United States v. Robert Jefferson, No. 21-3875 (8th Cir. 2023)
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Following a six-week trial in 1998, a federal jury convicted Defendant of twelve crimes he committed as part of the 6-0 Tres Crips, including the five murders (Counts 51-55) and conspiracy to distribute cocaine and crack cocaine (Count 2). Under the mandatory sentencing guidelines then in effect, the district court imposed statutory maximum life imprisonment sentences on those counts. Defendant sought Section 2255 relief under Section 404 of the First Step Act of 2018, which made relief under Sections 2 and 3 of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 available to eligible defendants sentenced prior to 2010. Invoking the concurrent sentence doctrine, the district court denied First Step Act relief. On appeal, Defendant argued that the district court abused its discretion by employing the concurrent sentence doctrine to avoid resentencing Defendant.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court wrote that in reviewing the district court’s use of the concurrent sentence doctrine for an abuse of discretion, the district court applied the doctrine consistent with controlling Eighth Circuit decisions. The court explained that when, as here, the district court ruling on a First Step Act motion initially sentenced the defendant and later granted a sentence reduction, the court’s “plain statement” that it declined to exercise its discretion to grant a further reduction “closes the matter.” The district court properly treated the concurrent sentence doctrine as “a species of harmless-error review.” As it applied the proper analysis in invoking the doctrine, and its analysis is consistent with our First Step Act precedents, there was no abuse of its broad First Step Act discretion.
Court Description: [Loken, Author, with Gruender and Grasz, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Sentencing. For the court's most recent opinion in Jefferson's criminal case, see U.S. v. Jefferson, 816 F.3d 1016 (8th Cir. 2016). In denying defendant's motion for First Step Act relief, the court correctly applied the concurrent sentence doctrine in determining the concurrent sentences on defendant's other 11 counts were not affected by the Fair Sentencing Act as made applicable by Section 404 of the First Step Act; as a result, ruling in Jefferson's favor on the conspiracy to distribute cocaine count would not reduce the time he is required to serve.
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