Court Opinion

ID: 9629778
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:49:02.37709+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:26.735861
License: Public Domain

HARTZ, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. Agreeing with every circuit to have decided the matter (including our own), I would hold that a sentence to a specific term required by a plea agreement under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(C) is not a sentence “based on a sentencing range” within the meaning of that phrase in 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2). Therefore, such a sentence cannot be modified under § 3582(c)(2) even if the parties calculated and considered the guidelines sentencing range when reaching their plea agreement and the district court did likewise when deciding to accept the agreement.
I.
In June 1999 the government and Defendant executed their “Plea Agreement *986and Statement of Facts Relevant to Sentencing.” R., Vol. I Doc. 70 at 1. Section I, entitled “Plea Agreement,” states as follows:
The Defendant will plead guilty to Count Two of the Indictment filed March 25, 1999, charging a violation of Title 21, United States Code, Section 841(a)(1) (possession with intent to distribute cocaine base also known as crack cocaine) and Title 18 United States Code, Section 2. At the time of sentencing, the United States agrees to dismiss all the remaining counts in the indictment as to this defendant only. The parties agree that this plea agreement is entered into pursuant to the provisions of Rule 11(e)(1)(C) [1], Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and that the appropriate sentence in this case in [sic] 168 months in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons, which is the bottom of the applicable guideline range based upon a Criminal History Category III and an Adjusted Offense Level of 83. The parties understand that if the Court should not accept the agreed upon sentence of 168 months, the defendant has the right to withdraw his plea of guilty.
Id. at 1-2 (emphasis added). Section II states the maximum statutory penalties, Section III sets forth evidence concerning Defendant’s criminal misconduct, and Section IV contains a guidelines computation. Section V justifies the agreed-upon sentence, stating:
[T]he parties believe the sentencing range resulting from the proposed plea agreement is appropriate because all relevant conduct is disclosed and the sentencing guidelines takes into account all pertinent sentencing factors with respect to this defendant.
The plea agreement was governed by what is now Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(C), which states that a plea agreement may provide that the government will
agree that a specific sentence or sentencing range is the appropriate disposition of the case, or that a particular provision of the Sentencing Guidelines, or policy statement, or sentencing factor does or does not apply (such a recommendation or request binds the court once the court accepts the plea agreement).
The district court then “may accept the agreement, reject it, or defer a decision until the court has reviewed the presen-tence report.” Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(c)(3)(A). If it accepts the agreement, “it must inform the defendant that ... the agreed disposition will be included in the judgment.” Id. Rule 11(c)(4).
In this case the district court ordered a presentence report, which calculated the same guidelines sentencing range as the parties had. Finding the agreed sentence appropriate, the court approved the agreement and sentenced Defendant to 168 months’ imprisonment.
About 10 years later the Sentencing Commission revised the offense levels for crack-cocaine offenses and made the revisions retroactive. Defendant therefore moved for resentencing under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2), which permits the district court to modify a previously imposed sentence “in the case of a defendant who has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment based on a sentencing range that has subsequently been lowered by the Sentencing *987Commission.” The district judge, who had sentenced Defendant originally, denied the motion on the ground that the statutory predicate had not been satisfied, “find[ing] and concluding] [that the Rule 11(c)(1)(C) plea] was not based on Sentencing Guidelines.” R., Yol. V at 26. He explained:
[M]y practice consistently under either 11(e)(1)(C) or 11(c)(1)(C) was to consider a stipulated sentence, whatever it was, to be binding upon me to either approve it or not approve it. And certainly that decision was based in part on what I considered in that context to be advice of the Sentencing Guidelines. I understand that they were mandatory. So that if the parties stipulated to a sentence under 11(e)(1)(C), it was merely a guide, one of many considerations, including the entire presentence report, which in my practice included authority to probation officers as an officer of the Court, an arm of the Court, to go beyond the stipulation of facts in the Plea Agreement.
Id. at 23-24. Continuing his remarks, the judge pointed out that the presentence report (PSR) had mentioned evidence that could have enhanced Defendant’s offense level above what the PSR recommended, and he said that the guidelines calculation was “just one thing noted.” Id. at 25. He inferred that the 168-month sentence was the product of negotiations and concluded:
