United States v. Rios

• Decision Date: 11 June 2020
• Docket Number: CRIMINAL CASE NO. 4:06-CR-14-5
• Citation: 466 F.Supp.3d 685
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Jesse Carlos RIOS
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Texas

466 F.Supp.3d 685

UNITED STATES of America

v.Jesse Carlos RIOS

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 4:06-CR-14-5

United States District Court, E.D. Texas, Sherman Division.

Signed June 11, 2020

Ernest Gonzalez, U.S. Attorney's Office, Plano, TX, for United States of America.

ORDER ON MOTION FOR COMPASSIONATE RELEASE

SEAN D. JORDAN, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Before the Court is Defendant Jesse Rios's motion for compassionate release pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). (Dkt. #313).¹ Rios requests that the Court reduce his sentence to time served due to health concerns related to COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. The Government replied in opposition. (Dkt. #314). The Court, having considered the motion, the record, and the applicable law, DISMISSES the motion for want of jurisdiction.

I. BACKGROUND

Jesse Rios was a member of a drug-trafficking organization responsible for selling large quantities of cocaine. Rios was arrested and later pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute or dispense or possess with intent to distribute or dispense cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. (Dkt. #196). On December 6, 2006, Rios was sentenced to 262 months of imprisonment and five years of supervised release. Id.

Rios has moved for a reduction of his sentence to time served pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). (Dkt. #313). Rios contends that he is eligible for such a reduction because of the general danger presented by the COVID-19 pandemic to prison populations, his low risk of recidivism, and his medical history.² Rios has not exhausted administrative remedies available through the Bureau of Prisons ("BOP") prior to filing this motion.

The Government opposes Rios's request. (Dkt. #314). The Government argues that Rios's failure to satisfy 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)'s threshold exhaustion requirement precludes relief. Exhaustion aside, the Government further argues that Rios has not shown a right to relief on the merits because his reasons for release are not "extraordinary and compelling."

II. LEGAL STANDARDS

A judgment of conviction imposing a sentence of imprisonment "constitutes a final judgment and may not be modified by a district court except in limited circumstances." Dillon v. United States , 560 U.S. 817, 824, 130 S.Ct. 2683, 177 L.Ed.2d 271 (2010) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see also 18 U.S.C. §§ 3582(b), (c). One such exception arises from section 3582(c)(1)(A)(i), which authorizes a district court to reduce a term of imprisonment if, after considering the relevant factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), it determines that "extraordinary and compelling reasons" support such a reduction and that the reduction is "consistent with applicable policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission[.]" 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i).³ A sentence modification under section 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) may be obtained only through a motion made either by the Director of the BOP or by a defendant "after the defendant has fully exhausted all administrative rights to appeal a failure of the [BOP] to bring a motion on the defendant's behalf" or "the lapse of 30 days from the receipt of such a request by the warden of the defendant's facility, whichever is earlier[.]" Id. § 3582(c)(1)(A).

III. DISCUSSION

Rios's failure to meet section 3582(c)(1)(A)'s exhaustion requirement deprives this Court of jurisdiction to modify his sentence. Even if the Court could exercise adjudicatory authority over Rios's motion, the relief he requests would nonetheless remain precluded by section 3582(c)(1)(A)'s exhaustion requirement, as it is not susceptible to any judicially created exception. Rios's motion must therefore be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

A. Section 3582(c)(1)(A)'s Exhaustion Requirement Is Jurisdictional.

Under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c), district courts have authority to modify a prisoner's sentence under narrow circumstances. One such circumstance, invoked by Rios, is provided by section 3582(c)(1)(A)(i). This provision allows a court to modify a defendant's sentence if it finds that "extraordinary and compelling reasons" warrant a reduction of the sentence and the reduction is "consistent with applicable policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission[.]" Id. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i).

Section 3582(c)(1)(A) makes clear, however, that a court cannot consider any modification to a defendant's sentence under section 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) unless a motion for such a modification is properly made by the Director of the BOP or by a defendant who has fully exhausted administrative remedies. See id. § 3582(c)(1)(A) (providing that the Director of the BOP may request a sentence reduction in court at any time and a defendant may also make such a request, but only after the defendant has fully exhausted remedies within the BOP or allowed 30 days to pass after seeking administrative remedies). Here, there is no evidence that the Director of the BOP has requested a reduction on Rios's behalf or that Rios has fully pursued administrative remedies within the BOP. Under controlling Fifth Circuit precedent, section 3582(c)(1)(A)'s exhaustion requirement is jurisdictional, and Rios's failure to meet that requirement deprives the Court of jurisdiction to consider a modification to his sentence.

