Court Opinion

ID: 9882137
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-05 15:01:05.109003+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:51.943690
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 23-11405    Document: 26-1     Date Filed: 10/05/2023   Page: 1 of 4

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                          ____________________

                                No. 23-11405
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                      Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
       versus
       DONALD M. REYNOLDS,

                                                  Defendant-Appellant.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Southern District of Georgia
                  D.C. Docket No. 1:06-cr-00081-DHB-BKE-2
                           ____________________
USCA11 Case: 23-11405      Document: 26-1       Date Filed: 10/05/2023     Page: 2 of 4

       2                       Opinion of the Court                  23-11405

       Before ROSENBAUM, GRANT, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Donald M. Reynolds, a federal prisoner proceeding pro se,
       appeals the district court’s order resentencing him to 420 months’
       imprisonment following the vacatur of one of his three convictions
       under Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019). Specifically,
       Reynolds argues that the district court abused its discretion in
       denying him a full resentencing hearing where it could reconsider
       his sentences on the two counts of conviction that were unaffected
       by the district court’s vacatur. The government has filed a motion
       for summary affirmance, arguing that Reynolds is not entitled to a
       plenary resentencing of counts that were unaffected by Rehaif. We
       agree, grant the government’s motion, and affirm.
              Summary disposition is appropriate where “the position of
       one of the parties is clearly right as a matter of law so that there can
       be no substantial question as to the outcome of the case, or where,
       as is more frequently the case, the appeal is frivolous.” Groendyke
       Transp., Inc. v. Davis, 406 F.2d 1158, 1161-62 (5th Cir. 1969).
               We review “for an abuse of discretion the remedy granted
       by a district court when it corrects a sentence.” United States v.
       Brown, 879 F.3d 1231, 1235 (11th Cir. 2018). A district court abuses
       its discretion if its choice of remedy is contrary to law. Id. Under
       this standard, we must affirm unless we find that the district court
       has made a clear error of judgment or has applied the wrong legal
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       23-11405               Opinion of the Court                         3

       standard. United States v. Thomason, 940 F.3d 1166, 1171 (11th Cir.
       2019).
               When a district court grants a motion to vacate, set aside, or
       correct a sentence, it must either resentence the prisoner or correct
       his sentence. Id. We have explained that a resentencing is close to
       beginning the sentencing process anew and is open-ended and dis-
       cretionary. Id. On the other hand, a sentence correction is a more
       limited remedy, responding to a specific error. Id. A district court
       should hold a resentencing hearing if (1) the errors that required
       the grant of habeas relief undermine the sentence as a whole and
       (2) the sentencing court must exercise significant discretion in mod-
       ifying the defendant’s sentence such as on questions the court was
       not called upon to consider at the original sentencing. Brown, 879
       F.3d at 1239-40. But a district court need not conduct a full resen-
       tencing when correcting an error does not change the guideline
       range or make the sentence more onerous. Thomason, 940 F.3d at
       1173.
              The district court did not err in declining to hold a plenary
       resentencing hearing after vacating one of Reynolds’s convictions.
       The district court vacated Reynolds’s conviction for a firearm of-
       fense in Count 3. But the vacatur of Count 3 did not impact Reyn-
       olds’s guideline range, which remained 135-168 months’ imprison-
       ment, plus 120 months, to be served consecutively. And the district
       court did not impose a more onerous total sentence than the orig-
       inal sentence. Instead, the district court imposed the same total sen-
       tence consisting of a term of 300 months’ imprisonment on Count
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       4                       Opinion of the Court                  23-11405

       1 and a consecutive 120 months’ imprisonment on Count 2, for the
       same total sentence of 420 months.
               Although Reynolds challenges certain actions taken by the
       district court at his original sentencing, he already filed a direct ap-
       peal of that sentencing. We affirmed his conviction and sentence in
       2008. See United States v. Price, 298 F. App’x 931 (11th Cir. 2008) (un-
       published). Thus, he cannot raise such claims now. See United States
       v. Escobar-Urrego, 110 F.3d 1556, 1560 (11th Cir. 1997) (a matter
       omitted from a first appeal “may be held foreclosed on a later ap-
       peal to the same court as a matter of law of the case”); United States
       v. Fiallo-Jacome, 874 F.2d 1479, 1482 (11th Cir. 1989) (declining to
       give the appellant “two bites at the appellate apple”).
             Because the government’s position is correct as a matter of
       law, no substantial question exists as to the outcome. See Groendyke
       Transp., Inc., 406 F.2d at 1162. Therefore, we GRANT the govern-
       ment’s motion for summary affirmance.
              AFFIRMED.