Troiano v. United States, No. 18-15183 (9th Cir. 2019)
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The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order correcting defendant's sentence as to one of his four counts of conviction following his partially successful motion for relief under 28 U.S.C. 2255. The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it declined to conduct a full resentencing and instead corrected petitioner's sentence only as to the count of conviction affected by Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015). Even if the panel were to conclude that the counts were grouped for sentencing—something the record did not reflect here—the decision to restructure a defendant's entire sentence when only one of the counts of conviction was found to be invalid was discretionary and not mandatory.
The panel held that, in any event, it was evident from the record that petitioner's counts of conviction were not actually grouped for sentencing in any material way that might have led the district court, in its discretion, to unbundle them for resentencing. Finally, the panel held that petitioner was not entitled to a certificate of appealability on his two remaining issues.
Court Description: 28 U.S.C. § 2255. The panel affirmed the district court’s order correcting the defendant’s sentence as to only one of his four counts of conviction following his partially successful motion for relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, and denied his motion to expand the certificate of appealability. The panel held that the abuse-of-discretion standard applies for reviewing a district court’s choice of remedial action in response to a successful or partially successful 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion. The defendant contended that the district court was required to conduct a full resentencing proceeding on all counts because removing the Armed Career Criminal Act sentencing enhancement from one count necessarily impacted the court’s consideration of his full sentencing package. The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it corrected the defendant’s sentence only as to the count of conviction affected by Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015). The panel wrote that even if the counts were grouped for sentencing—something the record does not reflect—the decision to restructure a defendant’s sentence when only one of the counts of conviction is found to be invalid is not mandatory. The panel wrote that, in any event, it is evident from the record that the defendant’s counts of conviction were not actually grouped
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