Opinion ID: 147682
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Based on a Sentencing Range

Text: Our first task is to determine what sentencing range Roa-Medina's term of imprisonment was based on. Roa-Medina argues that the sentence was based on the guidelines range that the district court announced at the Rule 35(b) hearing: 63 to 78 months. That view finds some support in the case law. See, e.g., United States v. Blackwell, No. 05-66, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 51497, at - (S.D.Ohio Feb. 13, 2009). Ultimately, however, Roa-Medina's argument misunderstands the nature and effect of a substantial assistance departure. The three substantial assistance provisionsUSSG § 5K1.1, 18 U.S.C. § 3553(e), and Fed.R.Crim.P. 35(b) [3] do not authorize a district court to alter the applicable guidelines range. Rather, they permit the court to deviate from that range based on a specific factor (the defendant's cooperation) that was not accounted for in the basic guidelines calculation. Cf. USSG § 1B1.1 cmt. n. 1(E) (`Departure' means . . . imposition of a sentence outside the applicable guideline range or of a sentence that is otherwise different from the guideline sentence . . . .) (emphasis added). All three provisions operate in conjunction with the Sentencing Guidelines. At the initial sentencing, the district court must calculate the applicable guidelines range before it may depart from that range based on the defendant's substantial assistance. See USSG § 1B1.1. The guidelines automatically account for statutory limitations at that stage, see United States v. Ahlers, 305 F.3d 54, 60-61 (1st Cir.2002), yielding a restricted guidelines range that runs from the greater of the statutory minimum or the guidelines minimum to the lesser of the statutory maximum or the guidelines maximum. See, e.g., USSG § 5G1.1 cmt. (If the applicable guideline range is 51-63 months and the maximum sentence authorized by statute for the offense of conviction is 60 months, the guideline range is restricted to 51-60 months. . . .). [4] If the court determines that a departure from the restricted guidelines range is warranted, it takes the lower end of the range as its starting point and departs from that point as necessary to reflect the defendant's assistance. United States v. Li, 206 F.3d 78, 89 (1st Cir.2000); United States v. Auld, 321 F.3d 861, 867 (9th Cir.2003). A post-sentencing reduction under Rule 35(b) works similarly. Like the provisions applicable at the initial sentencing, Rule 35(b) uses the original guidelines range as a frame of reference. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 35(b)(1)(B) (2007) (permitting reduction only in accord[ance] with the Sentencing Commission's guidelines and policy statements). Where, as here, the defendant was originally sentenced at the bottom of the restricted guidelines range (the statutory minimum), the district court starts from that point and departs as necessary to reflect the defendant's assistance. See United States v. Donnell, No. 02-37, 2008 WL 564647, at  n. 1 (D.Me. Feb. 29, 2008). As this brief overview suggests, sentences imposed pursuant to the substantial assistance provisions remain based on the original restricted guidelines range, which continues to serve as the anchor point for the ultimate sentence. A number of circuits have reached that conclusion in the context of § 5K1.1 and § 3553(e), holding that the post-departure sentence is based on the pre-departure restricted guidelines range. See, e.g., United States v. Carter, 595 F.3d 575, 580-81 (5th Cir.2010) (per curiam); United States v. Byers, 561 F.3d 825, 830-32 (8th Cir.2009); United States v. Williams, 549 F.3d 1337, 1340-41 (11th Cir.2008) (per curiam). We now join the Seventh Circuit in holding that the same reasoning applies to sentences reduced under Rule 35(b)they remain based on the restricted guidelines range that applied at the initial sentencing. See United States v. Poole, 550 F.3d 676, 678, 680 (7th Cir.2008); see also Byers, 561 F.3d at 830-32 (holding that the relevant guidelines range for defendants who benefited from all three substantial assistance provisions was the original restricted guidelines range). It is true that district courts sometimes implement Rule 35(b) reductions by lowering the defendant's offense level and recalculating the guidelines range, as the district court did in this case. But that method employs a fiction. As a legal matter, a district court may consider only the defendant's assistance in determining the extent of a Rule 35(b) reduction. See Poland, 562 F.3d at 38, 40-41. The lowered offense level is nothing more than a useful way of quantifying the defendant's assistance. Neither Rule 35(b) nor the Sentencing Guidelines specifies a method for calculating the extent of a substantial assistance departure, and the district courts in fact use a variety of methods, including percentage-based calculations and calculations based on an absolute number of months. See United States v. Fennell, 592 F.3d 506, 510-11 (4th Cir.2010); see also Bruce M. Selya & John C. Massaro, The Illustrative Role of Substantial Assistance Departures in Combatting Ultra-Uniformity, 35 B.C. L.Rev. 799, 829-30 (1994) (noting that sentencing courts may, but need not, refer to the vertical axis of the sentencing grid as the base for making [substantial assistance] departures). Other courts have held, and we agree, that a district court's reference to offense levels in making its discretionary decision of how far to depart [does] not amount to the application of a `sentencing range' authorized and made applicable by the Sentencing Guidelines and therefore [is] of no legal significance to the analysis under § 3582(c)(2). United States v. Lindsey, 556 F.3d 238, 245-46 (4th Cir.2009); United States v. Smiley, 356 Fed.Appx. 302, 305-06 (11th Cir.2009) (per curiam). Cf. Caraballo, 552 F.3d at 9 (rejecting the argument that the district court's oblique reference to the crack cocaine guideline was enough to trigger section 3582(c)(2)). The ultimate sentence remains based on the original restricted guidelines range. Following that analysis, we conclude that Roa-Medina was sentenced to a term of imprisonment that was based on a sentencing range of 120 months (the statutory minimum) to 135 months (the guidelines maximum). As noted by the government at the Rule 35(b) hearing, the reduced sentence represented a 40% deviation from the bottom of that range.