United States v. Webster

Justia.com Opinion Summary: Defendant sold heroin to an informant and was indicted for distribution of heroin, 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1). He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 216 months. The government agreed to request a reduced sentence if he provided assistance and later filed a Rule 35(b) motion requesting sentence reduction. The court reduced the sentence to 168 months. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The defendant failed to request a reduced sentence at the hearing and therefore is unable to argue that the court erred by deviating from a requested reduction. Rule 35(b) hearings are not an opportunity for full resentencing, so the court cannot consider factors other than defendant's substantial assistance in deciding by how much to reduce the sentence if the reduction is less than the request, so the court properly declined to consider the 3553(a) factors.

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