Court Opinion

ID: 9942394
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-20 22:01:59.068969+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:48:03.491422
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                 For the Seventh Circuit
                    ____________________
No. 23-2313
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                 Plaintiff-Appellee,
                                v.

ADAM TYRALE WILLIAMS, JR.,
                                             Defendant-Appellant.
                    ____________________

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the
         Northern District of Indiana, Hammond Division.
       No. 2:01-cr-00067-JTM-APR-1 — James T. Moody, Judge.
                    ____________________

  ARGUED FEBRUARY 7, 2024 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 20, 2024
               ____________________

   Before EASTERBROOK, WOOD, and JACKSON-AKIWUMI,
Circuit Judges.
    WOOD, Circuit Judge. This case is the latest in a long-run-
ning eﬀort by Adam Williams to obtain reductions in his sen-
tences for crack-cocaine oﬀenses. It relates to his 2019 appli-
cation, ﬁled pursuant to the First Step Act of 2018, Pub. L. No.
115-391, § 404, 132 Stat. 5194, 5222. The district court denied
that motion, but we vacated its order because the court failed
to calculate the amended statutory sentencing ranges
2                                                   No. 23-2313

applicable to Williams’s convictions. Williams ampliﬁed his
motion on remand, highlighting signiﬁcant changes to his rec-
ord and conditions of conﬁnement that post-dated the order
we vacated. Nonetheless, the district court denied Williams’s
request just one day after receiving the updated motion, in an
order materially identical to the ﬁrst one. Applying the total-
ity-of-circumstances test the Supreme Court called for in
Chavez-Meza v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 1959, 1965–66 (2018),
we conclude that this was a case that required “a more com-
plete explanation,” id. (citing Molina-Martinez v. United States,
136 S. Ct. 1338, 1348 (2016)). We therefore vacate the judgment
and remand again for further proceedings.
                                I
    This is far from our ﬁrst encounter with Williams’s sen-
tence: we reviewed it on direct appeal and then four times on
post-conviction review. We thus recount only the essential
facts. In 2001 Williams was convicted of (1) conspiring to dis-
tribute more than 50 grams of crack cocaine, 21 U.S.C. § 846
(2000), (2) distributing more than 50 grams of crack, id.
§ 841(b)(1)(A)(iii), and (3) distributing more than ﬁve grams
of crack, id. § 841(b)(1)(B)(iii). As the then-mandatory sentenc-
ing guidelines required, the district court (acting through
Judge Lozano) imposed three concurrent sentences: life im-
prisonment for Counts 1 and 2 and the statutory maximum
40-year term for Count 3. We dismissed Williams’s direct ap-
peal. See United States v. Williams, 51 F. App’x 589 (7th Cir.
2002) (Williams I).
   Over the years, Williams has tried repeatedly to secure re-
ductions in those sentences. Judge Lozano presided over
three of Williams’s post-conviction motions for a reduced sen-
tence based on retroactive amendments to the guidelines. See
No. 23-2313                                                     3

18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2). The judge dismissed the ﬁrst two, con-
cluding that Williams continued to pose a threat to public
safety, see 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(C), and so the original sen-
tence was still appropriate. We aﬃrmed each of those judg-
ments. See United States v. Williams, 380 F. App’x 527 (7th Cir.
2010) (Williams II); United States v. Williams, No. 12-1339, 2012
WL 5951511 (7th Cir. Nov. 29, 2012) (Williams III). When Wil-
liams ﬁled his third motion, the guidelines range for Counts
1 and 2 (by then just a recommendation, see generally United
States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005)) was 235 to 293 months’
imprisonment, rather than life. In a 2015 ruling on the motion,
Judge Lozano noted that “the cumulative eﬀect of three
changes to the guidelines has transformed a once-guideline
sentence into a sentence that represents a signiﬁcant depar-
ture,” and so he granted a “small reduction” to 360 months’
imprisonment on all counts. The ruling noted that Williams’s
age at the time of the oﬀense, lack of criminal history, and self-
improvement eﬀorts while incarcerated favored the reduc-
tion, but it concluded that an above-range sentence was none-
theless warranted because of “the seriousness of the oﬀense.”
We aﬃrmed. United States v. Williams, 628 F. App’x 449 (7th
Cir. 2016) (Williams IV).
    On October 7, 2019, Williams ﬁled a fourth motion for a
reduced sentence, but this time he relied on section 404(b) of
the recently enacted First Step Act. That legislation made ret-
roactive the reduced statutory penalties for crack oﬀenses es-
tablished by the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-
120, §§ 1-2, 124 Stat. 2372, 2372. As applied to Williams, the
First Step Act yields statutory ranges of 60 to 480 months’ im-
prisonment for Counts 1 and 2, 21 U.S.C. § 8419(b)(1)(B)(iii),
and a maximum of 240 months’ imprisonment for Count 3, id.
§ 8419(b)(1)(C). To support his request for a sentence
4                                                   No. 23-2313

