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4 

CONCEPCION v. UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

only underscores that a district court is not required to modify a sen-
tence for any reason.  “Drawing meaning from silence is particularly
inappropriate” in the sentencing context, “for Congress has shown that 
it knows how to direct sentencing practices in express terms.”  Kim-
brough v. United States, 552 U. S. 85, 103. 

The “as if ” clause in §404(b) does not impose any limit on the infor-
mation a district court can consider in exercising its discretion under 
the First Step Act.  The term “as if ” simply enacts the First Step Act’s 
central goal: to make retroactive the changes in the Fair Sentencing
Act, necessary to overcome 1 U. S. C. §109, which creates a presump-
tion that Congress does not repeal federal criminal penalties unless it 
says  so  “expressly.”    The  “as  if ” clause  also  directs  district  courts  to 
apply the Fair Sentencing Act as if it applied at the time of the com-
mission of the offense, not at the time of the original sentencing, sug-
gesting that Congress did not intend to constrain district courts to con-
sidering only the original sentencing record.  Thus, the “as if ” clause 
requires district courts to apply the legal changes in the Fair Sentenc-
ing Act when recalculating a movant’s Guidelines, but it does not limit
the information a district court may use to inform its decision whether 
and how much to reduce a sentence.  Pp. 11–14.

(2) Consistent with this text and structure, district courts decid-
ing First Step Act motions regularly have considered evidence of post-
sentencing  rehabilitation  and  unrelated  Guidelines  amendments 
when  raised  by  the  parties.    First  Step  Act  movants  have  amassed 
prison records of over a decade.  See §404(a), 132 Stat. 5222 (requiring 
the movant to have been sentenced for an offense “committed before 
August 3, 2010”).  Those records are naturally of interest to judges au-
thorized  by  the  First  Step  Act  to  reduce  prison  sentences  or  even  to 
release  movants  immediately.    Likewise,  when  deciding  whether  to 
grant First Step Act motions and in deciding how much to reduce sen-
tences,  courts  have  looked  to  postsentencing  evidence  of  violence  or 
prison infractions as probative.  Moreover, when raised by the parties, 
district  courts  have  considered  nonretroactive  Guidelines  amend-
ments to help inform whether to reduce sentences at all, and if so, by
how much.  Nothing express or implicit in the First Step Act suggests 
that these courts misinterpreted the Act in considering such relevant
and probative information.  Pp. 14–16. 

(3) The Court therefore holds that the First Step Act allows dis-
trict courts to consider intervening changes of law or fact in exercising 
their discretion to reduce a sentence pursuant to the First Step Act.
When deciding a First Step Act motion, district courts bear the stand-
ard  obligation  to  explain  their  decisions  and  demonstrate  that  they
considered the parties’ nonfrivolous arguments.  See Golan v. Saada,