United States v. Lewis

1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. ALVIN LEWIS

No. 3:99-cr-00033

United States District Court, M.D. Tennessee, Nashville Division

October 14, 2022

MEMORANDUM OPINION

ELI RICHARDSON, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

More than two decades ago, this Court sentenced Defendant Alvin Lewis to serve seven years in prison. He has not yet completed that sentence. Beginning in 2003, Defendant absconded from prison for more than eighteen years. He returned to prison in November 2021-not voluntarily, but only after being recaptured by law enforcement.

Now Defendant has filed a Motion for Compassionate Release Due to Age and Deteriorating Health (Doc. No. 145 “Motion”), wherein he asks the Court to exercise its discretion to grant the extraordinary remedy of compassionate release because Defendant is now in his midsixties and suffering from health problems related to “mini-strokes.” The Government opposes Defendant's request for compassionate release and has filed a Response in Opposition. (Doc. No. 151). Defendant has filed a Reply (Doc. No. 168) and the Government has filed a Surreply (Doc. No. 173). The Court has thoroughly reviewed all of the parties' submissions, and the Motion is now ripe for disposition. For the reasons that follow, the Court will deny the Motion based on the Court's discretionary balancing of the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors.

BACKGROUND

In 1999, a jury convicted Defendant on twelve counts relating to the manufacture and sale of unauthorized devices used to pirate satellite television without paying a subscription fee. See United States v. Lewis, 296 F.3d 487, 488-91 (6th Cir. 2002).^[1] Judge Thomas A. Higgins of this Court sentenced Defendant to 72 months' imprisonment and ordered Defendant to self-report on November 1, 1999 to begin serving his sentence. (Doc. No. 73). On October 28, 1999 shortly before Defendant was due to self-report, he filed a motion seeking a 30-day extension of his selfreport date. (Doc. No. 83). Judge Higgins denied that motion the following day. (Doc. No. 85).

Nonetheless, Defendant failed to report on November 1, 1999 to begin serving his sentence as this Court had ordered. (See Doc. Nos. 88-91). United States Marshals were instead forced to retrieve Defendant from Pensacola, Florida, to which he had fled. Defendant was indicted for failure to surrender to serve a sentence of imprisonment. See United States v. Alvin Lee Lewis, M.D. Tenn. Case No. 3:00-cr-00002, Doc. No. 7. He pled guilty to that additional charge and, on April 14, 2000, Judge Higgins sentenced Defendant to an additional twelve months and one day's imprisonment, to run consecutively to the sentence previously imposed in this case. (Case No. 3:00-cr-00002, Doc. Nos. 14, 15, 23). Thus, Defendant's total sentence of imprisonment between the two cases was 84 months (i.e., seven years) and one day.

Given that Defendant was sentenced to seven years in prison more than twenty years ago, one naturally might wonder why his request for compassionate release is before the Court today. The answer is that, beginning in April 2003, Defendant (once again) absconded from prison, this time for nearly eighteen years.^[2] In April 2003, the Government-despite already having been fooled once-decided to furlough Defendant from the Federal Correctional Institution at Memphis, where he had served the first portion of his sentence, and directed Defendant to selfreport to the Federal Correctional Institution at Lompoc, California (“FCI Lompoc”), three days later to serve the remainder of his sentence closer to family. (See Doc. No. 151-2). The Government's trust-perhaps quixotic even at the time-was not repaid. Defendant did not report to FCI Lompoc. Instead, he remained a fugitive until November 2021, and was recaptured only when officers from the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department (whom Defendant had called to report a potential burglary) discovered that there was a federal felony arrest warrant for Defendant and took him into custody. (Doc. No. 151-4).

Although Defendant was charged in the United States District Court for the Central District of California with escaping from prison in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 751, the Government subsequently dismissed that charge (Doc. Nos. 151-6, 151-7), meaning that Defendant's eighteen-year intermission did not result in any increase to his sentence. Since November 2021, Defendant has been serving the remainder of his original 84-month sentence and is currently projected to be released in March 2024. See Inmate Locator, Federal Bureau of Prisons, https://www.bop.gov/inmateloc/ (last accessed Oct. 12, 2022). Defendant is currently incarcerated in California at FCI Lompoc.^[3] See id.; Doc. No. 166 at 2.

