Eleventh Circuit clarifies which defendants can benefit from new crack guidelines

The Eleventh Circuit issued a little, but still important, sentencing opinion in US v. Liberse, No. 12-10243 (11th Cir. July 30, 2012) (available here) to clarify just which defendants can now benefit from the new reduced crack guidelines. Here is how the opinion starts:

This is the third decision we have issued in the past month concerning the application of Amendments 750 and 759 to the sentencing guidelines and the scope of a district court’s authority to reduce a defendant’s sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2).  In the first two decisions, we held that those amendments did not authorize a court to reduce a sentence under § 3582(c)(2) if the defendant’s guidelines range remained the statutory mandatory minimum after the amendments or if the guidelines range was otherwise not affected by the amendments.  See United States v. Glover, — F.3d —, No. 12-10580, 2012 WL 2814303, at *3–4 (11th Cir. July 11, 2012) (statutory mandatory minimum); United States v. Lawson, — F.3d —, No. 11-15912, 2012 WL 2866265, at *2–3 (11th Cir. July 13, 2012) (otherwise unchanged guidelines range).  Our decisions in Glover and Lawson establish that “a court cannot use an amendment to reduce a sentence in a particular case unless that amendment actually lowers the guidelines range in that case.” Glover, 2012 WL 2814303, at *3.

This appeal raises a different issue because the pro se appellant’s original guidelines range of 121 to 151 months was above, and thus not affected by, the applicable statutory mandatory minimum of 120 months.  As a result, Amendments 750 and 759 would reduce his guidelines range.  For those reasons, § 3582(c)(2) gives the district court authority to reduce the sentence in its discretion.  Because the court believed it lacked that authority, we vacate its order denying the motion for resentencing and remand for the court to determine whether to exercise its discretion to reduce the sentence.