Court Opinion

ID: 9956502
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-02 15:00:32.212294+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:17:35.135689
License: Public Domain

23-6166-cr (L)
    United States v. Major

                             UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                 FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

                                     SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY
ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007 IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF
APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER
IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN
ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING TO A SUMMARY
ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

           At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at
    the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York,
    on the 2nd day of April, two thousand twenty-four.

    PRESENT:
                BARRINGTON D. PARKER, JR.,
                DENNY CHIN,
                JOSEPH F. BIANCO,
                      Circuit Judges.
    _____________________________________

    UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                              Appellee,

                       v.                                           23-6166-cr; 23-6187-cr

    CRAIG MAJOR,

                      Defendant-Appellant.
    _____________________________________

    FOR APPELLEE:                                  Stephanie Simon, Assistant United States
                                                   Attorney (Hagan Scotten, Assistant United
                                                   States Attorney, on the brief), for Damian
                                                   Williams, United States Attorney for the
                                                   Southern District of New York, New York, New
                                                   York.

    FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLANT:                       Edward S. Zas, Federal Defenders of New York,
                                                   Inc., Appeals Bureau, New York, New York.
        Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of

New York (Cathy Seibel, Judge).

        UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND

DECREED that the judgments, entered on February 15, 2023, are AFFIRMED.

           Defendant-Appellant Craig Major appeals from the district court’s two judgments:

(1) sentencing him following entry of his guilty plea to unlawful possession of ammunition after

having been convicted of a felony, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1); and (2) sentencing him

following his admission to violating the terms of his supervised release on a prior conviction. On

the former, the district court sentenced Major principally to a term of fifty-one months’

imprisonment. On the latter, it sentenced him to a consecutive term of twelve months, yielding a

total of sixty-three months’ imprisonment. The conviction and supervised release violation both

arose from Major’s sale of ammunition to a confidential source on January 11, 2022. At the time

of the sale, Major was on supervised release in connection with a 2015 federal conviction for

conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine and marijuana, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846, for which

he was sentenced to seventy months’ imprisonment and four years’ supervised release.

           On appeal, Major challenges the substantive reasonableness of what he views as a

combined sentence of sixty-three months’ imprisonment. He argues that this Court should remand

this case to the district court to reconsider his sentence in light of amendments to the United States

Sentencing Guidelines (the “Guidelines”), U.S.S.G. § 4A.1, that took effect on November 1, 2023.

We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, procedural history, and issues on

appeal, to which we refer only as necessary to explain our decision to affirm.

      I.      Substantive Reasonableness

        We review a district court’s sentencing determination, including for a supervised release

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violation, for substantive reasonableness under a “deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.”

United States v. Brooks, 889 F.3d 95, 100 (2d Cir. 2018) (internal quotation marks and citations

omitted). A sentencing court abuses its discretion only where a sentence is “so shockingly high,

shockingly low, or otherwise unsupportable as a matter of law that allowing [it] to stand would

damage the administration of justice.” United States v. Broxmeyer, 699 F.3d 265, 289 (2d Cir.

2012) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Therefore, we will “set aside a district

court’s substantive determination only in exceptional cases where the trial court’s decision cannot

be located within the range of permissible decisions.” United States v. Rigas, 583 F.3d 108, 122

(2d Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Although there is no presumption

that a sentence within the Guidelines range is reasonable, “in the overwhelming majority of cases,

a Guidelines sentence will fall comfortably within the broad range of sentences that would be

reasonable in the particular circumstances.” United States v. Fernandez, 443 F.3d 19, 27 (2d Cir.

2006).

         Major argues that the district court abused its discretion in imposing a combined sixty-

three-month sentence because that sentence was greater than necessary to accomplish the goals of

sentencing. We disagree.

         As a threshold matter, the two sentences must be considered separately, and Major does

not appear to raise any independent challenge to the twelve-month sentence for his supervised

release violation. A sentence for violating supervised release conditions is “part of the penalty for

the initial offense” and thus cannot be considered as belonging to whatever sentence the district

court imposes for a new felony conviction arising from that conduct. United States v. Carlton,

442 F.3d 802, 809 (2d Cir. 2006). However, even if this Court could properly view these two

sentences as one, we would hold that it is substantively reasonable.

