United States v. Trenkler

47 F.4th 42

UNITED STATES, Appellant,

v.Alfred W. TRENKLER, Defendant, Appellee.

No. 21-1441

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

August 29, 2022

Donald C. Lockhart, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Nathaniel R. Mendell, Acting United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellant.

Amy Barsky, with whom Fick & Marx LLP was on brief, for appellee.

Mary Price, Shanna Rifkin, Rebecca F. Izzo, Andrew M. Debbins, and Connors LLP on brief for amicus curiae Families Against Mandatory Minimums.

Jamesa J. Drake, Drake Law LLC, Michael L. Waldman, Courtney L. Millian, Roy T. Englert, Jr., and Kramer Levin Robbins Russell on brief for amicus curiae National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Before Thompson, Selya, and Gelpí, Circuit Judges.

THOMPSON, Circuit Judge.

Before us is the government's appeal from the district court's grant of a motion for compassionate release filed by appellee, Alfred W. Trenkler ("Trenkler"), a federal inmate serving a life sentence for convictions stemming from his role in a 1991 car bombing. Trenkler's is a familiar face: By our count, this appeal marks his ninth visit to this court after he was convicted and received his life sentence nearly thirty years ago.¹ Consequently, there is a dense factual and procedural background here.² For today, though, we primarily assume the parties' familiarity with the extensive history of Trenkler's case, the various issues presented, and the bevy of arguments advanced, providing only the information and context necessary to explain our reasoning and the path forward. As we will explain, we remand this matter to the district court for further review consistent with this opinion.

BACKGROUND

The latest chapter in Trenkler's litigation story began on January 15, 2021, when Trenkler filed a motion for compassionate release pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582 (the statute governing sentence reductions, colloquially known as the compassionate release statute) based on his serious health risks related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as well as the unique circumstances of his case. According to Trenkler, those unique circumstances include: questions surrounding his guilt; the fundamental unfairness of his conviction; the fact that his co-defendant received a lesser sentence; and an error that occurred at his sentencing in 1994, resulting in an unlawfully imposed life sentence.

That the sentencing error was, in fact, error is undisputed. The jury, in convicting Trenkler, found only intent to destroy property,³ but the trial judge inferred from the evidence an intent to kill, and thus handed down a life sentence.⁴ Unbeknownst at the time to the trial judge, prosecution, and defense counsel, this sentence was imposed in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 34 (1988), as incorporated by 18 U.S.C. § 844 (1988), which required life sentences to be assigned by the jury. Six months after Trenkler's sentencing, Congress amended 18 U.S.C. §§ 34 and 844(d) and (i), removing the requirement of a jury recommendation for a life sentence.⁵ It seems likely this change aided in obscuring the error, as it was not until almost ten years later that finally Trenkler discovered this sentencing error himself.⁶ In the matter now before us, Trenkler points to this institutional failure in support of his motion for compassionate release.

Based on the legal landscape as it then appeared,⁷ the district court tackled Trenkler's motion by reasoning through the statutory construction of the compassionate release statute and applying persuasive sister-circuit precedent. United States v. Trenkler, 537 F. Supp. 3d 91, 107 (D. Mass. 2021). While the district court was not sufficiently persuaded by some of the circumstances Trenkler proffered to support his motion (questions surrounding his guilt, fundamental unfairness, co-defendant sentence disparity), taken individually, it concluded that the sentencing error constituted an "extraordinary and compelling" reason to grant compassionate release. Id. at 108. Specifically, the life sentence was handed down by a judge when the controlling statute provided that a life sentence could be imposed only by a jury, and there was no other available avenue for relief from this error. Id. Accordingly, the district court reduced Trenkler's sentence from a term of life imprisonment to forty-one years, crediting time served. Id. at 114.

The government timely appealed, disputing the district court's conclusion that the sentencing error was an extraordinary and compelling reason warranting compassionate release. It argues that the district court's ruling "circumvents the [Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), as codified in 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h) ]'s limitations on successive habeas petitions, supplants habeas law generally, and conflicts with this Court's conclusion that compassionate release represents a ‘narrow exception’ to the statutory ban on altering prison terms once they have been imposed."⁸

DISCUSSION

We review a district court's denial or grant of a compassionate release motion for abuse of discretion. See United States v. Ruvalcaba, 26 F.4th 14, 19 (1st Cir. 2022). Questions of law are reviewed de novo and findings of fact are reviewed for clear error. Id.