[I]n this case I know what I did and why I did it. It was because the parties agreed to a 168-month sentence, and after I reviewed the Presentence Report, even in light of some concerns, I said to myself the parties must know what they’re doing here, and I approved it.
Id. at 29.
II.
Thus, the record is clear that the parties considered the Sentencing Guidelines in arriving at the stipulated sentence and that the district court also took into account the guidelines in deciding whether to approve the plea agreement and the stipulated sentence. As I understand the majority opinion, the predicate for application of § 3582(c)(2) was therefore satisfied because Defendant’s sentence was “based on a sentencing range” later modified by the Sentencing Commission. Apparently, the majority believes that a stipulated sentence is “based” on the guidelines if one of the essential parties — the prosecutor, the defendant, or the district court — considered the guidelines in deciding whether the stipulated sentence was a good idea.
I disagree. Such a reading of the term based essentially renders impotent the “based on a sentencing range” requirement for relief under § 3582(c)(2). Almost every sentence could be modified under § 3582(c)(2) because it will be a rare sentence indeed that is arrived at without any of the essential parties taking the guidelines into consideration. (Perhaps the sole exceptions would be mandatory sentences, but those could not be modified under § 3582(c)(2) in any event.)
A more reasonable construction of the statutory language would be that a sentence is “based on a sentencing range” if the proper calculation of the sentencing range is of legal consequence to the validity of the sentence; that is, a sentence is “based on a sentencing range” only if the sentence could be successfully challenged on appeal on the ground that the guidelines sentencing range was miscalculated. Under this construction, virtually all non-mandatory sentences other than stipulated sentences under Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(c)(1)(C) would satisfy the “based on” requirement. A sentence before United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), could be set aside because of an *988erroneous calculation of the guidelines sentencing range. See, e.g., United States v. Fortier, 180 F.3d 1217 (10th Cir.1999). And post -Booker a sentence can be set aside for procedural unreasonableness if the guidelines range was not properly calculated. See Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 128 S.Ct. 586, 597, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007).
In this case, Defendant could not have appealed his sentence on the ground that the parties or the PSR had miscalculated the proper guidelines range. Cf. United States v. Bernard, 373 F.3d 339, 343-47 (3d Cir.2004) (rejecting challenge that stipulation under Rule 11(c)(1)(C) was contrary to guidelines). Thus, his sentence was not “based” on a guidelines sentencing range and cannot be modified under § 3582(c)(2). It would be odd if a district court could alter a sentence under § 3582(c)(2) because of a retroactive change in the guidelines, when the same sentence could not have been challenged on direct appeal even if there had been an erroneous calculation under the guidelines in effect at the time of sentencing. Yet that would be the consequence of adopting the view of the majority opinion.
My view finds support in this court’s decision in United States v. Trujeque, 100 F.3d 869 (10th Cir.1996). Holding that the district court lacked jurisdiction to modify a sentence under § 3582(c)(2), we said in that opinion that the defendant’s “sentence was not ‘based on a sentencing range that has subsequently been lowered by the Sentencing Commission,’.... Instead, his sentence was based on a valid Rule 11(e)(1)(C) plea agreement.” Id. at 871. Although that case differs from this one in that the stipulated sentence was outside the guidelines sentencing range, our opinion did not rely on that feature of the case.
The majority opinion follows the opinion by a divided panel in United States v. Dews, 551 F.3d 204 (4th Cir.2008). But that opinion was vacated when the Fourth Circuit decided to hear the case en banc, Order, No. 08-6458 (10th Cir. Feb. 20, 2009), and the case was later dismissed as moot, Order (May 4, 2009). As matters now stand, all other circuits (and apparently all but one district court) to have ruled on the matter have held that a sentence under Rule 11(e)(1)(C) cannot be modified under § 3582(c)(2). See United States v. Scurlark, 560 F.3d 839, 841 n. 2 (8th Cir.2009) (collecting cases); United States v. Main, 579 F.3d 200 (2d Cir.2009) (same); cf. United States v. Sanchez, 562 F.3d 275 (3d Cir.2009) (lead opinion follows Trujeque but concurring judge does not reach the issue and dissent follows Dews). I agree with this great weight of authority.

. The content of Rule 11(e)(1)(C) at the time of the plea agreement was amended at the end of 1999. In 2002 it was restyled and recodified as Rule 11(c)(1)(C). These revisions effected no substantive change material to this appeal, so in this opinion I will use the language of the present rule.