U.S. v. Corner

Dist. Ct. committed procedural error in denying defendant’s motion under First Step Act to reduce his 18-month term of incarceration and 42-month term of supervised release that was imposed after Dist. Ct. revoked defendant’s term of supervised release that defendant had been serving as part of his original sentence on drug conviction. Defendant was eligible for consideration of reduced sentence, since First Step Act retroactively reduced statutory minimum penalties for his drug offense. Moreover, while defendant had completed both his incarceration portion of his original sentence and his 18-month term of incarceration that had been imposed following finding that defendant had violated conditions of his first term of supervised release, defendant could still ask for reduction of second term of supervised release, where, had First Step Act been in force at time of original sentence, defendant only would have been subjected to maximum revocation sentence of three years.  As such, Dist. Ct. could not fail to decide defendant’s eligibility for reduced sentence under First Step Act and state that it would have imposed same sentence regardless of whether First Step Act applied.  Accordingly, remand was required for Dist. Ct. to make determination as to what lower statutory sentence would have applied to defendant’s original conviction under First Step Act prior to making determination as to whether reduced sentence was appropriate.