Court Opinion

ID: 9388191
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-19 21:01:13.227169+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:18.686896
License: Public Domain

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                                             UNPUBLISHED

                               UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                               No. 22-7070

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                             Plaintiff - Appellee,

                      v.

        MICHAEL PAUL PUZEY, a/k/a Big Pete,

                             Defendant - Appellant.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, at
        Martinsburg. Gina M. Groh, District Judge. (3:00-cr-00057-GMG-16)

        Submitted: April 10, 2023                                         Decided: April 18, 2023

        Before KING and AGEE, Circuit Judges, and KEENAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

        Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.

        Michael Paul Puzey, Appellant Pro Se. Jennifer Therese Conklin, OFFICE OF THE
        UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Wheeling, West Virginia, for Appellee.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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        PER CURIAM:

               Michael Paul Puzey, a federal prisoner, appeals the district court’s order on remand

        denying both his motion for compassionate release pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A),

        as amended by the First Step Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-391, § 603(b)(1), 132 Stat.

        5194, 5239, and his reinstated motion for compassionate release. Puzey moved for

        compassionate release based on his health conditions and the COVID-19 pandemic. In

        support of his request for early release, Puzey pointed to significant evidence of his

        rehabilitation during his more than 20 years in federal prison, and he asserted that his risk

        of recidivism had drastically decreased based on his age. The district court assumed that

        Puzey had established “extraordinary and compelling reasons” for compassionate release,

        18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i), but denied Puzey’s motion after stating that it had considered

        the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors and that Puzey remained “a danger to the safety of any

        other person or to the community” under U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 1B1.13,

        p.s. (2018). For the reasons explained below, we vacate and remand.

               We review for abuse of discretion the district court’s denial of Puzey’s request for

        compassionate release. United States v. Bethea, 54 F.4th 826, 831 (4th Cir. 2022). “A

        district court abuses its discretion when it acts arbitrarily or irrationally, fails to follow

        statutory requirements, fails to consider judicially recognized factors constraining its

        exercise of discretion, relies on erroneous factual or legal premises, or commits an error of

        law.” Id. (cleaned up).

               When deciding whether to reduce a defendant’s sentence based on “extraordinary

        and compelling” circumstances under § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i), a district court generally

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        proceeds in three steps. United States v. High, 997 F.3d 181, 185-86 (4th Cir. 2021). First,

        the district court decides whether “extraordinary and compelling” circumstances in fact

        support a sentence reduction. 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i). Second, the district court

        considers whether granting a sentence reduction is “consistent with applicable policy

        statements issued by the United States Sentencing Commission.”                     18 U.S.C.

        § 3582(c)(1)(A). Because the Sentencing Commission’s policy statement applicable to

        defendant-filed motions for compassionate release has yet to take effect, the district court

        is “empowered to consider any extraordinary and compelling reason for release that a

        defendant might raise.” United States v. McCoy, 981 F.3d 271, 284 (4th Cir. 2020)

        (cleaned up). If the defendant passes the first two steps, the district court then considers at

        the third step whether the § 3553(a) factors, “to the extent that they are applicable,” favor

        early release. 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A).

               While expressing some doubt, the district court assumed that Puzey passed the first

        step and proceeded to the second and third steps. The entirety of the district court’s analysis

        at the latter two steps, however, consisted of the court listing several offenses for which

        Puzey had been arrested in the 1990s—only a few of which resulted in convictions—and

        a determination based on those arrests and convictions that Puzey presented a danger to

        another person or to the community under USSG § 1B1.13 and thus could not be awarded

        compassionate release.

               We are satisfied that the district court’s analysis contains three errors that, when

        considered in combination, amount to an abuse of discretion and require a vacatur of its

        order. First, the district court treated the policy statement applicable to compassionate

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        release motions filed by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, USSG § 1B1.13, as dispositive of

        Puzey’s defendant-filed motion when it ruled that Puzey could not attain relief because he

        was a danger to the safety of another person or the community. See United States v.

        Malone, 57 F.4th 167, 174 (4th Cir. 2023) (“[A] district court must not entirely rely upon

        § 1B1.13 when considering a defendant’s motion for compassionate release.”); United

        States v. Kibble, 992 F.3d 326, 330-31 (4th Cir. 2021) (holding that district court

        incorrectly ruled that USSG § 1B1.13 was “applicable” to defendant-filed motion for

        compassionate release).

               Second, the only factor that the district court explicitly considered in its analysis

        after the first step was Puzey’s criminal history before his federal convictions. The district

        court thus seems to have improperly assigned controlling weight to a single factor in

        denying compassionate release. See United States v. Hampton, 441 F.3d 284, 288 (4th Cir.

        2006) (explaining that “excessive weight” should not be given to any single § 3553(a)

        factor (internal quotation marks omitted)).

               Third, we conclude that the district court’s analysis does not “allow for meaningful

        appellate review” because the court failed to consider Puzey’s most persuasive arguments

        and evidence supporting early release. High, 997 F.3d at 190 (internal quotation marks

        omitted). Although a district court resolving a compassionate release motion need not

        acknowledge and address each of the defendant’s arguments, id. at 188-89, “the record as

        a whole must satisfy this Court that the judge considered the parties’ arguments and had a

        reasoned basis for exercising [her] own legal decisionmaking authority,” Malone, 57 F.4th

        at 176 (cleaned up). The record in this case does not establish that the district court even

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        considered Puzey’s significant evidence of rehabilitation, which he cited in his

        compassionate release motion and reinstated motion for compassionate release. * See

        United States v. Gutierrez, No. 21-7092, 2023 WL 245001, at *4 (4th Cir. Jan. 18, 2023)

        (explaining that district court erred by failing to address defendant’s significant evidence

        of rehabilitation before denying compassionate release). Nor does the record show that the

        district court considered Puzey’s argument about his reduced risk of recidivism due to his

        age, which countered the court’s only identified concern about Puzey’s early release, i.e.,

        his future dangerousness.

               In light of those errors, we vacate the district court’s order denying Puzey’s

        compassionate release motion and reinstated motion for compassionate release and remand

        for further proceedings. By this disposition, we express no view on the ultimate merits of

        Puzey’s request for compassionate release. We dispense with oral argument because the

        facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and

        argument would not aid the decisional process.

                                                                    VACATED AND REMANDED

               *
                 While Puzey did not attach his rehabilitation evidence to his compassionate release
        motion or reinstated motion for compassionate release, that evidence was already in the
        record, and Puzey referenced that evidence in both motions.

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