Court Opinion

ID: 9930681
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-07 16:02:17.023699+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:24:35.700089
License: Public Domain

Appellate Case: 23-7054     Document: 010110996243      Date Filed: 02/07/2024    Page: 1

                                                                                  FILED
                                                                      United States Court of Appeals
                       UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                         Tenth Circuit

                              FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT                        February 7, 2024
                          _________________________________
                                                                         Christopher M. Wolpert
                                                                             Clerk of Court
  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

        Plaintiff - Appellee,

  v.                                                         No. 23-7054
                                                  (D.C. No. 6:98-CR-00010-RAW-1)
  JOSHUA PRICE, JR.,                                         (E.D. Okla.)

        Defendant - Appellant.
                       _________________________________

                              ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
                          _________________________________

 Before BACHARACH, KELLY, and MORITZ, Circuit Judges.
                  _________________________________

       Joshua Price appeals the district court’s amended judgment modifying his

 sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(B) and § 404(b) of the First Step Act of 2018,

 Pub. L. No. 115-391, 132 Stat. 5194, 5222. Defense counsel filed an Anders brief and

 moved to withdraw as counsel. See Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 744 (1967)

 (stating that if after “conscientious examination” of record, counsel finds appeal

 “wholly frivolous,” then counsel may move to withdraw and contemporaneously file

       *
         After examining the Anders brief, pro se brief, and appellate record, this
 panel has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in
 the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G).
 The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and
 judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res
 judicata, and collateral estoppel. But it may be cited for its persuasive value. See
 Fed. R. App. P. 32.1(a); 10th Cir. R. 32.1(A).
Appellate Case: 23-7054    Document: 010110996243        Date Filed: 02/07/2024      Page: 2

 “brief referring to anything in the record that might arguably support the appeal”).

 Price filed a pro se response, and the government declined to file a brief. After

 reviewing the Anders brief and Price’s pro se response and conducting a full

 examination of the record, we conclude that the appeal is wholly frivolous. See

 United States v. Calderon, 428 F.3d 928, 930 (10th Cir. 2006). We therefore dismiss

 the appeal and grant defense counsel’s motion to withdraw. See Anders, 386 U.S.

 at 744.

       As relevant here, Price filed a motion in 2019 asking the district court to

 reduce his multiple life sentences for seven drug counts under the First Step Act. 1

 The district court denied the motion, and Price appealed. We then reversed and

 remanded, noting that Price was “eligible for a sentence reduction under the First

 Step Act[,] and . . . the district court may actually reduce his sentence.” United States

 v. Price (Price III), 44 F.4th 1288, 1297 (10th Cir. 2022). On remand, the district

 court lowered each of the drug sentences to the statutory maximum of 20 years. See

 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C). But the district court rejected Price’s request to run these

       1
          Previously, in Price’s direct appeal, we held that although Price’s life
 sentences for the drug counts were invalid under Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S.
 466 (2000), that plain error did not affect Price’s substantial rights because the
 district court would have been required, under a guideline that was mandatory at the
 time, to run the seven 20-year terms consecutively (along with sentences for several
 other counts) effectively resulting in a life sentence of 208 years. United States v.
 Price (Price I), 265 F.3d 1097, 1107–08 (10th Cir. 2001), abrogated in part by
 United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005). And in a later appeal, we held that
 Price did not qualify for a sentence reduction based on a lowered sentencing range
 for offenses involving particular amounts of cocaine base because his range was
 calculated based on a murder cross-reference, not drug quantity. United States v.
 Price (Price II), 486 F. App’x 727, 732 (10th Cir. 2012).
                                             2
Appellate Case: 23-7054    Document: 010110996243         Date Filed: 02/07/2024     Page: 3

 sentences concurrently and instead imposed them consecutively, resulting in a 140-

 year sentence. 2 In so doing, the district court assessed Price’s arguments and

 determined that the sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) supported a sentence of

 this length.

        Defense counsel now asserts on appeal that there is no nonfrivolous basis on

 which to challenge the district court’s ruling. When adjudicating sentence-reduction

 motions under the First Step Act, district courts “may consider . . . intervening

 changes of law . . . or changes of fact.” Concepcion v. United States, 597 U.S. 481,

 486 (2022). And they “bear the standard obligation to explain their decisions and

 demonstrate that they considered the parties’ arguments.” Id. at 500–01. But district

 courts need not “‘expressly rebut each argument’ made by the parties.” Id. at 501

 (quoting United States v. Maxwell, 991 F.3d 685, 694 (6th Cir. 2021)). And our

 review of a district court’s decision on a motion for sentence reduction is deferential.

