United States v. Harris

• Decision Date: 07 July 2017
• Docket Number: Criminal No. 89-00036-2 (BAH).
• Citation: 258 F.Supp.3d 137
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, v. Lamar HARRIS, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

258 F.Supp.3d 137

UNITED STATES of America,

v.Lamar HARRIS, Defendant.

Criminal No. 89-00036-2 (BAH).

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

Signed July 7, 2017

Margaret J. Chriss, Mary Ann Snow, Barry Wiegand, U.S. Attorney's office Special Proceedings Section, Timothy W. Lucas, U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, Washington, DC, for United States of America.

John Addison Shorter, Jr., Washington, DC, Mary Manning Petras, Federal Public Defender for the District of Columbia, Washington, DC, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

BERYL A. HOWELL, Chief Judge

After being convicted twenty-eight years ago and serving over twenty-three years of incarceration and almost five years of his ten-year term of supervised release, the defendant, Lamar Harris, has moved, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(1), for early termination of his term of supervised release. Def.'s Mot. Term. Super. Rel. ("Def.'s Mot.") at 3, ECF No. 445. The government opposes this motion. Gov't's Opp'n Def.'s Mot. ("Gov't's Opp'n") at 1, ECF No. 448. Upon consideration of the record in this case, and after a hearing, held on June 15, 2017, for the reasons set out below, the motion is granted and the defendant's supervised release term is reduced from 120 months to 60 months.¹

I. BACKGROUND

The defendant's offense conduct, convictions, sentencing history and current situation are described below.

A. The Defendant's Offense Conduct

On direct appeal, the D.C. Circuit described the offense conduct of the defendant and his four co-defendants, who were all convicted after a jury trial of "participa[ting] in a large-scale drug distribution business" responsible for "import[ing] large amounts of cocaine from New York City and distribut[ing] the cocaine in northeast Washington, D.C." through use of "many ‘runners,’ couriers, lookouts, and other helpers." United States v. Harris , 959 F.2d 246, 249 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (per curiam ). This drug distribution operation was "presided over" by the "kingpin," co-defendant Michael Palmer. Id . Although Palmer had been operating the drug distribution business since at least March 1987, the defendant apparently joined this illegal operation "after December 1987," Presentence Report ("PSR"), dated Sept. 1, 1989, ¶¶ 9, 11, when the defendant was only nineteen years old. The defendants engaged in "acts of armed violence by which the defendants attempted to protect their ‘turf’ against competitors," including an assault against "one of their sellers who failed to pay for cocaine that he was given to sell," prompting the defendants to then hold him "for several days in an abandoned apartment." Harris, 959 F.2d at 249.

As described by the sentencing Judge, the defendant served as "Mr. Palmer's right-hand man" in the drug operation. Gov't's Opp'n ¶ 4 (quoting Sentencing Hr'g Tr., dated Oct. 18, 1989, at 11–17). Specifically, the defendant (1) "was found to have fired shots in the courtyard of Mayfair–Paradise to intimidate people"; (2) was, at a minimum, "present" when an Uzi was placed in the mouth of a woman "because she permitted other dealers to use the apartment"; (3) "was implicated" in the incident where the seller "was held captive and beaten"; and (4) "[i]n Kentland, Harris was going to shoot somebody, but the gun jammed." Id . In sum, the defendant was found to be "a major figure in the drug distribution ring" and to have "personally used guns and actual violence to further his business, and used juveniles."Id .

B. The Defendant's Sentence and Subsequent Sentence Reductions

In October 1989, when the defendant was twenty-one years old, he was convicted, after a jury trial, of fifteen charges: conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute cocaine base (Count 1), conspiracy to carry and use firearms during and in relation to a drug trafficking offense (Count 3), use of a juvenile in drug trafficking (Count 4), carrying a firearm in relation to a drug trafficking offense (Counts 6, 11, 14, 16, and 19), distribution of cocaine (Counts 8 and 12), distribution and possession with intent to distribute fifty grams or more of cocaine base (Counts 9 and 20); assault with a dangerous weapon (Count 13), unlawful use of a firearm in aid of drug trafficking (Count 21), and unlawful receipt and possession of an unregistered firearm (Count 23), in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 924(c), 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a), 841(b)(1)(A)(iii), 845(b), 846, 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d), and 22 D.C. Code 502, for which offenses he was originally sentenced to concurrent terms of life on Counts 1, 4, 9, and 20, a concurrent five-year term on Count 3, concurrent twenty-year terms on Counts 8 and 12, a concurrent ten-year term on Count 23, a concurrent three-to-nine-year term on Count 13, mandatory consecutive terms of five years on each of Counts 6, 11, 14, 16 and 19, and a thirty-year mandatory consecutive sentence on Count 21. See Judgment ("J & C"), dated Oct. 20, 1989; Order Amending Judgment and Commitment ("Amended J & C"), dated Oct. 30, 1989; Sentencing Hr'g Tr. at 17–18, Oct. 18, 1989.² In addition, upon his release from prison, the defendant was sentenced to supervised release terms of ten years on Count 4; five years each, to run concurrently, on "Counts 1, 9, 20 and 21"; and three years each, to run concurrently, on "Counts 3, 6, 8, 11, 12, 14, 16, 19 and 21." J & C at 4.³ Thus, in total, the defendant was originally sentenced to a term of "life plus fifty-five (55) years," with ten years of supervised release to follow. Amended J & C at 1.

