Court Opinion

ID: 9374179
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-22 17:00:30.874271+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:45.339196
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 20-13388    Document: 49-1     Date Filed: 02/22/2023   Page: 1 of 5

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                   In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 20-13388
                          ____________________

       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                      Plaintiff-Appellee,
       versus
       JAMIE WILLIAMS,

                                                  Defendant-Appellant.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Middle District of Florida
                  D.C. Docket No. 8:97-cr-00061-SCB-AAS-1
                          ____________________
USCA11 Case: 20-13388      Document: 49-1     Date Filed: 02/22/2023     Page: 2 of 5

       2                      Opinion of the Court                 20-13388

       Before NEWSOM, LUCK, and TJOFLAT, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              In 1997, a jury convicted Jamie Williams of possession with
       intent to distribute cocaine base and marijuana. Neither the indict-
       ment nor the jury instructions included specific quantities of co-
       caine. The sentencing judge adopted the pre-sentencing report’s
       attribution of 982.9 grams of cocaine to Williams. Because of his
       two prior convictions, anything more than 50 grams triggered
       mandatory life imprisonment.
               In 2019, Williams moved for a reduced sentence under the
       First Step Act. Pub. L. No. 115-391 § 404 (2018). Williams’s eligi-
       bility for relief turns on which drug quantity and prior-felony defi-
       nition are used to determine his new statutory sentencing range.
       Because the district court correctly held that its earlier judge-found
       drug quantity and the 1997 definition of prior felonies apply, we
       affirm.
                                         I
              When Williams filed his First Step Act motion in 2019, our
       Circuit had not decided how to treat judge-found drug quantities.
       But while his motion was pending, we decided United States v.
       Jones, in which we held that district courts are “bound by a previ-
       ous finding of drug quantity that could have been used to deter-
       mine the movant’s statutory penalty at the time of sentencing.”
       962 F.3d 1290, 1303 (11th Cir. 2020). The district court relied on
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       20-13388               Opinion of the Court                        3

       Jones to use Williams’s judge-found drug quantity. Williams ap-
       pealed, arguing that Jones was wrongly decided.
               Litigation in Jones continued—giving Williams a prospect of
       success. The Jones opinion consolidated four defendants’ cases;
       one of the other defendants—Warren Jackson—sought rehearing
       en banc, which we denied. United States v. Jackson, 995 F.3d 1308,
       1309 (11th Cir. 2021). Jackson sought certiorari, which the Su-
       preme Court granted—vacating the judgment and remanding the
       case in light of the intervening decision in Concepcion v. United
       States, 142 S. Ct. 2389 (2022). But on remand, the panel reinstated
       its prior opinion. United States v. Jackson, 58 F.4th 1331, 2023 WL
       1501638, at *1 (11th Cir. 2023).
              The upshot: Jones’s holding that a “district court is bound
       by a previous finding of drug quantity that could have been used
       to determine the movant’s statutory penalty at the time of sentenc-
       ing” remains good law. Id. at *3 (citing Jones, 962 F.3d at 1303).
       The district court correctly used Williams’s judge-found drug
       quantity.
                                        II
               Williams also seeks the benefit of a different section of the
       First Step Act which prospectively redefined which prior felony of-
       fenses trigger heightened statutory penalties. Pub. L. No. 115-391
       § 401 (2018). But Williams concedes that the statute does not apply
       retroactively to him. See id. § 404(c).
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       4                        Opinion of the Court                    20-13388

              Instead, Williams argues that a district court can apply cur-
       rent law—rather than the law applicable at the time of sentenc-
       ing—when calculating his revised sentencing range. This misreads
       the First Step Act and is foreclosed by both Jones and Concepcion.
               The First Step Act allows—in certain circumstances—a dis-
       trict court to “impose a reduced sentence as if sections 2 and 3 of
       the Fair Sentencing Act . . . were in effect at the time the covered
       offense was committed.” First Step Act § 404(b). The text focuses
       on the law in effect at the time of the offense. That’s why—again
       in Jones—we held that “[i]f the movant’s sentence would have nec-
       essarily remained the same had the Fair Sentencing Act been in ef-
       fect, then the district court lacks the authority to reduce the mo-
       vant’s sentence.” Jones, 962 F.3d at 1303.
             Concepcion does not change that conclusion. First, as we
       observed when reinstating the Jones opinion, Concepcion “ad-
       dressed an issue that arises only after . . . the . . . statutory penalties
       have been established: which factors the district court may con-
       sider in deciding an appropriate sentence.” Jackson, 58 F.4th 1331,
       2023 WL 1501638, at *4. Second, Concepcion explicitly forbids
       changing the guidelines range for any reason other than the retro-
       active application of the Fair Sentencing Act. 142 S. Ct. at 2402 n.6.
       The statutory sentencing range operates the same as the guidelines
       range in this respect.
               We therefore reiterate the conclusion from Jones that dis-
       trict courts do not have authority to apply current law to calculate
       the applicable statutory sentencing range under the First Step Act.
USCA11 Case: 20-13388        Document: 49-1       Date Filed: 02/22/2023        Page: 5 of 5

       20-13388                  Opinion of the Court                             5

       The district court correctly used the prior-felony definition from
       Williams’s original sentencing.
                                            III
              Because the district court properly determined the statutory
       sentencing range that would apply to Williams’s First Step Act mo-
       tion, we affirm.
              AFFIRMED.1

       1This case was originally scheduled for oral argument, but under 11th Cir. R.
       34–3(f) it was removed from the oral argument calendar by unanimous con-
       sent of the panel.