Opinion ID: 2670563
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: discussion of record

Text: Although Mr. Tellis argues that the record does not conclusively establish that he was considered to be a career offender, the record contradicts this claim. The January 2002 PSR stated explicitly that Mr. Tellis was a career offender. The United States has advised us that the June 2008 PSR also designated Mr. Tellis as a career offender, and Tellis has not disputed this. The district court noted this again in denying Mr. Tellis’s Amendment 750 motion, stating that he “was determined to be a career offender” when he appeared in 2002. And in 2008 Mr. Tellis stipulated to a sentence modification that was calculated based on his career offender status. Mr. Tellis next argues that because his original sentence was based on drug quantity, rather than the career offender guideline range, relying on the career offender provisions now “would constitute a re-sentencing proceeding as opposed to a modification proceeding.” But this ignores what happened when the district court considered Mr. Tellis’s Amendment 706 motion, and why. When considering Mr. Tellis’s first motion to reduce his sentence, the district court had to consider “not only whether the amendment reduced his drug quantity base offense 8 Case: 12-12596 Date Filed: 04/18/2014 Page: 9 of 11 level, but also its determination at his original sentencing that [he] was a career offender.” United States v. Moreland, 355 F. App’x 376, 378 (11th Cir. 2009) (per curiam). The district court did so, and so was required to modify Mr. Tellis’s sentence based on his career offender status. Because Mr. Tellis’s Amendment 706 modification properly resulted from his career offender status, the district court did not err in denying his motion to modify his sentence pursuant to Amendment 750. In light of Mr. Tellis’s status as a career offender, Amendment 750 did not lower his offense level after the Amendment 706 modification, and thus did not alter the guideline range. For that reason, the district court correctly concluded that it had no discretion to lower his sentence. We have affirmed similar results in several unpublished cases. See, e.g., United States v. Florence, 503 F. App’x 796, 797–99 (11th Cir. 2013) (per curiam) (affirming district court’s guideline range modification pursuant to § 4B1.1 although defendant originally sentenced pursuant to § 2D1.1); United States v. Hobbs, 491 F. App’x 113, 115 (11th Cir. 2012) (per curiam) (affirming district court’s determination it lacked discretion to modify pursuant to Amendment 750 after career offender was originally sentenced based on drug quantity table and had sentence reduced pursuant to Amendment 706 because “in light of his designation as a career offender, Amendment 750 did not operate to lower his applicable 9 Case: 12-12596 Date Filed: 04/18/2014 Page: 10 of 11 Guidelines range”). See also United States v. Hubbard, 508 F. App’x 561, 562 (7th Cir. 2013) (rejecting argument that applying career offender guideline in sentence modification pursuant to Amendment 750 after initially sentencing based on drug quantity table is a resentencing). Mr. Tellis has not persuaded us that these decisions should have been decided differently.