« New Attorney General Bondi issues multiple memorandum, including new charging/plea/sentencing and death penalty memos | Main | US Sentencing Commission moving forward with ambitious guideline amendment plans »
February 6, 2025
Notable lengthy new district court opinion rules US Sentencing Commission lacked authority to authorize sentence reduction based in part on "changes in law"
A helpful reader made sure I saw a lengthy new opinion issued today addressing the US Sentencing Commission's sentence reduction guideline, § 1B1.13(b), and particularly its provision that a "change in the law" can sometimes provide a basis for a reduction. The full 40-page opinion in US v. Chineag, No. 01-00607 (SD Fla Feb. 6, 2025) (available for download below), is worth a full read, as Judge Rodolfo Ruiz II covers lots of ground and details the long-running legal debate over § 1B1.13(b)(6). Here is a key introductory paragraph from the first few pages of the opinion:
The Court concludes that Mr. Chineag cannot establish that he is eligible for a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). Neither his age nor the circumstances of his arrest are sufficient to render him eligible for relief under the Policy Statement’s plain terms. See U.S.S.G. §§ 1B1.13(b)(2), (5). And Mr. Chineag cannot rely on his unusually long sentence as a basis for relief. The Court cannot apply that provision of the Policy Statement — section 1B1.13(b)(6) — as a matter of law, because it exceeds the scope of the Commission’s delegated authority in allowing courts to consider expressly nonretroactive changes in law, like section 401(a) of the FSA, as “extraordinary and compelling reasons” for a sentence reduction. Because Mr. Chineag has failed to establish that he is eligible for a sentence reduction, the Court DENIES the Motion.
This summary sets the basic framework for the analysis that follows, as Judge Ruiz notes in various ways that Congress did not make key sentencing provisions of the First Step Act retroactive. As suggested above, I recommend the full opiinion to see the full argument, though I will here flag a paragraph from the opinion that helps highlight why I do not think the Commission acted beyond its authority:
The Court does not doubt the well-intentioned policy rationale that led the Commission to promulgate this Policy Statement. And the Court recognizes the hard work undertaken by the Commission to cabin the terms of section 1B1.13(b)(6). See Public Meeting, supra, at 4–10 (Apr. 5, 2023). A court may consider a change in law only if (1) the defendant has served at least ten years of their sentence; (2) there would be a “gross disparity” between the sentence being served and the sentence likely to be imposed after the change in law came into effect; and (3) individualized circumstances demand it. This clearly evinces a good-faith effort on the Commission’s part to narrowly tailor the class of defendants who would be eligible for a sentence reduction. But “[a]textual good policy cannot overcome clear text.” Ins. Mktg. Coal. Ltd. v. Fed Commc’ns Comm’n, 2025 WL 289152, at *8 (11th Cir. Jan. 24, 2025) (citing Util. Air. Regul. Grp. v. EPA, 573 U.S. 302, 325 (2014)). If a statute, like section 401(a) of the First Step Act, is clearly nonretroactive, it cannot be rendered retroactive by simply adding the label “extraordinary and compelling.”
Again, I encourage everyone to read this full opinion and its full accounting for its conclusions. But I must explain why I find the last line quoted above problematic. As I have explained in prior posts, it does not seem right to me to conclude that § 1B1.13(b)(6) in any way "render[s] retroactive" any change in law. When a statutory sentencing change is made retroactive, defendants then have an absolute legal right to benefit fully from that change regardless of any other circumstances or sentencing factors. In contrast, § 1B1.13(b)(6), does not provide any right for anyone to claim any sentencing benefit as a matter of law, it merely says -- in limited circumstances on its own terms and in conjunction with the additional limit of 3553(a) factors -- that a "change in the law" can be a judicial consideration for the exercise of sentence-reduction discretion (which never has to be granted and which, on a case-by-case basis, a judge can find not extraordinary or compelling).
It makes perfect sentence to me that Congress would conclude, when passing major sentencing reductions in the First Step Act, that it ought not give thousands of defendants an unlimited, complete, broad legal right to retroactive sentence reductions (which in many cases might require plenary resentencings), but still would want the expert sentencing agency to set the terms of possible case-by-case sentence reductions attentive to the significant statutory changes it had just enacted. Put another way, that the Congress did not want to deploy a kind of sentencing "meat cleaver" through retroactivity does not entail or even suggest that it wanted to preclude the US Sentencing Commission from authroizing judges to deploy a sentence reduction scalpel when justified. And, as noted in other posts, I cannot find any express text in the First Step Act or any other act of Congress seeking to hamstring the Commission on this front. Indeed, the only on-point text, 28 USC § 994(t), places only one express limit on the Commission's work in this arena.