reduction, Williams explained that he has been a “model in-
mate” (with just one minor sanction “for being in an unau-
thorized area”) and that “he has completed numerous educa-
tional courses” while serving his sentence.
   Williams’s motion landed in Judge Moody’s chambers, to
whom the case had been reassigned upon Judge Lozano’s
passing. Stating that he was giving the facts a “fresh look,”
Judge Moody explained that he saw “the situation the same
way as Judge Lozano did in 2015” when he ruled on Wil-
liams’s third motion. Judge Moody acknowledged Williams’s
youth at the time of the oﬀense, lack of prior contact with the
criminal justice system, and commendable behavior and self-
improvement eﬀorts while incarcerated. On the other hand,
he noted that Williams “was involved in a large-scale drug
conspiracy, possessed a ﬁrearm, attempted to help cover up a
senseless murder in another case, and twice committed per-
jury.” Judge Moody concluded that, given the nature and
“reprehensibility” of those crimes, Williams continued to
pose a threat to public safety. He thus refused to lower Wil-
liams’s 360-month sentence.
    Williams appealed. He argued that Judge Moody’s expla-
nation was insuﬃcient because, rather than addressing his
First Step Act motion, it “relied excessively” on Judge
Lozano’s rationale in his third post-conviction ruling. We
found it unnecessary to engage with that argument, because
we identiﬁed “a more substantial error [in] Judge Moody’s
analysis.” United States v. Williams, 32 F.4th 653, 655 (7th Cir.
2022) (Williams V). Nowhere did the order calculate the new
statutory ranges for Williams’s three convictions, as the First
Step Act requires; worse, it misstated the statutory maximum
for Count 3 (indicating that it was 360 months, when it was
No. 23-2313                                                  5

actually 240 months). Id. Although Williams had forfeited this
challenge, we concluded that the error was plain because it
deprived Williams “of the beneﬁt of any anchoring eﬀect that
the new statutory ranges could have had on Judge Moody’s
decision” and it “aﬀect[ed] the fairness, integrity, and public
reputation of the proceeding.” Id. We thus vacated the order
and remanded for reconsideration.
    The appeal now before us concerns what happened after
April 28, 2022, when our decision in Williams V issued. On
May 2, 2022, Judge Moody ordered the U.S. Probation Depart-
ment to submit a revised addendum to Williams’s Presen-
tence Report. The revised addendum, which was submitted
on May 4, 2022, correctly stated Williams’s modiﬁed statutory
penalties and his current guidelines range of 235 to 293
months’ imprisonment. Nothing else happened until approx-
imately a year later, when on June 15, 2023, Williams renewed
his First Step Act motion. The renewed motion requested the
guidelines maximums of 293 months for Counts 1 and 2 and
the statutory maximum of 240 months for Count 3; if granted,
those adjustments would allow him immediately to begin the
supervised-release portion of his sentence. Williams reiter-
ated the arguments from his initial First Step Act motion, but
he also argued that developments post-dating Judge Moody’s
now-vacated order supported a reduced sentence. Speciﬁ-
cally, Wiliams explained that on March 22, 2023, the Bureau
of Prisons had transferred him to the Phoenix Residential
Reentry Management ﬁeld oﬃce and placed him on home
conﬁnement and electronic monitoring in his brother’s home
in Phoenix, Arizona. Williams also noted that he has enrolled
in an eleven-month vocational program to become a barber,
and he is expected to graduate in April 2024.
6                                                   No. 23-2313

