United States v. May, No. 15-7912 (4th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CaseDefendant pleaded guilty in 2009 to various drug and firearm offenses and was sentenced to a stipulated plea agreement. In 2014, the Sentencing Guidelines were amended, retroactively lowering the offense levels associated with two of the offenses to which defendant pleaded guilty. In 2015, the district court sua sponte denied defendant a sentence reduction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2), on the grounds that defendant's sentence was not based on the Guidelines. Defendant then filed a motion for reconsideration, but the district court denied the motion. The court concluded that the implied prohibition on 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2)-based motions for reconsideration, as recognized in United States v. Goodwyn, is non-jurisdictional. In this case, the government waived its right to object to the district court's failure to deny defendant relief on the grounds that he brought an unauthorized motion for reconsideration. Because the government failed to raise this non-jurisdictional limitation, it was waived on appeal. Applying de novo review, the court agreed with the district court that defendant was ineligible for relief under section 3582(c)(2) because he was sentenced pursuant to a Rule 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement that did not use a Guidelines sentencing range. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
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