February 6, 2025 at 02:08 PM | Permalink
Comments
I'm a bit confused by your last sentence Professor. Section 994(t) may place one "express" limit on the Commission's authority, but the section in the policy statement does not foreclose the possibility of other restrictions on the Commission's authority. It, like any other agency, must issue policy statements that do not contravene federal statutes or other provisions of the Constitution. For example, though I wish Judge Ruiz II wrote more about this point he says that a policy statement cannot create unextraordinary and uncompelling reasons for relief, and that seems pretty sensible (your response, though, might be that a judge's decision to jump in and decide what the meaning of the term is is exactly the kind of policymaking that Judge Ruiz II claims to avoid, which is a fair point).
Here, Congress explicitly made one sentence reduction nonretroactive. Given that Congress legislates against the backdrop of existing law and existing presumptions against retroactivity, it just does not make sense for me to think that Section 994(t) can be read to allow judges to cast aside a statute's clear prescriptions in favor of a policy statement UNLESS that policy statement identifies rehabilitation "alone" as an extraordinary and compelling reason for relief. I found Judge Ruiz II's point here to be more persuasive: that context is necessary to understand the limitation, and that Congress's drafters intended to foreclose rehabilitation as the sole reason for a reduction given the history of parole boards prior to the SRA.
Overall this is a tricky issue and you can go either way on this depending on your underlying methodological priors. Seems like the Eleventh has side-stepped this issue but might need to resolve it and I wonder if the Court will finally have to take this up, I did like reading this opinion.
Posted by: Anon | Feb 6, 2025 9:25:01 PM
Anon, I agree that a judge may not "cast aside a statute's clear prescriptions," but I cannot identify any "clear" (or even unclear) statement in any statute that asserts the Commission may not conclude that "changes in the law" could be a factor in sentence reductions. Indeed, the only clear statement in 994(t) --- other than that "Rehabilitation of the defendant alone shall not be considered an extraordinary and compelling reason" --- is the prescription that the "Commission ... shall describe what should be considered extraordinary and compelling reasons for sentence reduction." That's what the Commission has properly done, but the Chineag ruling here seems to want to "cast aside a statute clear prescriptions" that it is the Commission that has the authority and responsibility to determine "what should be considered extraordinary and compelling reasons for sentence reduction."
Key point: Judge Ruiz can find in any individual case that a particular defendant has in that case only presented "unextraordinary and uncompelling" reasons for relief. But his authority is to decide individual cases, while the Commission's authority is to set general policy. Same goes for the rest of the guidelines --- eg, 994(c) says the Commission in establishing guidelines should consider "the community view of the gravity of the offense." Could and should a district judge declare that the marijuana guidelines, which have not been revised in the face of widespread state legalization, are unlawful and should not be considered because they clearly no longer reflect "the community view of the gravity of the offense"? I would say such a ruling would have a judge essentially taking over the role of the Commission in giving meaning and application to the vague terms Congress used in various statutes instructing the Commission.
If judges do not like USSC policy choices, they pften have ample legal discretion to rule as they see fit in individual cases. But when Congress assigns a policy choice to the Commission, I think that choice need to be respected or else we will not have national sentencing policy, we will have defendants and prosecutors arguing to each of 600+ judges that they should make up their own sentencing law rather than follow the law that the Commission has promulgated.
Posted by: Doug B | Feb 6, 2025 10:30:06 PM
One more point, Anon, that is often ignored in this context is that Congress in 28 USC 991 expressly states that the Commission's purposes include "establish[ing] sentencing policies and practices for the Federal criminal justice system that ... provide certainty and fairness in meeting the purposes of sentencing, avoiding unwarranted sentencing disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar criminal conduct." I believe § 1B1.13(b)(6) is an example of the Commission seeking to deliver on its responsibility to advance sentencing "fairness" while "avoiding unwarranted sentencing disparities." Of course, you and me and many judges might have many different policy views than the Commission about how to best advance those ends. But the Commission who is tasked by Congress to make the general policy here.
Posted by: Doug B | Feb 6, 2025 10:46:19 PM