Before we proceed, a brief primer will provide important additional context.

Compassionate release, codified under 18 U.S.C. § 3582 and amended by the First Step Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-391, sec. 603(b), § 3582, 132 Stat. 5194, 5239 [hereinafter "FSA"], governs sentence reductions generally. The passage of the FSA in 2018 represented "a paradigm shift" for compassionate release "[b]y empowering district courts to grant compassionate release" on prisoner-initiated motions.⁹ Ruvalcaba, 26 F.4th at 22. This resulted in a swirl of litigation around the scope of compassionate release, with other circuits weighing in to interpret the statute to mean that the existing policy statement on compassionate release promulgated by the Sentencing Commission does not constrain a district court when adjudicating prisoner-initiated motions. See id. at 21 (collecting cases from our sister circuits).

Then came Ruvalcaba with our court's take on compassionate release as impacted by the FSA. See id. at 23-24. Ruvalcaba rejected the notion that the habeas statutes provide an extratextual limit on a district court's discretion to categorically omit any challenges based on sentence length or sentencing errors, see id. at 25-26, but explained that any concerns about the potential misuse of compassionate release can still be allayed through the substantive "extraordinary and compelling" criteria and based on appellate review of a district court's determinations, see generally id. at 26-28. Along the way, the Ruvalcaba court agreed "with the overwhelming majority of the courts of appeals that have decided the issue," concluding that the existing policy guidelines do not apply to prisoner-initiated motions. Id. at 21.¹⁰ Under this statutory regime, Ruvalcaba explained, the only exception to what may constitute an extraordinary and compelling reason, as made explicit by Congress,¹¹ is rehabilitation. Id. at 25. Ruvalcaba then reasoned that when reviewing these motions, district courts enjoy broad discretion, and may conduct a holistic review to determine whether the individualized circumstances, taken in the aggregate, present an "extraordinary and compelling" reason to grant compassionate release. Id. at 27, 28. The takeaway is this:

a district court, reviewing a prisoner-initiated motion for compassionate release in the absence of an applicable policy statement, may consider any complex of circumstances raised by a defendant as forming an extraordinary and compelling reason warranting relief. It follows that a district court adjudicating such a motion may consider the FSA's non-retroactive amendments to the scope of the mandatory minimum penalties under section 841(b)(1)(A) on a case-by-case basis grounded in a defendant's individualized circumstances to find an extraordinary and compelling reason warranting compassionate release.

Id. at 28.

The parties here disagree about what Ruvalcaba means for Trenkler's case.

Taking issue with Ruvalcaba's holding and the role (if any) it should play in the present appeal, the government takes the absolutist position that this court cannot consider a sentencing error when making determinations of what qualifies as extraordinary and compelling. In doing so, the government essentially argues as an initial matter that the question is whether Trenkler's motion for compassionate release should have been recategorized by the district court, at least in part, as a habeas motion. The government contends as much and urges from there that it should have been rejected as an unauthorized successive petition for habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h). The government then insists that the district court erred in deeming a sentencing error an extraordinary and compelling reason, and asserts that for us to sign off on this would effectively allow compassionate release to swamp habeas.

Trenkler, for his part, maintains that Ruvalcaba unequivocally sets the standard here; habeas and compassionate release are distinct in purpose and scope, and the district court correctly reviewed his motion under the compassionate release standard as later set forth in Ruvalcaba.

Here's how we see it. The initial question of what may be considered in an "extraordinary and compelling" determination by the district court is separate from the secondary, individualized question of what can actually qualify as extraordinary and compelling. And while the government would like it to be, the initial question is not at issue in this case. As noted above, Ruvalcaba clarified that until the Sentencing Commission speaks, the only limitation on what can be considered an extraordinary and compelling reason to grant a prisoner-initiated motion is rehabilitation. 26 F.4th at 25, 26 ; see also id. at 23-24...