Opinion ID: 767785
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Reduction under the Safety Valve Provision

Text: 35 O'Dell's final contention is that the district court erred in refusing to reduce his sentence under the so-called safety value provision of U.S. Sentencing Guidelines § 5C1.2. See also 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f). The safety valve provision permits a district court to impose on a drug defendant a more lenient sentence within the otherwise applicable guidelines range if certain conditions are met. United States v. Romo, 81 F.3d 84, 85 (8 th Cir. 1996). A criminal defendant has the burden to prove that he is entitled to relief under this section, and our review of the district court's factual findings is for clear error. United States v. Surratt, 172 F.3d 559, 566 (8 th Cir. 1999), cert. denied, 120 S.Ct. 257 (1999). 36 Section 5C1.2 lists five requirements which must be satisfied before a defendant may qualify for a reduction. Among them, and the only one at issue here, is the requirement that the defendant 37 truthfully provide[] to the Government all information and evidence the defendant has concerning the offense or offenses that were part of the same course of conduct or of a common scheme or plan . . . . 38 U.S. Sentencing Guidelines § 5C1.2(5). At his sentencing hearing, special agent John Graham testified for the government that, even after his conviction, O'Dell continued to deny his involvement in the essential conduct of which the jury found him guilty. For example, special agent Graham testified that O'Dell, in his presentence interview, maintained that he had no knowledge of transporting drugs from Arizona to Iowa. O'Dell also stated in the interview that he felt the wire transfers were for cars, not drugs, and he denied that he ever stored any drugs at his house. The district court, based on this testimony and its own credibility assessments, concluded that O'Dell had not been completely truthful in his debriefing, and therefore denied a reduction under the safety valve provision. We cannot say that this finding is clearly erroneous.