supp. 3d 378, 
381 (ND W. Va. 2020) (considering that the movant earned 
his  GED  in  prison,  obtained  a  carpentry  certification 
through a local community college, and was sanctioned for
only “two minor write-ups” in the nine years preceding his 
motion); United States v. Henderson, 399 F. Supp. 3d 648,
656 (WD La. 2019) (considering that the movant “ha[d] not 
seen his children in eight years,” that he had “possible em-
ployment opportunities . . . upon his release,” and that he
“ha[d]  received  only  two  incident  reports”  while  incarcer-
ated);  United  States  v.  Mitchell,  2019  WL  2647571,  *8  (D 
DC, June 27, 2019) (considering that the movant “incurred 

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6 A district court cannot, however, recalculate a movant’s benchmark 
Guidelines range in any way other than to reflect the retroactive appli-
cation of the Fair Sentencing Act.  Rather, the First Step Act directs dis-
trict courts to calculate the Guidelines range as if the Fair Sentencing 
Act’s  amendments  had  been  in  place  at  the  time  of  the  offense.    That 
Guidelines range “anchor[s]” the sentencing proceeding.  Peugh v. United 
States, 569 U. S. 530, 541 (2013).  The district court may then consider 
postsentencing conduct or nonretroactive changes in selecting or reject-
ing  an  appropriate  sentence,  with  the  properly  calculated  Guidelines 
range as the benchmark.