It is well-settled in the Fifth Circuit that 18 U.S.C. § 3582 sets out the limited instances in which a district court has jurisdiction to modify a term of imprisonment. See, e.g., United States v. Garcia , 606 F.3d 209, 212 n.5 (5th Cir. 2010) (per curiam) ("The district court's jurisdiction to correct or modify a defendant's sentence is limited to those specific circumstances enumerated by Congress in 18 U.S.C. § 3582.") (citing United States v. Bridges , 116 F.3d 1110, 1112 (5th Cir. 1997) ). In an unbroken line of cases over two decades, circuit case law has reaffirmed that section 3582 provides a limited grant of jurisdiction for a district court to modify a term of imprisonment. See, e.g., United States v. Rene , 785 F. App'x 240, 240–41 (5th Cir. 2019) (per curiam); Bridges , 116 F.3d at 1112. Because these cases speak in terms of section 3582 as a whole, it follows that section 3582(c)(1)(A), and the limitations within, circumscribe the Court's jurisdiction.

The Court recognizes that, in a series of recent opinions, the Supreme Court has cautioned against imprecise use of the "jurisdictional" label, which can elide "the ‘critical difference[s]’ between true jurisdictional conditions and nonjurisdictional limitations on causes of action." Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick , 559 U.S. 154, 161, 130 S.Ct. 1237, 176 L.Ed.2d 18 (2010) (citations omitted) (alterations in original). To reinforce these critical differences, the Supreme Court has encouraged courts to use the label "jurisdictional" "not for claim-processing rules, but only for prescriptions delineating the classes of cases (subject-matter jurisdiction) and the persons (personal jurisdiction) falling within a court's adjudicatory authority." Kontrick v. Ryan , 540 U.S. 443, 454–55, 124 S.Ct. 906, 157 L.Ed.2d 867 (2004) ; see also id. at 455, 124 S.Ct. 906 ("Jurisdiction" refers to "a court's adjudicatory authority"). Claims-processing rules, in contrast, "seek to promote the orderly progress of litigation by requiring that the parties take certain procedural steps at certain specified times." Henderson v. Shinseki , 562 U.S. 428, 435, 131 S.Ct. 1197, 179 L.Ed.2d 159 (2011). Based upon this line of Supreme Court authority, some courts have determined that section 3582 is a nonjurisdictional, mandatory claims-processing rule. See, e.g., United States v. Alam , No. 20-1298, 2020 WL 2845694, *2–*3 (6th Cir. June 2, 2020) ; United States v. Taylor , 778 F.3d 667, 670–71 (7th Cir. 2015) ; see also United States v. Calton , 900 F.3d 706, 711 (5th Cir. 2018) (noting that the Taylor court concluded that section 3582 "is not part of a jurisdictional portion of the criminal code," and that section 3582(c) is not "phrased in jurisdictional terms").

It does not appear, however, that the Supreme Court's recent authority distinguishing jurisdictional and nonjurisdictional statutory limitations undermines the Fifth Circuit's understanding of section 3582's exceptions to the finality rule as jurisdictional conditions rather than claims-processing rules. The Supreme Court has made clear that, to determine whether a statutory prescription is a jurisdictional limitation on a court's adjudicatory authority, courts must "look to see if there is any ‘clear’ indication that Congress wanted the rule to be ‘jurisdictional.’ " Henderson , 562 U.S. at 436, 131 S.Ct. 1197. That indication, however, does not turn on Congress's use of "magic words." Id. Instead, as the Supreme Court has explained, Congress's intent must be determined through traditional tools of statutory construction by examining the "text, context, and relevant historical treatment" of the limitation at issue, Reed Elsevier , 559 U.S. at 166, 130 S.Ct. 1237 (citation omitted), and "what they reveal about the purposes [the limitation] is designed to serve," Dolan v. United States , 560 U.S. 605, 610, 130 S.Ct. 2533, 177 L.Ed.2d 108 (2010).

Both the text and context of section 3582 demonstrate that its requirements are not simply rules that "seek to promote the orderly process of litigation by requiring that the parties take certain procedural steps at certain specified times." Henderson , 562 U.S. at 435, 131 S.Ct. 1197. Instead, section 3582 is a "prescription[ ] delineating the classes of cases (subject-matter jurisdiction) ... falling within a court's adjudicatory authority." Kontrick , 540 U.S. at 455, 124 S.Ct. 906. In this regard, "a basic principle of judicial process" is that, "once a final [criminal] judgment is issued and the court of appeals considers a case, a district court has no power to act on it further." Eberhart v. United States , 546 U.S. 12, 17, 126 S.Ct. 403, 163 L.Ed.2d 14 (2005) (per curiam)...