Opinion ID: 615762
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Our Precedents

Text: The legal context in which we decide Rivera's case also includes our own precedents, which establish two important principles. First, if a crack offender who was also a career offender under § 4B1.1 received no downward departure at his initial sentence, he is not eligible for a reduction, at least where the career offender range ... remains unaltered by the crack cocaine amendments. United States v. Martinez, 572 F.3d 82, 83 (2d Cir.2009). In those circumstances, the sentence was based on the career offender range, which has not been lowered by the Commission, rather than the range produced by the amended crack guideline. Id. at 84-85. Martinez is in accord with the holdings of our sister circuits. [4] Second, if the sentencing judge in this case had said he was departing from the career offender guideline in order to base the sentence on the range provided by the offense guideline, i.e., § 2D1.1, Rivera would be eligible for a sentence reduction. See McGee, 553 F.3d at 228. The defendant in McGee was a career offender, but the sentencing judge determined that the range computed under the career offender guideline overstated the seriousness of McGee's criminal history. She therefore departed under U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3 to the range produced by the offense guideline (92-115 months), and sentenced McGee to a 115-month term of imprisonment. Id. at 226. Since the actual sentence was explicitly based on the range produced by the offense guideline, and McGee was thus disadvantaged by the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity that the crack amendments sought to correct, we construed § 3582(c)(2) and § 1B1.10 in a manner that rendered McGee eligible for a reduction. Id. at 230. As discussed further below, unlike Martinez, the precise question we decided in McGee is a career offender whose sentencing judge departed under § 4A1.3 from the career offender guideline to a sentence based explicitly on the drug offense guideline eligible for a sentence reduction under § 3582(c)(2)? has sharply divided the circuits. [5]