United States v. Taylor

• Decision Date: 11 February 2015
• Docket Number: No. 13–2978.,13–2978.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Kevyn TAYLOR, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

778 F.3d 667

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee

v.Kevyn TAYLOR, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 13–2978.

No. 13–2978.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Dec. 17, 2014.

Decided Feb. 11, 2015.

Donald S. Boyce, Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Fairview Heights, IL, for Plaintiff–Appellee.

Neal A. Connors, Attorney, Neal Connors Law Firm, P.C., Belleville, IL, for Defendant–Appellant.

Before WILLIAMS, SYKES, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

Opinion

HAMILTON, Circuit Judge.

Kevyn Taylor filed a motion under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) seeking a reduced sentence on his convictions for drug trafficking. He argued that his imprisonment range under the United States Sentencing Guidelines had been lowered by retroactive Amendment 750, which, among other changes, made permanent the reduction to the amount of marijuana deemed equivalent to one gram of crack cocaine for purposes of determining offense levels in drug cases involving more than one drug. The district court concluded that Taylor's sentencing range had not been lowered and that the court therefore lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over his motion. We agree with the district court that Taylor's motion lacks merit, but we take this occasion to clarify that § 3582(c)(2) does not limit a district court's subject-matter jurisdiction to consider a motion brought under that statute, even a motion that the court would not be authorized to grant. The denial of Taylor's motion is affirmed on the merits.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

A jury found Taylor guilty in 2009 of conspiring to distribute crack, possessing and distributing powder cocaine, possessing a firearm as a felon, and possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime. All of the offenses were committed in 2005 and 2006. At sentencing the district court found that Taylor was responsible for 837 grams of crack and 396 grams of powder cocaine. The court also included as relevant conduct Taylor's responsibility for 227 kilograms of marijuana.

Because more than one drug was involved, Taylor's base offense level was calculated by converting the crack and powder cocaine quantities to their “marijuana equivalent.” See U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1 cmt. n. 8(B)-(D) (2013); United States v. Brazelton, 557 F.3d 750, 753 (7th Cir.2009) ; United States v. Bothun, 424 F.3d 582, 585 (7th Cir.2005). Under the 2008 Guidelines in effect when Taylor was sentenced, the crack and powder cocaine plus the 227 kilograms of marijuana were together equivalent to 17,046 kilograms of marijuana. That amount corresponded to an offense level of 36 in the Drug Quantity Table. See U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(c)(2) (2008).

At that time, however, Application Note 10(D) to § 2D1.1 provided for a two-level reduction if a drug offense involved both crack cocaine and another controlled substance. See § 2D1.1 cmt. n. 10(D) (2008); United States v. Chess, 610 F.3d 965, 968 (7th Cir.2010). Taylor's base offense level thus was set at 34. Two levels were added for obstructing justice under § 3C1.1. With Taylor's criminal history category of I, a total offense level of 36 yielded an imprisonment range for the drug counts of 188 to 235 months. The district court sentenced Taylor to concurrent terms of 180 months for those crimes. The court also imposed a concurrent term of 120 months for possessing a firearm as a felon, as well as a mandatory consecutive sentence of 60 months for possessing that gun in furtherance of a drug crime. On direct appeal we affirmed Taylor's convictions and the total sentence of 240 months. United States v. Taylor, 637 F.3d 812 (7th Cir.2011).

In 2013 Taylor filed the § 3582(c)(2) motion at issue in this appeal. He asserted that Amendment 750, which made permanent and retroactive the temporary changes in Amendment 748, had reduced his base offense level from 34 to 32.

The Sentencing Commission adopted Amendments 748 and 750 to implement the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, Pub.L. No. 111–220, 124 Stat. 2372. As relevant to offenses involving more than one kind of drug, Amendment 748 reduced the marijuana equivalent of one gram of crack cocaine from 20 kilograms to 3,571 grams. The problem for Taylor's motion is that the same amendment also revised the commentary to § 2D1.1 by striking Application Note 10(D) and thus eliminating the two-level decrease he had received for multiple-drug cases involving crack cocaine. See U.S.S.G. app. C., amend. 748, pp. 377, 382; see also United States v. Robinson, 697 F.3d 443, 444 (7th Cir.2012) (explaining effect of Amendments 748 and 750).

The district court found that the imprisonment range for Taylor's drug crimes had not been lowered. The court explained that Application Note 10(D) had been deleted so that the 2012 version of § 2D1.1 no longer provided a two-level reduction in setting the base offense level for cases involving crack cocaine and another drug. Taylor's final offense level remained 36 even under Amendment 750. The court did not deny Taylor's motion on the merits but dismissed it for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, citing United States v. Lawrence, 535 F.3d 631, 637–38 (7th Cir.2008), and United States v. Forman, 553 F.3d 585, 588 (7th Cir.2009), which both treat eligibility for relief under § 3582(c)(2) as an issue of subject-matter jurisdiction.

