United States v. Ambrose Spires, No. 20-1896 (8th Cir. 2020)
Annotate this CaseCourt Description: [Per Curiam - Before Erickson, Wollman and Stras, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Sentencing. Where the district court granted defendant a First Step Act reduction, it did not abuse its discretion by not granting an even greater reduction; nor did it abuse its discretion by denying defendant's motion for reconsideration; a First Step Act motion cannot be used to collaterally attack a defendant's original sentence. [ November 23, 2020 ]
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United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit ___________________________ No. 20-1896 ___________________________ United States of America lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellee v. Ambrose Rayshawn Spires, also known as Ambrose Spries lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellant ____________ Appeal from United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa - Eastern ____________ Submitted: November 19, 2020 Filed: November 24, 2020 [Unpublished] ____________ Before ERICKSON, WOLLMAN, and STRAS, Circuit Judges. ____________ PER CURIAM. After considering a number of factors, the district court 1 reduced Ambrose Spires’s life sentence to 360 months in prison under the First Step Act. See Pub. L. 1 The Honorable John A. Jarvey, Chief Judge, United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. No. 115-391, 132 Stat. 5194 (2018). Though he challenges the decision on a host of grounds, we affirm. We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it declined to reduce Spires’s sentence even further, see United States v. Harris, 960 F.3d 1103, 1106 (8th Cir. 2020) (articulating the standard of review), or when it denied his motion for reconsideration, see United States v. King, 854 F.3d 433, 443 (8th Cir. 2017) (same). Nor is a motion like this one the proper way to open a collateral attack on his original sentence. See United States v. Moore, 963 F.3d 725, 728 (8th Cir. 2020) (explaining how motions under the First Step Act are different from “original, plenary sentencing” proceedings); see also United States v. Denson, 963 F.3d 1080, 1089 (11th Cir. 2020) (refusing to entertain this type of attack). We accordingly affirm the judgment of the district court and grant counsel permission to withdraw. ______________________________ -2-
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