Court Opinion

ID: 9365589
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-24 17:00:52.557596+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:15:46.286831
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-12016    Document: 22-1      Date Filed: 01/24/2023   Page: 1 of 12

                                                    [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                           ____________________

                                 No. 22-12016
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                       Plaintiff-Appellee,
        versus
        BRANDON MIQUEL LEWIS,
        a.k.a. Brandon Lewis,
        a.k.a. Brandon M. Lewis,

                                                    Defendant-Appellant.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Northern District of Georgia
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        2                        Opinion of the Court                    22-12016

                    D.C. Docket No. 1:03-cr-00433-TWT-JKL-1
                           ____________________

        Before ROSENBAUM, NEWSOM, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.
        PER CURIAM:
               Brandon Miquel Lewis, a federal prisoner proceeding pro se,
        appeals the district court’s denial of his motion for a reduced sen-
        tence under § 404 of the First Step Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-391,
        132 Stat. 5194, 5222 (2018). 1 The judgment of conviction states that
        Lewis was sentenced under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A)(iii), which, if
        true, means he is eligible for a sentence reduction under the First
        Step Act. But the record makes clear that the citation to
        § 841(b)(1)(A)(iii) was simply a clerical error and that Lewis was ac-
        tually convicted and sentenced under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C). Be-
        cause the Supreme Court in Terry v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 1858
        (2021), recently held that offenses subject to § 841(b)(1)(C)’s penal-
        ties are not eligible for a sentence reduction under the First Step
        Act, we affirm the denial of Lewis’s motion.
               We also reject Lewis’s challenge, raised for the first time on
        appeal, to the legality of his sentence for violating 18 U.S.C.
        § 922(g). Lewis’s sentence on that conviction was enhanced based
        on prior convictions under the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18

        1 The  government has moved for summary affirmance and for a stay of the
        briefing schedule. We DENY the government’s motion but GRANT the gov-
        ernment’s alternative request to treat that motion as its responsive brief.
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        22-12016               Opinion of the Court                        3

        U.S.C. § 924(e). The district court was not authorized to grant
        Lewis the relief he sought, and he cannot establish plain error, re-
        gardless. We affirm.
                                         I.
               In 2004, a grand jury charged Lewis with one count of pos-
        session of a firearm after a felony conviction, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1)
        (Count 1), one count of possession of cocaine base with intent to
        distribute, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) (Count 2), and one count of posses-
        sion of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime, id.
        § 924(c) (Count 3). Before trial, the government filed notice of its
        intent to rely on four prior felony drug convictions to enhance
        Lewis’s sentence. See id. § 851(a).
                Lewis pled guilty to Counts 1 and 2 under a written plea
        agreement, and Count 3 was dismissed. According to the plea
        agreement, and confirmed by the parties at the plea hearing, Count
        1 was subject to a statutory range of fifteen years to life, based on
        the armed-career-criminal enhancement, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), while
        Count 2 carried a thirty-year maximum and no mandatory mini-
        mum. The plea agreement did not specify the quantity of cocaine
        base involved in Count 2, nor did the government list drug quan-
        tity as an element of that offense during the plea colloquy. It is
        undisputed that Count 2 involved less than two grams of cocaine
        base.
             Lewis’s presentence investigation report (“PSR”) recom-
        mended a guideline imprisonment range of 188 to 235 months.
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        4                      Opinion of the Court                 22-12016