The D.C. Circuit's descriptive language in a recent case aptly applies here: "Anyone seeking to follow the path of [defendant's] conviction and search for post-conviction relief will find a long and winding trail." Day v. Trump , 860 F.3d 686, 687, 2017 WL 2697981, at *1 (D.C. Cir. 2017). In a series of both direct and collateral appeals, the defendant's convictions and associated sentences were chipped away. Beginning on direct appeal, the defendant's conviction on Count 23 was vacated, along with his sentence on this count of a concurrent ten-year term of imprisonment. Harris , 959 F.2d at 261 (affirming "all of the challenged convictions and sentences with the exception of Harris' ... conviction[ ] under 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d)"); Order, dated May 21, 1993, ECF No. 25. His sentence was further reduced when his petition, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255, was granted, in part, by this Court following the Supreme Court's decision in Bailey v. United States , 516 U.S. 137, 116 S.Ct. 501, 133 L.Ed.2d 472 (1995), resulting in vacatur of his convictions and corresponding consecutive five-year sentences for each of five violations of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), in Counts 6, 11, 14, 16, and 19. Order, dated May 13, 1999, ECF No. 180. Subsequently, the defendant's petition, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241, was granted, in part, by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, in which district he was then serving his sentence, resulting in vacatur of his conviction on Count 21 and corresponding consecutive thirty-year sentence, for a firearms offense involving a machine gun, see Order, No. 02–779–JLF, dated Dec. 15, 2004, ECF No. 316–2, thereby reducing the defendant's sentence to life imprisonment. Next, on October 19, 2009, without government objection, this Court granted the defendant's motion, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2), to reduce his life sentence to a term of 325 months' imprisonment, based on retroactive application of an amended guideline applicable to crack cocaine offenses. Order, dated Oct. 19, 2009, ECF No. 319.

In October 2011, the defendant moved for another sentence reduction to a sentence of time served based on the U.S. Sentencing Commission's Amendment 750, which lowered the sentencing ranges for crack offenses. See Def.'s Mot. Reduce Sentence (citing UNITED STATES SENTENCING COMMISSION, GUIDELINES MANUAL ("U.S.S.G."), App. C, amend. 750), ECF No. 336. The government opposed this request, arguing successfully that the defendant's responsibility for trafficking in over 8.4 kilograms of crack did not entitle him to any reduction in his sentencing range even under Amendment 750. See Gov't's Opp'n Def.'s Mot. Reduction Sentence, ECF No. 359. The defendant's sentence reduction motion was denied, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c), since his "sentence was not based on a sentencing range that has subsequently been lowered by the Sentencing Commission." Mem. & Order, dated May 21, 2012, at 10, ECF No. 380.

C. The Defendant's Rehabilitation and Current Circumstances

During the first decade of the defendant's incarceration, he accumulated a number of infractions on his prison disciplinary record, but throughout the last eight years of his imprisonment, his record remained infraction free. Probation Mem., dated Nov. 1, 2011, at 2, ECF No. 347. In addition, while incarcerated, he participated in a number of treatment, educational, and vocational programs, including residential drug treatment, general education development, and adult basic education. See id.

The defendant completed his sentence of 325 months' incarceration on December 7, 2012, and has been serving his ten-year term of supervised release for the last four years and seven months. Def.'s Mot. at 3. Continuing the positive conduct he began while incarcerated, the defendant successfully completed his stay in a halfway house and has been infraction free while on supervised release. Id. He moved to Savannah, Georgia, to live with his wife, who works as a legal assistant; had a child, who is now two years old; and has remained successfully employed full-time and even received a promotion. Id. at 3–4. In addition, the defendant's sister-in-law, who spoke at the motion hearing, attested to the defendant's regular attendance in church with his family and his long-term volunteer activities with the Big Brother, Big Sister program, see Mot. Hr'g Tr. at 5:2–10, thereby "demonstrat[ing] that he is a productive member...