Court Opinion

ID: 9583982
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:43:33.614929+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:06:20.655197
License: Public Domain

RENDELL, Circuit Judge,
Concurring:
I agree with Judge Jordan that we can affirm the District Court’s denial of a reduction, but would do so without deciding what Sanchez’s sentence was “based on.” Here, there was a binding plea agreement — binding not only on the parties, but on the court as well — that would prevent the District Court from ever imposing a different sentence. There was no provision in the plea agreement that a later amendment to the guidelines, or consideration of crack / cocaine disparity, would permit re-sentencing. Absent some agreed-upon basis for a different sentence, the plea agreement was binding as a matter of law. Rule 11(c)(1)(C) so states.9
*283The District Court here made it abundantly clear at sentencing that she was bound by the terms of the plea agreement to impose the 120 months’ sentence. Judicial opinions considering this issue have recognized the contractual nature of such agreements, binding the courts as well as the parties. See, e.g., United States v. Peveler, 359 F.3d 369, 379 (6th Cir.2004) (“[T]he plain language of ... Rule 11(c)(1)(C) generally precludes the district court from altering the parties’ agreed sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(C). This conclusion applies despite the retroactivity of a subsequent amendment to a relevant guideline utilized to determine the defendant’s sentence.”); United States v. Dews, 551 F.3d 204, 218 (4th Cir.2008) (Agee, J., dissenting).
I suggest that the exercise of trying to divine what the sentence was “based on” serves little purpose, for, whether or not section 3582(a)(2) permits Sanchez to file a motion, and whether or not this provision states (as it does) that the sentencing court then “may reduce” his sentence, in truth, it cannot. The agreement is the agreement, binding on the District Court without exception applicable here. The filing of the motion is as useless an act as is our agonizing over what the sentence was “based on.” Accordingly, we should affirm because the District Court was without authority to reduce the sentence it imposed on Sanchez by virtue of the binding plea agreement.

. Rule 11(c)(1)(C) specifically states that the government may agree to a specific sentence in a plea agreement, and that this "binds the court once the court accepts the plea agreement.”