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       The fifty-one-month sentence for the unlawful possession of ammunition after having been

convicted of a felony was below the advisory range of fifty-seven to seventy-one months’

imprisonment. In imposing it, the district court carefully considered the applicable factors under

18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) and explained how those factors supported the sentence. With respect to the

nature and circumstances of the crime, the district court noted that Major’s unlawful possession of

ammunition was “a serious offense.” App’x at 127; see 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1). With respect to

Major’s history and characteristics, the district court emphasized Major’s “abysmal criminal

record,” which included two federal controlled substance convictions—a 2007 conviction for

possession of narcotics with intent to distribute and the 2015 conviction for narcotics conspiracy—

and numerous disciplinary infractions while serving his prior sentences and prior violations of the

conditions of supervision. App’x at 127; see 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1). The district court noted that

“[Major] ha[d] not learned from his prior convictions” and, thus, the district court expressed the

“need to promote respect for the law,” because “Major does not give a moment’s thought to what

the law requires when making his decision.” App’x at 129; see 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A), (B).

The district court also specifically considered “the need to protect the public from further crimes”

by Major “because there is a long history of continuing – continually committing crimes,

continually violating the conditions of supervision.” App’x at 130; see 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(C).

       We find Major’s arguments as to the unreasonableness of the fifty-one-month sentence to

be unpersuasive. He notes that his offense conduct of possessing and selling ammunition deviates

from typical Section 922(g)(1) cases, most of which involve a defendant possessing and carrying

a firearm. The district court, however, explicitly considered that argument in its sentencing

determination. In particular, the district court acknowledged that “maybe selling the [ammunition]

is less serious” than selling a gun and was “a somewhat slightly mitigating factor,” but then

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explained that, although it was not Major’s intention that anybody be injured, “he was completely

indifferent to what the buyer was going to do with that ammunition, and was certainly on notice

that in all likelihood it was something bad, and he just didn’t care.” App’x at 126, 131. Thus,

because Major “had absolutely no business having that ammunition in the first place” and

“obviously knew that that ammunition was going to be put in a firearm,” the district court

reasonably determined that this was a “serious offense.” App’x at 127, 131.

          The twelve-month consecutive sentence for unlawfully possessing ammunition in violation

of his supervised release also fell within the advisory range, which was eight to fourteen months’

imprisonment. The district court emphasized that such a sentence was necessary to deter Major

from committing future violations of supervised release. See App’x at 131 (explaining that the

twelve-month consecutive sentence was “one possible respect in which I might be able to deter

Mr. Major because he will be sitting there that last year thinking, if only I had complied with my

supervised release, I would be home by now”). In sum, on this record, neither the fifty-one-month

sentence for the underlying conviction nor the consecutive twelve-month sentence on the

supervised release violation was outside “the range of permissible decisions,” Rigas, 583 F.3d at

122, or “shockingly high . . . or otherwise unsupportable as a matter of law,” Broxmeyer, 699 F.3d

at 289.

          In sum, it is clear from the record that the district court properly considered the Section

3553(a) factors and, notwithstanding Major’s arguments regarding various mitigating factors,

reasonably determined in its discretion that a balancing of the Section 3553(a) factors warranted

each sentence. Major’s disagreements with the district court’s balancing of the Section 3553(a)

factors raise no proper basis for disturbing the district court’s exercise of discretion. See United

States v. Pope, 554 F.3d 240, 246–47 (2d Cir. 2009) (emphasizing that, in reviewing sentencing

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court determinations, this Court “will not second guess the weight (or lack thereof) that the

[sentencing] judge accorded to a given factor or to a specific argument made pursuant to that

factor”); United States v. Verkhoglyad, 516 F.3d 122, 131 (2d Cir. 2008) (holding that we do not

require “that a particular factor be given determinative or dispositive weight” because “the weight

to be afforded any § 3553(a) factor is a matter firmly committed to the discretion of the sentencing

judge” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)).

        Accordingly, we conclude that the district court’s sentence is substantively reasonable.

     II.   The Amended Guidelines

        Major also contends that this Court should remand this case to the district court in the

interests of justice to reconsider the sentence in light of a November 2023 amendment to U.S.S.G.

§ 4A.1 that lowered his Guidelines range. See U.S.S.G., amend. 821. He argues that the

amendment to Section 4A1.1 is “significant because [it] eliminate[s] the longstanding 2-point

‘status point’ enhancement in criminal history score for those like Major who committed the

current offense while on supervised release.” Appellant’s Br. at 27. According to Major, this

reduction in his criminal history score would lower the Guidelines range of imprisonment for his

Section 922(g)(1) offense from a range of fifty-seven to seventy-one months to a range of forty-

six to fifty-seven months. Thus, Major asserts that, if the district court were permitted to consider

the amendment, it would start its analysis “from a lower initial benchmark” and may conclude that

a total sentence of less than sixty-three months would be sufficient. Appellant’s Br. at 28.

       Where the defendant raises an objection for the first time on appeal, this Court “review[s]

the sentence only for plain error.” United States v. Ramos, 979 F.3d 994, 998 (2d Cir. 2020).

