United States v. Navarro

• Decision Date: 28 January 2021
• Docket Number: No. 20-5640,20-5640
• Citation: 986 F.3d 668
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Homero Quintanilla NAVARRO, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

986 F.3d 668

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Homero Quintanilla NAVARRO, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 20-5640

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Decided and Filed: January 28, 2021

GRIFFIN, Circuit Judge.

Homero Quintanilla Navarro appeals the district court's denial of his motion for compassionate release. He argues that his poor health, coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic and his status as a non-violent offender, tipped the balance of the factors under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) in his favor, so the district court abused its discretion by coming to the opposite conclusion. We disagree and affirm.

I.

In 2017, defendant pleaded guilty with the benefit of a plea agreement reached under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(C) to conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute and possessing with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine, see 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 846, and illegally reentering the United States after having been removed subsequent to a felony conviction, see 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a), (b)(1). The district court accepted the plea and sentenced him to 120 months of imprisonment, and he did not appeal.

In April 2020, Quintanilla filed a pro se motion referring to the COVID-19 pandemic, which the district court construed as a request for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). The district court appointed counsel for Quintanilla, and counsel filed a supplemental motion on Quintanilla's behalf, asserting that he has underlying medical conditions that put him at high risk of severe illness from COVID-19, including diabetes

, obesity, and hypertension ; that his facility, FCI Oakdale, was among those hardest hit by the pandemic; and that the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors weighed in favor of release. The government responded in opposition, arguing that defendant had not demonstrated sufficiently extraordinary and compelling reasons and that, even if he had, his motion should be denied because he is a danger to the community and his release would be inconsistent with the § 3553(a) factors. The district court denied the motion in a form order, stating that it had considered the applicable § 3553(a) factors and policy statements and conducted a "complete review" of the merits. Quintanilla timely appealed from the district court's order.

II.

Since the district court's denial of Quintanilla's motion, we have in a trio of cases provided more guidance on how to evaluate compassionate release motions brought by prisoners. See United States v. Ruffin , 978 F.3d 1000 (6th Cir. 2020) ; United States v. Jones , 980 F.3d 1098 (6th Cir. 2020) ; United States v. Elias , 984 F.3d 516 (6th Cir. 2021). Each case warrants further discussion.

Ruffin set forth the three substantive requirements that must be met before a district court may grant compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). 978 F.3d at 1004–05. First, "the court initially must ‘find’ that ‘extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant such a reduction.’ " Id. at 1004 (quoting § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) (brackets omitted)). Second, "the court next must ‘find’ ‘that such a reduction is consistent with applicable policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission.’ " Id. at 1005 (quoting § 3582(c)(1)(A)(ii) (brackets omitted)). Third, "[e]ven if a district court finds that extraordinary and compelling reasons exist and that a sentence reduction comports with [the applicable policy statements], the court may not grant the reduction before ‘considering the factors set forth in section 3553(a) to the extent that they are applicable.’ " Id. (quoting § 3582(c)(1)(A) (brackets omitted)).

Next, in Jones , we elaborated in detail on what is required to "strike the proper balance" between "accord[ing] due deference to district judges" while still "correct[ing] their factual and legal errors" in the context of a motion for compassionate release. 980 F.3d at 1112. In so doing, we acknowledged that district courts are not required to "pen a ‘full opinion’ in every sentencing or sentencing-modification decision." Id. (quoting Chavez-Meza v. United States , ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S. Ct. 1959, 1964, 201 L.Ed.2d 359 (2018) ). So, where "a matter is [ ] conceptually simple ... and the record makes clear that the sentencing judge considered the evidence and arguments," a district court is not required to render an extensive decision. Id. (alteration in original) (quoting Rita v. United States , 551 U.S. 338, 359, 127 S.Ct. 2456, 168 L.Ed.2d 203 (2007) ). But on the other hand, Jones also opined that "[i]n most circumstances, ‘[a] district court's use of a barebones form order ... would be inadequate.’ " Jones , 980 F.3d at 1114 (emphasis added and second alteration in original) (quoting Chavez-Meza , 138 S. Ct. at 1967 ). According to Jones , a district court's use of a form order is reserved only for cases involving "thorough record evidence of the judge's factual decisions." Id.