        The PSR initially applied a base offense level of 18 for Count 2
        based on a quantity of less than two grams of cocaine base. But
        Lewis’s final guideline range was instead determined by either the
        career-offender or armed-career-criminal guidelines, minus a re-
        duction for acceptance of responsibility, which generated the same
        total offense level of 31. See U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1(b)(2) (offense level
        34); id. § 4B1.4(b)(3)(A) (same). Lewis qualified for the highest
        criminal-history category of VI based on both prior convictions and
        his career-offender status. As relevant here, the PSR also stated that
        Count 2—which it defined as “Possession with Intent to Distribute
        Less Than Two Grams of Cocaine Base, 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1),
        841(b)(1)(A)(iii), and 851,” a Class B felony—was subject to a max-
        imum penalty of thirty years and no mandatory minimum.
               The district court adopted the PSR’s guideline calculations
        without objection and then sentenced Lewis to 188 months on
        each count, to run concurrently, followed by a five-year term of
        supervised release. Before imposing sentence, the court stated,
        consistent with the plea agreement and the PSR, that the statutory
        range for Count 2 was up to thirty years in prison, with no manda-
        tory minimum. The judgment memorializing the sentence re-
        flected that Lewis was convicted and sentenced under “21 USC §§
        841(a)(1), 841(b)(A)(iii) and 852” for “Possession with Intent to Dis-
        tribute Less than two grams of Cocaine Base.”
               In December 2015, Lewis filed a motion under 28 U.S.C.
        § 2255 arguing that his ACCA-enhanced sentence was illegal be-
        cause, in his view, recent Supreme Court decisions meant his prior
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        22-12016               Opinion of the Court                        5

        convictions no longer qualified as valid predicate offenses. The dis-
        trict court denied the motion as untimely.
               In August 2021, following Lewis’s release from prison in
        June 2019, he was found in possession of approximately 100 pills
        containing fentanyl. The district court revoked Lewis’s supervised
        release and sentenced him to an additional 60 months in prison.
        The court found that a 60-month sentence, the statutory maxi-
        mum, was appropriate, given the dangerousness of Lewis’s new
        criminal conduct, his criminal history, and his failure to accept re-
        sponsibility. We affirmed. See United States v. Lewis, No. 21-
        12785, 2022 WL 797445 (11th Cir. Mar. 16, 2022).
               Soon after we affirmed his revocation sentence, Lewis filed
        a motion for a sentence reduction under § 404(b) of the First Step
        Act. The government opposed the motion, contending that the
        Fair Sentencing Act had no effect on his statutory range because he
        was actually sentenced under § 841(b)(1)(C), not § 841(b)(1)(A) as
        referenced in the judgment.
               The district court denied Lewis’s First Step Act motion. It
        agreed with the government that Lewis was not eligible for a re-
        duction because he had been convicted and sentenced under
        § 841(b)(1)(C), which was not affected by the Fair Sentencing Act.
        The court also found that Lewis’s request was moot because, re-
        gardless of whether the court were able to grant it, it would have
        no effect on his identical sentence for the § 922(g) firearm offense.
        Finally, noting that any reduction was discretionary, the court
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        6                      Opinion of the Court                22-12016

        determined that the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) sentencing factors did not
        warrant relief.
                                         II.
               We review de novo whether a district court had the author-
        ity to modify a term of imprisonment. United States v. Jones, 962
        F.3d 1290, 1296 (11th Cir. 2020). The court “has no inherent au-
        thority to modify a sentence; it may do so only when authorized
        by a statute or rule.” United States v. Puentes, 803 F.3d 597, 606
        (11th Cir. 2015). The First Step Act empowers district courts to
        modify criminal sentences as provided in the Act. United States v.
        Edwards, 997 F.3d 1115, 1120 (11th Cir. 2021).
               Section 404(b) of the First Step Act permits district court to
        reduce “a sentence for a covered offense.” First Step Act, § 404(b).
        A defendant has a “covered offense” if certain provisions of the Fair
        Sentencing Act of 2010 modified the statutory penalties for his of-
        fense. Id., § 404(a); Terry, 141 S. Ct. at 1862.
                In relevant part, the Fair Sentencing Act amended 21 U.S.C.
        § 841(b) to reduce the penalties for offenses involving cocaine base
        (crack cocaine). See Pub. L. 111-220, 124 Stat 2372 (2010). Section
        841(b)(1) defines three penalty tiers for offenses involving posses-
        sion with intent to distribute crack cocaine. The first two penalty
        tiers, which carry mandatory minimums, are triggered by certain
        drug quantities. Before 2010, 50 grams of crack cocaine triggered
        the highest penalties in subparagraph (A), with a mandatory mini-
        mum of at least 10 years, 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A)(iii) (2004), while
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        22-12016               Opinion of the Court                         7