    Just one day after receiving Williams’s latest submission,
Judge Moody denied it, through an order nearly identical to
the one we vacated in Williams V. The only diﬀerences in the
two orders are the addition of a paragraph stating the
properly calculated statutory and guidelines ranges and triv-
ial rephrasings of a few sentences. Williams has appealed,
again arguing that Judge Moody did not adequately explain
his decision.
                               II
    “[T]he First Step Act ‘leaves much to the [sentencing]
judge’s own professional judgment,’” Concepcion v. United
States, 597 U.S. 481, 501 (2022) (quoting Chavez-Meza, 138 S. Ct.
at 1961 (cleaned up)), and we therefore review a denial of a
First Step Act motion only for an abuse of discretion, United
States v. Shaw, 957 F.3d 734, 743 (7th Cir. 2020). Notwithstand-
ing the broad discretion that the statute affords, however,
“when deciding a First Step Act motion, district courts bear
the standard obligation to explain their decisions and demon-
strate that they considered the parties’ arguments.” Concep-
cion, 597 U.S at 500–01. There is no hard-and-fast rule for de-
termining whether a reasoned explanation is adequate. In-
stead, “the adequacy of a court’s reasons for imposing a par-
ticular sentence depends on ‘the circumstances of the partic-
ular case.’” Shaw, 957 F.3d at 740 (quoting Chavez-Meza, 138 S.
Ct. at 1965).
   The circumstances of this case warranted a more detailed
explanation than Judge Moody provided. In Williams V, we
expressed some uncertainty about the adequacy of the expla-
nation in the first order, but we did not develop those con-
cerns because “a more substantial error mar[red] Judge
Moody’s analysis.” 32 F.4th at 655 (emphasis added).
No. 23-2313                                                        7

Although the most recent order addresses the procedural de-
ficiencies that led us to vacate the first order, it does not leave
us “assured” that the court “‘relied upon the record’ and ‘con-
sidered the parties’ arguments.’” Shaw, 957 F.3d at 740 (quot-
ing Chavez-Meza, 138 S. Ct. at 1965).
    We note first that there is much to Williams’s argument
that Judge Moody’s latest order relies too heavily on Judge
Lozano’s reasoning from the 2015 ruling on the third post-
conviction motion—an order that relied on a record that was
materially different from the one we now have. We have ob-
served that, owing to the “lengthy statutory penalties at-
tached to crack offenses, a judge presiding over a request for
a sentence reduction under the [First Step] Act [might] not be
the same judge who imposed a defendant’s original sen-
tence.” Id. at 741. When that is so, there is a risk that the earlier
judge’s reasoning “could hamper [the new] judge’s consider-
ation of a defendant’s arguments, because the [latter] judge
[might] be heavily reliant on a previous explanation and rec-
ord that was not created with the current statutory framework
in mind.” Id. (quotation omitted).
    That risk is present here. Judge Lozano issued his post-
conviction ruling based on retroactive guidelines amend-
ments, not the First Step Act. Congress enacted the Act more
than three years after Judge Lozano’s ruling, in an effort to
“reflect updated views about the seriousness of [Williams’s]
offense or criminal history.” Id. at 742. Yet Judge Moody’s or-
der incorporates Judge Lozano’s rationale wholesale and re-
fers repeatedly to it, without explaining how an explanation
issued in 2015 and based on an outdated record and a differ-
ent legal landscape automatically applies to a 2023 motion.
The order offers no reason, for example, for why Williams still
8                                                No. 23-2313

poses a threat to public safety even though he has continued
to maintain near-perfect behavior while serving what Con-
gress now views as an appropriate term of imprisonment for
his offense and is successfully living on home confinement.
The order mentions only “a fact not lost on Judge Lozano”—
namely, Williams’s “serious offenses”—and states that Judge
Moody “sees the situation the same way as Judge Lozano did
in 2015.” Absent at least some explanation showing why
Judge Lozano’s ruling maps onto a motion filed nearly a dec-
ade later under new legislation, we have no way to know
whether Judge Moody considered how the relevant statutory
framework, and the policy judgments that it reflects, applies
to Williams’s current situation.
    These facts are a far cry from the situation the Supreme
Court faced in Chavez-Meza, where a retroactive guidelines
amendment reduced the defendant’s recommended range
from 135 to 168 months, down to 108 to 135 months. 138 S. Ct.
at 1964. Two years after he was sentenced to 135 months (the
previous guidelines minimum), Chavez-Meza requested a re-
duction down to the low end of the revised range, 108
months. The judge reduced his sentence, but only down to 114
months. By way of explanation for this straightforward deci-
sion, the judge simply checked a box certifying that he had
considered the petitioner’s motion and taken the relevant law
into account. That was enough, the Supreme Court held, for
the case at hand. But the Court also included this caution in
its opinion:
      In some cases, it may be sufficient for purposes
      of appellate review that the judge simply relied
      upon the record, while making clear that he or
      she has considered the parties’ arguments and
No. 23-2313                                                     9