Finally and most recently, Elias clarified that "district courts may deny compassionate-release motions when any of the three prerequisites listed in § 3582(c)(1)(A) is lacking and do not need to address the others." 984 F.3d at 519. But where the district court grants a motion for compassionate release, it must of course address all three steps. Id.

III.

With the benefit of these three decisions, we turn to the issue presented by Quintanilla's appeal: whether the district court abused its discretion by denying his motion for compassionate release. See Ruffin , 978 F.3d at 1005.

A.

Two preliminary observations are in order.

First, we observe that the district court did not err by skipping right to the § 3553(a) factors and denying defendant's motion. Elias settles that matter. 984 F.3d at 519.

Second, to the extent that one might conclude Jones 's broad assertions about barebones orders favor reversal here, we disagree.

The discussion in Jones regarding the insufficiency of so-called barebones orders was not necessary to the court's judgment and is accordingly not binding on later panels. See Jones , 980 F.3d at 1116–17 (Cook, J., concurring). The Jones decision contains an erudite discussion of the scope of a district court's obligation to explain its weighing of the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, a discussion that provides an overview of the relevant law, and provides thoughtful advice to district judges. The Jones court held that the explanation in that case was sufficient, and also opined regarding what would not be sufficient. The former was a basis for upholding the lower court judgment, while the latter would be a basis for reversing some different judgment. The former analysis is binding on later panels, but the latter is not.

Taken in isolation, Jones 's statements about the propriety of barebones orders are in tension with the Supreme Court's own observations about their use in Chavez-Meza . There, the Court explained that a "judge need not provide a lengthy explanation" for reducing a defendant's sentence "if the ‘context and the record’ make clear that the judge had ‘a reasoned basis’ for reducing the defendant's sentence." 138 S. Ct. at 1966 (quoting Rita , 551 U.S. at 356, 359, 127 S.Ct. 2456 ). It then condoned the district court's use of a barebones form order to resolve a sentencing-modification motion brought under § 3582(c)(2) because it was satisfied that the district court had met that standard. Id. at 1967–68. In particular, the Court looked through to the original sentencing proceeding and observed that the district court rejected the defendant's request for a downward variance by emphasizing that the defendant had distributed a "significant quantity" of methamphetamine and that methamphetamine had particularly deleterious effects on that specific community. Id. at 1967. Therefore, when the district court later granted defendant's motion for a sentence reduction in a form order, but did not impose the exact sentence the defendant had requested, the Supreme Court concluded that the record as a whole had convinced it "that the judge considered the parties' arguments and had a reasoned basis for exercising his own legal decisionmaking authority." Id. (brackets, internal quotation marks, and citation omitted). That is a far cry from Jones 's unduly restrictive view that barebones orders are to be "reserved for the simplest of cases" with "thorough record evidence of the [district court]'s factual decisions." 980 F.3d at 1113–14.

B.

We therefore follow the guidance of Chavez-Meza and consider whether Quintanilla's request for compassionate release and the district court's denial thereof reflects a "conceptually simple" matter suitable to resolution via a form order. We conclude that it was, and that the district court therefore did not abuse its discretion by denying Quintanilla's motion.

The district court had before it the record of the original proceedings, including a presentence report it adopted in full, the sentencing hearing transcript, and the judgment. It is apparent from the original sentencing records that the district court was concerned that the defendant had been deported from the United States "numerous times"—the presentence report establishes that defendant had voluntarily departed the United States (as opposed to being deported) ten times between 2004 and 2008, and had been deported from the United States six additional times since then. In addition, defendant's convictions for possession with intent to distribute cocaine—for which the presentence report attributed to defendant more than ten kilograms of cocaine—led the district court to remark that the offense conduct was "very serious." Those concerns led the district court to impose a mandatory-minimum ten-year sentence as outlined in Quintanilla's plea agreement, especially because Quintanilla "doesn't seem to learn his lesson very well."

A little more than two years later, Quintanilla filed his motion for compassionate release and requested that the district court...