Opinion ID: 1450540
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Based on a Subsequently Lowered Guidelines Range

Text: Reducing Martinez's sentence is not appropriate because his sentence was not based on a Guidelines range that has been subsequently ... lowered by the Sentencing Commission. Amendment 706 to the Sentencing Guidelines generally reduced by two levels the offense levels under § 2D1.1, applicable to crack cocaine offenses. Martinez, however, was sentenced under the career offender guideline, § 4B1.1, which remains unaffected by the crack cocaine amendments. [3] In United States v. McGee, 553 F.3d 225, 227 (2d Cir.2009), we held that a defendant who was designated a career offender but was then granted a downward departure below the career offender range qualified for a reduced sentence. We permitted reduction of McGee's sentence because the district court explicitly stated that it was departing from the career offender sentencing range to the level that the defendant would have been in absent the career offender status calculation and consideration, and it was thus effectively sentencing him under the crack cocaine guideline. McGee, 553 F.3d at 227 (emphasis added and internal quotation marks omitted). In other words, McGee could have been sentenced under § 4B1.1 but was in fact sentenced under § 2D1.1. Because his career offender designation did not determine his sentence, § 2D1.1 applied for purposes of sentence reduction, rather than § 4B1.1. By contrast, Martinez's original sentence in the instant case was based on the career offender guideline, and not the crack cocaine guideline. The fact that, but for his career offender designation, Martinez's sentence would have been based on the now-amended crack cocaine guideline is of no relevance for purposes of a sentence reduction. The simple fact is that Martinez was indeed sentenced under § 4B1.1, which remains unamended. In Williams we held that once a mandatory minimum subsuming and displacing an otherwise applicable guideline range applies, a defendant's sentence is no longer based on a sentencing range that has subsequently been lowered by the Sentencing Commission. 551 F.3d at 185 (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2)). Here, as in Williams, the District Court first calculated the applicable Guidelines range under § 2D1.1, but that range had no bearing on [Martinez's ultimate] sentence. Id. Rather, Martinez's career offender designation and § 4B1.1 subsumed and displaced § 2D1.1, the otherwise applicable range. Id. Martinez's sentence was therefore not based on a sentencing range that has subsequently been lowered by the Sentencing Commission. See id. Several of our sister Circuits have also held that a defendant sentenced as a career offender is not eligible for sentence reduction under the crack cocaine amendments. See e.g., United States v. Sharkey, 543 F.3d 1236, 1239 (10th Cir.2008) (Amendment 706 had no effect on the career offender guidelines in § 4B1.1, which were the guidelines used by the district court in sentencing [the defendant].); United States v. Liddell, 543 F.3d 877, 882 n. 3 (7th Cir.2008); United States v. Thomas, 524 F.3d 889, 890 (8th Cir.2008) (Although the Sentencing Commission lowered the offense levels in U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(c) related to crack cocaine drug quantities, it did not lower the sentencing range for career offenders under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1, which is what set [the defendant's] sentencing range.). The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently addressed the specific argument that Martinez asserts herethat his sentence was based on § 2D1.1 because the District Court consulted that section in calculating his offense level. United States v. Mateo, 560 F.3d 152, 155 (3d Cir.2009). The Third Circuit rejected this argument, stating that the term `sentencing range' clearly contemplates the end result of the overall guideline calculus, not the series of tentative results reached at various interim steps in the performance of that calculus. Id. (quoting United States v. Caraballo, 552 F.3d 6, 10 (1st Cir.2008)). In addition, we have had occasion to rely on the Eleventh Circuit's decision in United States v. Moore, 541 F.3d 1323 (11th Cir.2008), for the proposition that because defendants were sentenced as career offenders, ... Amendment 706 had no effect on the sentencing range that the district court relied on in determining the sentences. Williams, 551 F.3d at 185-86 (summarizing and relying on Moore ). We now join our sister Circuits in holding that a defendant convicted of crack cocaine offenses but sentenced as a career offender under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1 is not eligible to be resentenced under the amendments to the crack cocaine guidelines.