       taken account of the § 3553(a) factors, among
       others. But in other cases, more explanation
       may be necessary (depending, perhaps, upon
       the legal arguments raised at sentencing).
138 S. Ct. at 1965 (citation omitted). For the latter cases, the
Court confirmed, the court of appeals “can send the case back
to the district court for a more complete explanation.” Id. And
lest there be any temptation to over-read Chavez-Meza as hold-
ing that a simple box-check is always enough, the Court reit-
erated in Concepcion that “when deciding a First Step Act mo-
tion, district courts bear the standard obligation to explain
their decisions and demonstrate that they considered the par-
ties’ arguments.” 597 U.S. at 500–01. In that connection, the
Court cited Chavez-Meza simply as a decision allowing judges
to exercise their professional judgment about how detailed an
explanation is called for in each individual case. See id. at 501.
    Measured against those standards and taking into account
the fact that we are dealing here with a substantially enhanced
record, not a simple, discretionary choice about which point
within an established guidelines range the judge thinks is
proper, we conclude that the district court’s revised order fell
short. The court did not so much as nod at Williams’s new
arguments, which are based on significant developments
post-dating the now-vacated order. Concepcion holds that
those intervening changes of law and fact may be considered.
Id. at 500. Williams specifically noted in his renewed motion
that his good behavior while incarcerated led the Bureau of
Prisons to place him on home confinement and electronic
monitoring in his brother’s house, and that he has enrolled in
vocational school to become a barber. This new information
shows that Williams’s conditions of confinement have
10                                                   No. 23-2313

materially changed; his arguments to that effect were not friv-
olous points that the district court was free to disregard.
While the court is entitled, as a matter of discretion, to find
Williams’s arguments unpersuasive, on this record it was re-
quired to articulate at least “a brief statement of reasons” to
explain that assessment. Concepcion, 597 U.S. at 501. The or-
der’s “silence” on Williams’s changed circumstances “leaves
us without assurance that the district court considered [Wil-
liams’s] arguments, even if it didn’t ultimately find them per-
suasive.” Shaw, 957 F.3d at 742.
    The government insists that the language of the order is
broad enough to encompass all of Williams’s arguments, old
and new. In support of its position, the government relies pri-
marily upon Chavez-Meza. But, as we already have explained,
both the facts and the issue in Chavez-Meza were uncompli-
cated, and so that case lent itself to the use of a simple check
in a box to signal the district court’s reasoning. But nothing in
Chavez-Meza says this will always suffice, as we know from
the Court’s later decision in Concepcion.
    Judge Moody’s order, entered just a day after Williams re-
newed his motion and well before the government filed any
response, is nearly identical to the one that we vacated in Wil-
liams V. None of the revisions give any indication that Judge
Moody considered Williams’s new arguments, and so, as to
those arguments, the order is effectively silent. Cf. United
States v. Fowowe, 1 F.4th 522, 527 (7th Cir. 2021) (quoting
United States v. Corner, 967 F.3d 662, 666 (7th Cir. 2020) (per
curiam)). Even if we were to view the order as offering a “bare-
bones” explanation, that would amount to a non-exercise of
discretion, which “is itself an abuse of discretion.” Id. (quoting
Corner, 967 F.3d at 666).
No. 23-2313                                                      11

                                III
    It is regrettable that yet another round is necessary in the
district court, but it is. We trust that the district court will ex-
peditiously complete the job, in light of the fact that Williams
will be eligible for supervised release at the end of 2025. We
VACATE the judgment of the district court and REMAND for
further proceedings consistent with this opinion.