US v. Corwin Woodson, No. 08-8310 (4th Cir. 2011)
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UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 08-8310 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. CORWIN TYRELL WOODSON, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Richmond. James R. Spencer, Chief District Judge. (3:94-cr-00079-JRS-10) Submitted: March 22, 2011 Before WILKINSON and Senior Circuit Judge. NIEMEYER, Decided: Circuit Judges, June 2, 2011 and HAMILTON, Dismissed in part, vacated and remanded in part by unpublished per curiam opinion. Corwin Tyrell Woodson, Appellant Pro Se. James Brien Comey, Jr., Norman Scott Sacks, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Richard Daniel Cooke, Stephen Wiley Miller, Assistant United States Attorneys, Richmond, Virginia; William Neil Hammerstrom, Jr., Assistant United States Attorney, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Corwin Tyrell Woodson appeals from the district court s orders denying his 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) (2006) motion and his motion for reconsideration. Woodson sought application of Amendment 706 to the Guidelines, which lowered the offense levels for drug offenses involving crack cocaine. denial of Woodson s consideration. We § 3582 motion dismiss the and appeal We vacate the remand of for the further motion for reconsideration. The finding district that Woodson resulting in applicable a court had sentence Guidelines denied Woodson s previously 84-months range. received below The § 3582 the court low noted a motion, departure end of that the this departure was a result of the consideration of the disparity between crack and powder cocaine and concluded that the 84[-] month reduction given then exceeds the reduction available to the Defendant under the retroactive amendments. On improperly reduction. appeal, found Woodson that Pursuant he to asserts was not U.S. that the eligible Sentencing district for a Guidelines court sentence Manual § 1B1.10 (2010), when a defendant s applicable Guidelines range has been lowered by an amendment to the Guidelines, the district court may reduce the defendant s term of imprisonment pursuant to § 3582. In determining the extent of that reduction, that 2 section provides that a court may not reduce a defendant s term of imprisonment under § 3582 below the minimum of the amended Guidelines range unless the original term of imprisonment was also below the original Guidelines range. USSG § 1B1.10(b)(2). The commentary to that section provides [i]f the original term of imprisonment imposed was less than the term of imprisonment provided by the guideline range applicable to the defendant at the time of sentencing, a reduction comparably less than the amended guideline range determined under subsection (b)(1) may be appropriate. Here, See USSG § 1B1.10 cmt. n.1(B)(3). the district court stated that the 84-month reduction given at Woodson s resentencing exceeded the reduction available to Woodson under the retroactive amendments. However, under USSG § 1B1.10, Woodson was eligible for a reduction down to a sentence comparably less than 262 months, the bottom of the amended Guidelines range. The determination of a comparably lower sentence may be determined by using a lower offense category, a percentage, a flat number of months calculate the reduction, or any other reasonable method. to See United States v. Fennell, 592 F.3d 506, 509 (4th Cir. 2010). Under each of these methods, Woodson would have been eligible for a reduction below 240 months. court erred by ruling that Accordingly, the district Woodson s exceed[ed] the reduction available. 3 240-month sentence Thus, while the district court was not required to grant Woodson s motion for a sentence reduction, it was error to conclude that Woodson was ineligible for a potential reduction. For this reason, we vacate the district court s order and remand for further proceedings. Turning to Woodson s appeal from the denial of his motion for reconsideration, Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(a) authorizes after sentencing, reconsideration a district to is court, reconsider necessary to F.3d 233, 235 (4th Cir.) a [fourteen] sentence, correct but an only defendant 3582(c)(2), seeks however, we (internal modification have if arithmetical, quotation marks citation omitted), cert. denied, 130 S. Ct. 3530 (2010). criminal days See United States v. Goodwyn, technical, or other clear error. 596 [w]ithin of recognized his sentence that, and If a under because the defendant had an opportunity to persuade the district court to modify his sentence pursuant to § 3582, the defendant is obligated to appeal an unsatisfactory result rather than ask the district court to reconsider its denial. See id. at 236. Thus, the district court was without jurisdiction to determine whether Woodson provided adequate grounds for reconsideration. Based on the foregoing, we dismiss Woodson s appeal from the denial of his motion for reconsideration. We vacate the district s order denying Woodson s § 3582 motion and remand for further proceedings. We express no opinion on Woodson s 4 remaining claims on appeal. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process. DISMISSED IN PART; VACATED AND REMANDED IN PART 5
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