United States Ninth Circuit

In appeal of sentence for crack-cocaine related offense, district court's order granting a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. section 3582(c)(2) after the Sentencing Commission amended the crack-cocaine guidelines, is reversed, where: 1) defendant's sentence satisfied the first prong of eligibility for reduction in that the original sentence was "based on" the crack-cocaine guidelines, which were subsequently amended by the Commission; but 2) the sentence did not satisfy the second prong of eligibility, which requires that the guideline range applicable to that defendant has subsequently been lowered as a result of an amendment to the Guidelines; 3) the "applicable guideline" is derived pre-departure and pre-variance; and 4) here, the applicable guideline range for defendant is the Career Offender range.

Appellate Information

• Decided 01/02/2013
• Published 01/02/2013

Judges

• TASHIMA

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel