Court Opinion

ID: 9369065
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-07 20:00:58.136906+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:12.704873
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 21-13790    Document: 42-1     Date Filed: 02/07/2023   Page: 1 of 8

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                          ____________________

                                No. 21-13790
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                      Plaintiff-Appellee,
       versus
       DAVID WILLIAMS,

                                                  Defendant-Appellant.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Middle District of Florida
                  D.C. Docket No. 6:01-cr-00058-MSS-GJK-1
                          ____________________
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       2                          Opinion of the Court                  21-13790

       Before ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, and ANDERSON, Circuit
       Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
               David Williams appeals the district court’s partial grant and
       partial denial of his motion to reduce sentence under the First Step
       Act 1 and denial of his motion for reconsideration. The govern-
       ment moved to dismiss the appeal as untimely, arguing that Wil-
       liams’s motion for reconsideration did not toll the time to appeal
       as the grant of an 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c) motion can only be challenged
       through a Rule 35(a) motion, which does not toll the time to ap-
       peal, for which it cited United States v. Phillips, 597 F.3d 1190 (11th
       Cir. 2000). We carried with the case the issue of whether the
       timely motion for reconsideration tolled the time to appeal and de-
       cide it first because it affects our jurisdiction.
               In a criminal case, a defendant’s notice of appeal must be
       filed in the district court within 14 days after entry of the judgment
       or order being appealed. Fed. R. App. P. 4(b)(1)(A)(i). The deadline
       under Rule 4(b) for a defendant to file a notice of appeal in a crim-
       inal case is not jurisdictional. See United States v. Lopez, 562 F.3d
       1309, 1313 (11th Cir. 2009). Instead, the filing deadline is consid-
       ered a claims processing rule, and the government can waive an
       objection to an untimely notice of appeal in a criminal case. Id. at

       1 First Step Act of 2018, Pub. L. 115-391, 132 Stat. 5194.
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       21-13790               Opinion of the Court                         3

       1312 13. Nevertheless, if the government raises the issue of timeli-
       ness, then we “must apply the time limits of Rule 4(b).” Id. at 1313
       14.
               Motions for reconsideration allow courts to “reconsider [a]
       question decided in the case in order to effect an alteration of the
       rights adjudicated.” United States v. Dieter, 429 U.S. 6, 8 9 (1976)
       (quotation marks omitted). Although a motion for reconsideration
       in a criminal action is not expressly authorized by the Federal Rules
       of Criminal Procedure, the filing of such a motion tolls the time for
       filing a notice of appeal and the time begins to run anew following
       disposition of the motion. United States v. Vicaria, 963 F.2d 1412,
       1413-14 (11th Cir. 1992). A motion for reconsideration in a criminal
       case must be filed within the period of time allotted for filing a no-
       tice of appeal in order to extend the time for filing the notice of
       appeal. Id. at 1414. Thus, a criminal defendant must file a motion
       for reconsideration within 14 days of the order or judgment. Id.
       However, a motion filed under Rule 35(a) does not toll the time to
       appeal. Fed. R. App. P. 4(b)(5).
              District courts lack inherent authority to modify a term of
       imprisonment but may do so to the extent that a statute or Rule 35
       expressly permits. 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(B). A party files a Fed. R.
       Crim. P. 35(a) motion when they seek to “correct a sentence that
       resulted from arithmetical, technical, or other clear error.” Fed. R.
       Crim. P. 35(a). In Phillips, the government filed a motion for re-
       consideration of the district court’s order granting a sentence re-
       duction, asking to correct the sentence that the court imposed
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       4                      Opinion of the Court                 21-13790

       based on an error during the calculation of the Guidelines range for
       the sentence reduction. 597 F.3d at 1193. We held that a district
       court only has the authority to modify a sentence through the nar-
       row authority granted under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c), which does not
       provide for a motion for reconsideration. Phillips, 597 F.3d at 1194
       97. We further held that, when the district court grants a motion
       and modifies the original sentence, the strictures of § 3582(c) apply.
       Id. at 1197-99. When the government argued that the Supreme
       Court and this Court have permitted motions for reconsideration
       in criminal cases, we distinguished those cases because: (1) those
       decisions “did not involve a motion to correct an imprisonment
       sentence and therefore they did not need to address the unambig-
       uous language in § 3582(c)(1)(B) which prohibits a district court
       from modifying an imprisonment sentence except as ‘expressly
       permitted by statute or by Rule 35’”; and (2) § 3582(c)(1)(B) does
       not provide for a motion for reconsideration as an exception to the
       sentence modification prohibition. Id. at 1200 (emphasis in origi-
       nal). In Llewlyn, we determined that the denial of a motion to re-
       duce sentence did not necessarily implicate Rule 35(a). United
       States v. Llewlyn, 879 F.3d 1291, 1294 (11th Cir. 2018). As in
       Llewlyn, Williams did not ask the district court to “correct a sen-
       tence that resulted from arithmetical, technical, or other clear er-
       ror.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 35(a).
              The First Step Act permits district courts to reduce a previ-
       ously imposed sentence “as if sections 2 and 3 of the Fair Sentenc-
       ing Act . . . were in effect at the time the covered offense was
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       21-13790               Opinion of the Court                         5