        5 grams of crack cocaine triggered the intermediate penalties in
        subparagraph (B), with a mandatory minimum of at least 5 years,
        id. § 841(b)(1)(B)(iii) (2004). The Fair Sentencing Act changed the
        threshold quantities in these provisions to 280 and 28 grams, re-
        spectively. Fair Sentencing Act, § 2. But it made no changes to the
        third tier of penalties in subparagraph (C), which does not depend
        on drug quantity and has no mandatory minimum, 21 U.S.C.
        § 841(b)(1)(C). See Terry, 141 S. Ct. at 1862–63 (stating that “quan-
        tity has never been an element” under subparagraph (C)). The First
        Step Act made these reduced penalties available for the first time
        to defendants, like Lewis, who were sentenced before the Fair Sen-
        tencing Act’s enactment. See Dorsey v. United States, 567 U.S. 260,
        263–64 (2012).
               In Terry, the Supreme Court held that the “Fair Sentencing
        Act modified the statutory penalties only for subparagraph (A) and
        (B) crack offenses—that is, the offenses that triggered mandatory
        minimum-penalties”—and not subparagraph (C) offenses. Terry,
        141 S. Ct. at 1863–64. Because the Fair Sentencing Act did not mod-
        ify the penalties for subparagraph (C), convictions under it are not
        “covered offense[s],” and a person convicted and sentenced under
        that provision is not eligible for a reduction under the First Step
        Act. Id. at 1862–63.
                                         III.
               The district court correctly concluded that Lewis was not
        eligible for a sentence reduction under § 404(b) of the First Step Act
        because his offense did not trigger a mandatory minimum. To be
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        8                         Opinion of the Court                    22-12016

        sure, Lewis’s criminal judgment—mirroring the PSR—reflects that
        he was convicted and sentenced under § 841(b)(1)(A)(iii), which or-
        dinarily counts as a “covered offense.” Terry, 141 S. Ct. at 1863–
        64. But the record as a whole leaves no doubt that the judgment’s
        citation to subparagraph (A) was simply a clerical error, and that
        Lewis was actually convicted and sentenced under subparagraph
        (C) instead. That means his is not a “covered offense” and so is not
        eligible for First Step Act relief. See id.
               Here, the record clearly establishes that Lewis’s Count 2 of-
        fense was not subject to the higher penalties in subparagraphs (A)
        or (B). If those penalties had been at play, Lewis would have faced
        a mandatory minimum of at least five years. Yet throughout the
        relevant proceedings below—in the plea agreement, during the
        plea colloquy, and at sentencing—the parties and the district court
        treated Count 2 as subject to a statutory range of zero to thirty
        years. That range, in turn, tracks the enhanced recidivist penalties
        in subparagraph (C). Plus, Lewis did not admit to possessing any
        particular quantity of cocaine base, which is an element of offenses
        under subparagraphs (A) and (B), but not subparagraph (C). 2
        Terry, 141 S. Ct. at 1862–63. And the judgment, the PSR, and the
        plea colloquy all reflect that Lewis was held accountable for less
        than two grams of crack cocaine, an amount insufficient to trigger

        2 See Alleyne v. United States, 570 U.S. 99, 103 (2013) (“[A]ny fact that in-
        creases the mandatory minimum is an ‘element’ that must be submitted to the
        jury.”)
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        22-12016                Opinion of the Court                          9

        the higher penalties in subparagraphs (A) and (B). We therefore
        hold, contrary to the judgment’s erroneous citation, that Lewis was
        convicted and sentenced under subparagraph (C).
               Because the Fair Sentencing Act did not modify the statutory
        penalties for subparagraph (C) offenses, Lewis was not convicted
        of a covered offense, and he is not eligible for a sentence reduction
        under the First Step Act. Terry, 141 S. Ct. at 1863–64. The cases
        Lewis cites in support of his argument to the contrary predate
        Terry and Terry’s reasoning directly abrogates them. Id. Accord-
        ingly, the district court properly found that Lewis was not eligible
        for a sentence reduction. We affirm on this ground without ad-
        dressing the court’s other reasons for denial.
                Although we affirm the sentence, we remand to the district
        court solely for the limited purpose of correcting typographical er-
        rors in the judgment. See United States v. Massey, 443 F.3d 814,
        822 (11th Cir. 2006) (“We may sua sponte raise the issue of clerical
        errors in the judgment and remand with instructions that the dis-
        trict court correct the errors.”); United States v. Wimbush, 103 F.3d
        968, 970 (11th Cir. 1997) (remanding for the limited purpose of cor-
        recting a typographical error in the judgment). As we just ex-
        plained, the judgment incorrectly lists § 841(b)(1)(A)(iii) as the basis
        for Lewis’s conviction and sentence, when the record makes clear
        that § 841(b)(1)(C) is the correct provision. The judgment also mis-
        takenly cites 21 U.S.C. § 852, concerning international agreements,
        instead of the correct 21 U.S.C. § 851, relating to enhancements
        based on prior convictions.
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        10                      Opinion of the Court                  22-12016

