Court Opinion

ID: 9376036
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-01 18:00:26.406204+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:03.973363
License: Public Domain

DLD-097                                           NOT PRECEDENTIAL
                       UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                            FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
                                 ___________

                                      No. 23-1005
                                      ___________

                            UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

                                             v.

                              DAVID LOUIS MATHIS,
                                            Appellant
                       ____________________________________

                     On Appeal from the United States District Court
                        For the Western District of Pennsylvania
                        (W.D. Pa. Crim. No. 2:10-cr-00019-001)
                       District Judge: Honorable Mark R. Hornak
                      ____________________________________

                  Submitted on Appellee’s Motion for Summary Action
                   Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 27.4 and I.O.P. 10.6
                                   February 23, 2023

             Before: JORDAN, SHWARTZ, and SCIRICA, Circuit Judges

                              (Opinion filed March 1, 2023)
                                       _________

                                        OPINION*
                                        _________

*
 This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not
constitute binding precedent.
PER CURIAM

       David Mathis spent over a decade in federal prison pursuant to several convictions

for armed bank robbery and one for using a firearm during a “crime of violence.” 18

U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A). Soon after his release, Mathis and an accomplice committed an

armed bank robbery, during which one teller was pistol-whipped by Mathis and another

teller was shot in the chest. To resolve that case, Mathis and the Government entered into

an agreement under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(C), whereby Mathis

would plead guilty to one count of violating § 924(c)(1)(A) and agree to the statutorily

mandated minimum sentence of twenty-five years of imprisonment. The United States

District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania accepted the plea and imposed a

twenty-five-year prison sentence, plus five years of supervised release.

       At present, Mathis’s expected release date is May 8, 2031. Seeking to shorten his

term of incarceration, Mathis filed in the District Court a pro se motion for

compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). The motion was predicated on

numerous factors, including recent changes in federal sentencing law and policy,

Mathis’s trauma-filled childhood, his volunteer work and military service, his medical

profile, and his conditions of confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic.

       The District Court denied Mathis’s motion. It determined that he failed to present

an “extraordinary and compelling reason[]” for release—a statutory prerequisite for relief

under § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i). The District Court determined in the alternative that the various

factors presented by Mathis were substantially outweighed by the applicable factors

under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). Specifically:

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              The instant offense was Mr. Mathis’s sixth bank/credit union robbery.
      He previously served fifteen (15) years in prison for the same offense and
      then proceeded to commit this crime within only one year of his release. He
      was of a mature age when he did so, shooting another person, and shooting
      at other persons, in the process. These were not crimes of immaturity, nor
      were they “one off” or spur of the moment events of unlikely recurrence. Mr.
      Mathis is an educated man who has displayed considerable planning and
      reasoning skills. His conviction record demonstrates that he is also quite
      capable of being an extraordinarily violent person who has repeatedly
      terrorized bank tellers and customers with his active use and discharge of
      guns during robberies, and his credible threats to kill those that get in his
      way, involving his use of guns in making those threats. His record does not
      reveal successful and productive efforts to depart from that path, and in fact,
      upon his release from his most recent prior stint in federal prison for armed
      robbery, his next and quickest move was to plan his next armed robbery with
      a newly found recidivist accomplice. The long prison sentence imposed in
      his case resulted from Mr. Mathis’s own horrific unlawful conduct, was
      agreed to by him in his plea agreement, and none of the bases for sentence
      reduction proposed by Mr. Mathis, singularly or together, warrant any
      reduction in that sentence. Mr. Mathis is exactly where his own violent
      criminal conduct warrants him being and remaining for the duration of his
      imposed sentence.

             Overall, there is not credible evidence advanced that persuades the
      Court that Mr. Mathis would not be a danger to the community if the Court
      were to grant this Motion and reduce his sentence, nor would the resulting
      sentence promote respect for the law and reflect the seriousness of the offense
      conduct in which he engaged. The record here convinces the Court of exactly
      the opposite.

DC ECF No. 399 at 28.

      This timely appeal, see Fed. R. App. P. 4(b)(1)(A); DC ECF No. 403-1, followed.

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. An order denying a motion for

compassionate release is reviewed for abuse of discretion. United States v. Pawlowski,

967 F.3d 327, 330 (3d Cir. 2020). “An abuse of discretion exists when the decision rests

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‘on an erroneous view of the law or on a clearly erroneous assessment of the evidence.’”

Hope v. Warden York Cnty. Prison, 972 F.3d 310, 320 (3d Cir. 2020) (citation omitted).

       For substantially the reasons given in the District Court’s opinion, we agree with

its determination that, even assuming Mathis had presented one or more extraordinary

and compelling reasons for release, a fair weighing of the applicable § 3553(a) factors

counseled against granting his motion. There was no abuse of discretion here.1

       The Government’s motion for summary affirmance is thus appropriate and we

grant it. See 3d Cir. L.A.R. 27.4 (2011); 3d Cir. I.O.P. 10.6 (2018). The District Court’s

judgment will, as a consequence, be affirmed.

1
  We have considered Mathis’s arguments on appeal, and have found them unpersuasive.
In particular, there is no merit to Mathis’s assertion that the District Court erroneously
believed it could not consider information available to Mathis, and that was (or could
have been) presented, at his first federal sentencing (for the 1994 armed-robbery
convictions). The assertion is belied by the District Court’s explicit recognition that it
was “not precluded from considering these matters in the context of the pending Motion,”
DC ECF No. 399 at 8 (emphasis added), even if the District Court was quick to point out
(accurately) that a § 3582(c) proceeding is not an opportunity for a de novo resentencing,
cf. Dillon v. United States, 560 U.S. 817, 831 (2010) (“[Section] 3582(c)(2) does not
authorize a resentencing. Instead, it permits a sentence reduction within the narrow
bounds established by the Commission.”).
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