       committed.” First Step Act § 404(b). Listed under “limitations,” a
       court cannot entertain a successive motion under the First Step Act
       if the defendant’s sentence was either imposed or previously re-
       duced in accordance with the Fair Sentencing Act or if a prior mo-
       tion under the First Step Act had previously been denied “after a
       complete review of the motion on the merits.” Id. In United States
       v. Edwards, we determined that § 404 of the First Step Act was its
       “own procedural vehicle” differing from § 3582(c), holding that §
       404 was self-contained and self-executing. 997 F.3d 1115, 1119
       (11th Cir. 2021), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 509 (2021). We noted that
       the language in the two statutes differed because the First Step Act
       authorized a reduction in “sentence” while § 3582(c) authorized a
       modification of a “term of imprisonment. Id. at 1118. We ex-
       plained that the plain terms in § 404 of the First Step Act broadly
       authorize district courts to reduce sentences under certain circum-
       stances while § 3582(c) grants narrow authority to modify terms of
       imprisonment. Id. at 1118 19.
               Here, Phillips is inapplicable because the statutory bar under
       18 U.S.C. § 3582(c) was not triggered, as the district court reduced
       Williams’s sentence pursuant to its authority under § 404 of the
       First Step Act rather than § 3582(c). Moreover, nothing in the First
       Step Act confines its broad authority to the strictures of Rule 35(a).
       Therefore, Williams’s timely motion for reconsideration tolled the
       time to appeal. As such, the government’s motion to dismiss is
       DENIED.
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       6                         Opinion of the Court                        21-13790

              We now turn to Williams’s substantive argument. He ar-
       gues that the district court erred in relying on United States v. Den-
       son2 to support its determination that it lacked authority to reduce
       his sentence. The government moved for summary affirmance,
       arguing that he forfeited his challenge to the district court’s partial
       denial of his underlying motion by failing to challenge on appeal
       the court’s alternative determination that, even if it had authority
       to reduce his term of imprisonment, it would decline to do so as a
       matter of discretion. It asserts that he also forfeited any challenge
       to the denial of his motion for reconsideration by failing to chal-
       lenge that order on appeal.
              We review de novo whether a district court had the author-
       ity to modify a term of imprisonment. United States v. Taylor, 982
       F.3d 1295, 1298 (11th Cir. 2020). We review the denial of an eligible
       defendant’s request for a reduced sentence under the First Step Act
       for abuse of the district court’s “broad discretion.” See Concepcion
       v. United States, 142 S. Ct. 2389, 2404 (2022).
              District courts lack inherent authority to modify a term of
       imprisonment but may do so to the extent that a statute expressly
       permits. 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(B). The Fair Sentencing Act, 3 en-
       acted in 2010, amended 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(b)(1) and 960(b) to reduce
       the disparity between sentences for crack and powder cocaine

       2 United States v. Denson, 963 F.3d 1080 (11th Cir. 2020), abrogated on other
       grounds by Concepcion v. United States, 142 S. Ct. 2389 (2022).
       3 Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-220, 124 Stat. 2372.
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       21-13790                Opinion of the Court                         7

       offenses. Dorsey v. United States, 567 U.S. 260, 268-69 (2012). The
       subsequent First Step Act retroactively applies the statutory penal-
       ties for “covered offenses” under the Fair Sentencing Act. See First
       Step Act § 404(a). “Section 404(c) of the First Step Act confers par-
       ticular discretion, clarifying that the Act does not require a court to
       reduce any sentence.” Concepcion, 142 S. Ct. at 2404 (quotation
       marks omitted).
              Where a defendant does not offer any argument regarding
       an issue on appeal, he is deemed to have forfeited that issue. United
       States v. Campbell, 26 F.4th 860, 873 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc)
       (holding that issues not raised in an initial brief are deemed for-
       feited and will not be addressed absent extraordinary circum-
       stances), cert. denied, 143 S. Ct. 95 (2022). A lower court’s “judg-
       ment is due to be affirmed” when an appellant fails to challenge
       one of the grounds on which the lower court made its decision.
       United States v. King, 751 F.3d 1268, 1277 (11th Cir. 2014) (quota-
       tion marks omitted).
              Here, Williams forfeited his challenge to the district court’s
       denial of his § 404 motion because he failed to challenge the court’s
       discretionary decision not to reduce his sentence on which the
       court partially based its denial. Because Williams failed to chal-
       lenge one of the grounds on which the lower court made its deci-
       sion, the court’s judgment is due to be affirmed. Further, Williams
       also forfeited any challenge to the district court’s denial of his mo-
       tion for reconsideration because he failed to challenge that order
       on appeal.
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       8                        Opinion of the Court                    21-13790

              AFFIRMED. 4

       4 The government’s motion to stay the briefing schedule is denied as moot.