Case No. 17-155 | 11th Cir.
In 2013, Erik Hughes was indicted on drug and firearm offenses. After discovering that federal sentencing guidelines recommended 188 to 235 months for his offenses, Mr. Hughes entered into a plea agreement with the prosecutor for a 180-month prison sentence under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(C). The district court reviewed the plea agreement and determined that the agreed-upon sentence complied with the sentencing guidelines. Thus, the court accepted the agreement and sentenced Mr. Hughes to 180 months in prison.
About two years later, the U.S. Sentencing Commission amended the guidelines related to Hughes’s offenses, such that the recommended sentencing range became 151 to 188 months (a difference of approximately three to four years). When Hughes found out about the amendment, he filed a motion to reduce his sentence. His motion was filed pursuant to a federal statute allowing a reduction for defendants who were sentenced based on a sentencing guidelines range that has subsequently been lowered. The district court denied Hughes’s motion, explaining that his sentence in his plea agreement was not “based on” a sentencing guidelines range, as required by the statute. In denying his motion, the court relied on Justice Sotomayor’s concurrence in Freeman v. United States, 564 U.S. 522 (2011). In her opinion, Justice Sotomayor stated that a sentence from a plea agreement would need to explicitly state that the basis for the specified term was the sentencing guidelines in order to comply with the relevant federal statute. That is, a clear statement in the plea agreement is the only way to receive the reduced sentence. Thus, the district court explained, because the plea agreement did not explicitly mention the Sentencing Guidelines, Hughes could not receive a reduced sentence.
The question before the Court is twofold. First, was it proper for the district court to rely on Justice Sotomayor’s concurrence in Freeman? And second, is a defendant who enters into a plea bargain under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(C) eligible for a sentence reduction if the sentencing guidelines are amended subsequent to his sentencing?
The first question relates to how we interpret an important proposition from Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 193 (1977): when no single rationale gains the support of a majority of the Justices, “the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds.” In Freeman, there was a four-Justice plurality, and Justice Sotomayor separately concurred to make it a 4-1-4 decision. Unfortunately, the four-Justice plurality and Justice Sotomayor’s concurrence shared no common rationale. While Marks explains what to do in situations where the opinions are narrower or broader, the lower courts have been left to determine what to do when the opinions are simply different. This has caused a circuit split, and one that is perhaps ripe for the Court to resolve in this case. On the other hand, the Court can simply avoid this question and move immediately to the more substantive question of this case.
With respect to the second question before the Court, the disagreement between Hughes and the Government is what “based on” means in this context under the relevant statute. For Hughes, “based on” is a causation question: was the sentence agreed upon in the plea agreement based on the sentence recommended in the sentencing guidelines? As evidence of this, Hughes points to the numerous places in the plea negotiations in which the sentencing guidelines were mentioned. He hopes to successfully convince the Court that the sentence can be reduced pursuant to the federal statute because it was based on the sentencing guidelines. The Government responds with the literal approach and rebuts Hughes’s argument that the term “based on” relates to causation. The Government asserts that the term refers to a sentence’s legal foundation, and that the sentence in this case is clearly based on Hughes’s plea agreement, not on the sentencing guidelines. Therefore, the Government argues, Mr. Hughes’s sentence should not be reduced.
A ruling in favor of Hughes in this case could have a profound impact not just on Hughes, but also on many others who have entered into plea agreements.