II. Analysis

A. Subject–Matter Jurisdiction

Two separate and conflicting lines of cases have emerged in this circuit regarding whether a district court has subject-matter jurisdiction to decide a § 3582(c)(2) motion on the merits even if the court has concluded that it lacks authority to grant the motion.

In the line of cases cited by the district court, we have loosely but incorrectly described as a lack of “jurisdiction” those situations where the statutory criteria for a sentence reduction under § 3582(c)(2) have not been satisfied. See United States v. Irons, 712 F.3d 1185, 1189 (7th Cir.2013) ; United States v. Davis, 682 F.3d 596, 610 (7th Cir.2012) ; United States v. Woods, 581 F.3d 531, 536 (7th Cir.2009) ; United States v. Forman, 553 F.3d 585, 588 (7th Cir.2009) ; United States v. Poole, 550 F.3d 676, 678–79 (7th Cir.2008) ; United States v. Lawrence, 535 F.3d 631, 638 (7th Cir.2008) ; United States v. Smith, 438 F.3d 796, (7th Cir.2006) (describing § 3582(c)(2) as “a real ‘jurisdictional’ rule rather than a case-processing requirement”).

In the other line of cases, however, we have treated the statutory criteria of § 3582(c)(2) as non-jurisdictional. In United States v. Beard, 745 F.3d 288, 291–92 (7th Cir.2014), we explained that § 3582(c)(2)'s statutory criteria create a “non-jurisdictional case processing rule” that does not deny district courts subject-matter jurisdiction to evaluate and deny repeat motions. 745 F.3d at 291. That description applies equally to any § 3582(c)(2) motion. And in an opinion involving a different Mr. Taylor, we said explicitly that a district court has subject-matter jurisdiction to deny a § 3582(c)(2) motion even if the inmate is statutorily ineligible. United States v. Taylor, 627 F.3d 674, 675–76 (7th Cir.2010).

While the difference will rarely have much practical significance, we take this opportunity to resolve the conflicting case law and to clarify that district courts have subject-matter jurisdiction over—that is, the power to adjudicate—a § 3582(c)(2) motion even when authority to grant a motion is absent because the statutory criteria are not met. See generally United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 629–31, 122 S.Ct. 1781, 152 L.Ed.2d 860 (2002) (defining subject-matter jurisdiction as the constitutional or statutory power to adjudicate a matter); United States v. Ceballos, 302 F.3d 679, 690–92 (7th Cir.2002) (explaining that “judges and legislators sometimes use the term jurisdiction to erroneously refer to a court's authority to issue a specific type of remedy, rather than to the court's subject-matter jurisdiction”).

Our clarification here comports with Beard, 745 F.3d at 291–92, and Taylor, 627 F.3d at 675–76, as well as decisions from other circuits that distinguish between subject-matter jurisdiction to decide a § 3582(c)(2) motion and a defendant's eligibility for relief. See United States v. Anderson, 772 F.3d 662, 666–68 (11th Cir.2014) ; United States v. Johnson, 732 F.3d 109, 116 n. 11 (2d Cir.2013) ; United States v. Moore, 541 F.3d 1323, 1326–27 (11th Cir.2008). The D.C. Circuit has tentatively signaled its agreement. United States v. Smith, 467 F.3d 785, 788 (D.C.Cir.2006) (Supreme Court's holding that time limits on post-trial motions were not jurisdictional calls into question a jurisdictional reading of § 3582 ), citing Eberhart v. United States, 546 U.S. 12, 126 S.Ct. 403, 163 L.Ed.2d 14 (2005).

Still other circuits, however, have seen the issue in jurisdictional terms. See United States v. Graham, 704 F.3d 1275, 1279 (10th Cir.2013) (concluding that § 3582(c)(2) motion should have been dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because defendant was ineligible for reduced sentence); United States v. Austin, 676 F.3d 924, 930 (9th Cir.2012) (stating that district court “lacked jurisdiction” to reduce sentence when statutory criteria of § 3582(c)(2) were not satisfied); United States v. Williams, 607 F.3d 1123, 1125–26 (6th Cir.2010) (citing our decision in Poole, 550 F.3d at 678, as support for treating limits of § 3582(c)(2) as jurisdictional); United States v. Garcia, 606 F.3d 209, 212 n. 5 (5th Cir.2010) ; United States v. Auman, 8 F.3d 1268, 1271 (8th Cir.1993).

The practical differences between our lines of cases are minimal. The most likely situation in which the jurisdictional line would make a difference would be a case where a district court granted relief under § 3582(c)(2) and the government asserted on appeal an apparently winning argument it had not made in the district court. If the issue were truly jurisdictional, it could not be waived.

Whether a limit on a court's power is truly jurisdictional is ultimately up to Congress. In a...