 See id. “Other than legal errors in recalculating” a defendant’s advisory sentencing

 range under the United States Sentencing Guidelines (U.S.S.G. or the Guidelines),

 “appellate review should not be overly searching.” Id.

        Here, we agree with defense counsel that there is no nonfrivolous argument

 that the district court erred in calculating Price’s Guidelines sentencing range or

 acted outside its discretion by electing to sentence Price to the statutory maximum of

 20 years on each drug count and running those sentences consecutively. The district

        The district court did run Price’s sentences on his other convictions
        2

 concurrently to one another and to the 140-year sentence.
                                            3
Appellate Case: 23-7054    Document: 010110996243         Date Filed: 02/07/2024    Page: 4

 court correctly calculated Price’s Guidelines range as life in prison, based on a total

 offense level of 43 (assessed via a cross-reference to the guideline for murder) and a

 criminal-history category of II. It also correctly determined that § 841(b)(1)(C)’s

 20-year statutory maximum applied to Price’s seven drug convictions. See Price I,

 265 F.3d at 1108 (stating that Price “should have been sentenced under

 § 841(b)(1)(C), which provides for a maximum sentence of [20] years for each of

 [the] seven narcotics convictions”); Price III, 44 F.4th at 1293 (noting that Price must

 “be sentenced under § 841(b)(1)(C) with a maximum sentence of [20] years because

 his superseding indictment contained no drug quantity”). And the district court’s

 decision to run those sentences consecutively was in keeping with U.S.S.G.

 § 5G1.2(c), which advises district courts to impose consecutive sentences “[i]f the

 sentence imposed on the count carrying the highest statutory maximum is less than

 the total punishment.” Here, the total punishment—meaning Price’s advisory

 sentencing range under the Guidelines—was life in prison, so the district court did

 not abuse its discretion in following the advisory guideline and running the 20-year

 terms consecutively instead of concurrently.

       Price argues, in his pro se response, that the district court abused its discretion

 by relying on out-of-date criminal history and disciplinary infractions and by failing

 to credit him for being free of such infractions for “nearly a decade” and for being at

 low risk of recidivism. Price Br. 2. But these arguments do not establish an abuse of

 discretion. The district court noted and weighed the facts that Price highlights; it

 simply concluded, in its discretion, that other § 3553(a) sentencing factors justified a

                                             4
Appellate Case: 23-7054     Document: 010110996243          Date Filed: 02/07/2024   Page: 5

 life sentence. And “it is not the job of an appellate court to review de novo the

 balance struck by a district court among the [sentencing] factors.” United States v.

 Sells, 541 F.3d 1227, 1239 (10th Cir. 2008); see also United States v. Lawless, 979

 F.3d 849, 856 (10th Cir. 2020) (noting that reweighing district court’s assessment of

 sentencing factors “is beyond the ambit of our review”).

        We also agree with defense counsel that the district court adequately explained

 its reasons for imposing consecutive sentences by discussing the parties’ various

 arguments and describing the bases for its findings. For example, the district court

 considered Price’s contention that his rehabilitative progress justified a below-

 Guidelines variance to his sentence. But the district court referred to Price’s various

 prison infractions as evidence to the contrary. So we see no nonfrivolous argument

 that the district court failed to sufficiently explain its decision.

        In sum, we “do not disturb decisions entrusted . . . to the discretion of a district

 court unless we have ‘a definite and firm conviction that the [district] court made a

 clear error of judgment or exceeded the bounds of permissible choice in the

 circumstances.’” United States v. Ruiz-Terrazas, 477 F.3d 1196, 1201 (10th Cir.

 2007) (quoting United States v. Weidner, 437 F.3d 1023, 1042 (10th Cir. 2006)).

                                               5
Appellate Case: 23-7054   Document: 010110996243       Date Filed: 02/07/2024   Page: 6

 There is no argument on the record here that would create such a conviction, so we

 dismiss the appeal and grant defense counsel’s motion to withdraw.

                                           Entered for the Court

                                           Nancy L. Moritz
                                           Circuit Judge

                                          6