On April 6, 2022, Defendant filed the instant Motion, seeking compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1). Via the Motion, Defendant requests that the remainder of his sentence (now approximately seventeen months) be terminated and that he be released immediately (Doc No. 145 at 3).^[4]

LEGAL STANDARD

Prior to 2018, only the Director of the Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) could move for compassionate release. The First Step Act amended 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c) to allow prisoners to move for compassionate release on their own behalf. See First Step Act of 2018, Pub. L. No 115-391, § 603, 132 Stat. 5194, 5239. In relevant part, § 3582(c) now provides:

The court may not modify a term of imprisonment once it has been imposed except that . . . the court, upon motion of the Director of the Bureau of Prisons, or upon motion of the defendant after the defendant has fully exhausted all administrative rights to appeal a failure of the Bureau of Prisons 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, may reduce the term of imprisonment (and may impose a term of probation or supervised release with or without conditions that does not exceed the unserved portion of the original term of imprisonment), after considering the factors set forth in section 3553(a) to the extent that they are applicable, if it finds that . . . extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant such a reduction . . . and that such a reduction is consistent with applicable policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission ....^[5]

As the statutory text makes clear, in order to grant a motion for compassionate release filed by a defendant (hereinafter, “defendant-filed motion”), a court must find that the so-called “exhaustion requirements” have been satisfied-i.e., either “the defendant has fully exhausted all administrative rights to appeal a failure of [BOP] to bring a motion [for compassionate release] on the defendant's behalf,” or there has been a “lapse of 30 days since the receipt of such a request [for BOP to file such a motion] by the warden of the defendant's facility, whichever is earlier.” Id.; see also United States v. Alam, 960 F.3d 831, 833 (6th Cir. 2020) (explaining that a district court may not disregard the exhaustion requirement of § 3582(c)(1)(A) if properly invoked by the Government).

If the exhaustion requirement is met, the district court proceeds to apply a three-step test. United States v. Jones, 980 F.3d 1098, 1107-08 (6th Cir. 2020); United States v. Ruffin, 978 F.3d 1000, 1004-05 (6th Cir. 2020). At step one, the court must determine whether a sentence reduction is warranted by “extraordinary and compelling reasons.” Jones, 980 F.3d at 1107-08; 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i). At step two, the court must determine whether “such a reduction is consistent with applicable policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission.” Jones, 980 F.3d at 1108; 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). In Jones, the Sixth Circuit held that the Sentencing Commission's policy statement on compassionate release, United States Sentencing Guidelines (“U.S.S.G.”) § 1B1.13, is not “applicable” to defendant-filed motions because it was drafted with only BOP- filed motions in mind. 980 F.3d at 1110-11.^[6]Accordingly, “[i]n cases where incarcerated persons file motions for compassionate release, federal judges may skip step two of the § 3582(c)(1)(A) inquiry and have full discretion to define ‘extraordinary and compelling' without consulting the policy statement § 1B1.13.” Id. at 1111; see also United States v. Inman, 583 F.Supp.3d 1117, 1121 (M.D. Tenn. 2022) (“[B]ecause § 1B1.13 is inapplicable to defendant-filed motions, a district court adjudicating such a motion is not bound by anything § 1B1.13 has to say about-including any limitations or requirements § 1B1.13 would impose upon-the finding of extraordinary and compelling reasons.”).

Finally, at step three, the court “consider[s] any applicable [18 U.S.C.] § 3553(a) factors and determine[s] whether, in its discretion, the reduction authorized by steps one and two is warranted in whole or in part under the particular circumstances of the case.” Jones, 980 F.3d at 1108 (brackets omitted) (quoting Dillon v. United States, 560 U.S. 817, 827 (2010)).

District courts “may deny compassionate-release motions when any of the three [or two, in defendant-filed motions] prerequisites listed in § 3582(c)(1)(A) is lacking and do not need to address the others.” United States v. Navarro, 986 F.3d 668, 670 (6th Cir. 2021) (quoting United States v. Elias, 984 F.3d 516, 519 (6th Cir. 2021)). Thus, district courts may deny compassionate-release motions by “skipping right to the § 3553(a) factors.” Id. (citing Elias, 984 F.3d at 519).

It bears emphasis that a district court may-not must-grant a defendant-filed motion if the test described above is satisfied. See Jones, 980 F.3d at 1106 (“Congress's use of ‘may' in § 3582(c)(1)(A) dictates that the compassionate release...