Under the plain error standard, the defendant must demonstrate that: “(1) there is an error; (2) the

error is clear or obvious, rather than subject to reasonable dispute; (3) the error affected [the

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defendant’s] substantial rights, which in the ordinary case means it affected the outcome of the

district court’s proceedings; and (4) the error seriously affect[ed] the fairness, integrity, or public

reputation of judicial proceedings.” United States v. Marcus, 560 U.S. 258, 262 (2010) (internal

quotation marks and citation omitted).

       In general, the sentencing court “must apply the version of the Guidelines in effect on the

date of the defendant’s sentencing.” United States v. Kilkenny, 493 F.3d 122, 126 (2d Cir. 2007);

accord United States v. Colon, 961 F.2d 41, 45 (2d Cir. 1992) (“Congress directed a sentencing

court to consider, among other things, the sentencing ranges set forth in the Sentencing

Commission’s guidelines that ‘are in effect on the date the defendant is sentenced.’” (quoting 18

U.S.C. § 3553(a)(4)(A)(ii))). Because the 2023 amendment to Section 4A1.1 at issue here was not

in effect at the time of Major’s sentencing, there was no plain error by the district court in not

considering it.

       Moreover, this Court has also made clear that under normal circumstances it “may not, in

the first instance, apply post-sentence amendments that embody a substantive change to the

Guidelines.” United States v. Jesurum, 819 F.3d 667, 672 (2d Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks

and citations omitted); accord Colon, 961 F.2d at 45 (There exists “sufficient statutory direction

. . . to preclude appellate courts, in the first instance, from entertaining requests to apply post-

sentence guideline amendments retroactively to cases pending on direct review.”).               If the

amendment, however, is a clarification of the Sentencing Commission’s prior intent, this Court

must apply the post-sentence amendment. United States v. Kirkham, 195 F.3d 126, 131 (2d Cir.

1999); see also United States v. Kim, 193 F.3d 567, 578 (2d Cir. 1999) (analyzing Congress’s

intent in the absence of a statement indicating whether an amendment is a substantive change or

clarification). We have repeatedly held that, when an amendment changes the way the Guidelines

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are calculated, the amendment is a substantive change rather than a clarification. See, e.g.,

Jesurum, 819 F.3d at 672–73 (amendment to Section 2B1.1(b)(2) that eliminated a six-level

enhancement for offenses involving 250 or more victims was a substantive change in the law);

United States v. Brooks, 732 F.3d 148, 150 (2d Cir. 2013) (amendment to Section 2D1.1(c) that

reduced the base offense level for certain crack cocaine offenses was substantive); United States

v. Sabbeth, 277 F.3d 94, 97 (2d Cir. 2002) (amendment to Section 2S1.1 was substantive since it

“redefine[d] the way in which the offense level associated with the crime of money-laundering is

calculated . . . .”).

        This 2023 amendment to Section 4A1.1 is likewise a substantive change to the Guidelines.

Under Amendment 821, defendants with six or fewer criminal history points no longer receive an

additional two “status points” under Section 4A1.1 for committing an offense while on a term of

supervised release. See U.S.S.G., amend. 821. Thus, this amendment reduces a defendant’s

criminal history score, rather than simply clarifying the language or intent of the Sentencing

Commission. As such, any post-sentence consideration of this amendment to Section 4A.1.1

should not be considered in the first instance by an appellate court on direct review, but should

rather be raised in the district court.

        Finally, although Major seeks a remand to the district court for consideration of this

Guidelines amendment in connection with his sentence, a remand is unnecessary for Major to seek

such relief in the district court. Importantly, the Sentencing Commission has made this amendment

to Section 4A1.1 retroactive, thereby authorizing eligible defendants to seek a discretionary

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sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2). 1            See U.S.S.G. amend. 825; U.S.S.G. §

1B1.10(d). Therefore, even without a remand by this Court, Major can seek consideration of that

retroactive amendment by filing a motion under Section 3582(c)(2) in the district court.

                            *                       *                        *

           We have considered Major’s remaining arguments and find them to be without merit.

    Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgments of the district court.

                                                 FOR THE COURT:
                                                 Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court

1
   Section 3582(c)(2) provides that “in the case of a defendant who has been sentenced to a term of
imprisonment based on a sentencing range that has subsequently been lowered by the Sentencing
Commission pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 994(o), upon motion of the defendant or the Director of the Bureau of
Prisons, or on its own motion, the court may reduce the term of imprisonment, after considering the factors
set forth in section 3553(a) to the extent that they are applicable, if such a reduction is consistent with
applicable policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission.” 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2).

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