                                          IV.
               For the first time on appeal, Lewis also argues that, after the
        First Step Act, his prior drug convictions no longer qualify as valid
        predicate “serious drug offenses” supporting the ACCA sentence
        enhancement for his § 922(g) conviction. See 18 U.S.C. § 924(e).
               In support, Lewis relies on § 401 of the First Step Act, which
        changed the type of prior offenses that can trigger some enhanced
        penalties in 21 U.S.C. § 841(b) from “felony drug offenses” to “seri-
        ous drug felonies.” First Step Act, § 401(a), 132 Stat. at 5220–21. It
        also defined “serious drug felony” to mean “an offense described in
        section 924(e)(2)”—that is, the ACCA’s definition of “serious drug
        offense”—“for which (A) the offender served a term of imprison-
        ment of more than 12 months; and (B) the offender’s release from
        any term of imprisonment was within 15 years of the commence-
        ment of the instant offense.” Id. In Lewis’s view, these two tem-
        poral requirements for “serious drug felonies” under § 841 also ap-
        ply to “serious drug offenses” under the ACCA, such that he now
        lacks qualifying prior convictions.
                 Because this argument was not raised below, we review for
        plain error only. United States v. Innocent, 977 F.3d 1077, 1081
        (11th Cir. 2020). “An error is plain if it is ‘clear’ or ‘obvious,’—that
        is, if the explicit language of a statute or rule or precedent from the
        Supreme Court or this Court directly resolves the issue.” Id.
        (cleaned up). Lewis cannot show plain error.
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        22-12016                Opinion of the Court                        11

               Here, the district court lacked the authority to grant relief
        from Lewis’s ACCA-enhanced sentence. See Puentes, 803 F.3d at
        605–06 (stating that district courts may modify a sentence “only
        when authorized by a statute or rule”). For starters, no relief was
        authorized under § 404, as outlined above, because Lewis’s sen-
        tence for unlawfully possessing a firearm under § 922(g) has noth-
        ing to do with the Fair Sentencing Act. In addition, nothing in § 401
        authorizes courts to apply its amendments to sentences imposed
        well before the amendments became law. See First Step Act,
        § 401(c) (stating that the amendments apply only if “a sentence for
        the offense has not been imposed” as of the date of the Act’s enact-
        ment).
                Rather, Lewis’s claim falls within the general scope of collat-
        eral review under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, as he seems to acknowledge in
        his briefing. But because Lewis previously filed a § 2255 motion
        that was denied in 2016, it appears he would be subject to re-
        strictions on second or successive motions, including the need to
        request and obtain prior authorization from this Court before rais-
        ing the claim in the district court. See 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h); Boyd v.
        United States, 754 F.3d 1298, 1301 (11th Cir. 2014) (noting that a
        “second or successive” § 2255 motion “must be certified by the
        court of appeals before the district court may reach the merits of
        the motion”).
                                          V.
               For these reasons, we affirm the denial of Lewis’s motion for
        a sentence reduction under § 404(b) the First Step Act. We remand
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        12                     Opinion of the Court               22-12016

        solely for the limited purpose of correcting the judgment to reflect
        the crime for which Lewis was actually convicted and sentenced:
        possession with intent to distribute cocaine base under 21 U.S.C.
        §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C), and 851. See Massey, 443 F.3d at 822; Wim-
        bush, 103 F.3d at 970.
               AFFIRMED. REMANDED for the limited purpose of cor-
        recting clerical errors in the judgment.