United States v. Watford

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. JOHN JOSE WATFORD

CAUSE NUMBER 3:97-CR-26(2) RLM

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA SOUTH BEND DIVISION

February 12, 2021

OPINION AND ORDER DENYING COMPASSIONATE RELEASE

This is John Watford's second motion for compassionate release. The court denied his first, understanding that it sought benefit of the First Step Act's retroactivity provisions. [Doc. No. 295]. This motion seeks release under the First Step Act's provision that an inmate, not just the Bureau of Prisons, can seek compassionate release. To win compassionate release, an inmate must first show that (1) he has exhausted his administrative options within the Bureau of Prisons, and (2) extraordinary and compelling reasons support compassionate release. If he makes such a showing, the court has discretion, after considering the statutory sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), to order the inmate's release.

Mr. Watford contends that the sheer unreasonableness of his sentence (when evaluated by modern standards) amounts to a sufficient extraordinary and compelling reason. This court reads the statute differently. The bulk of Mr. Watford's sentence (45 years) consists of sentences under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) that were "stacked," meaning each the sentence on one count lengthened the sentences on the others. While the First Step Act clarified the proper way of dealing with multiple counts of conviction under § 924(c), section 403(b) of the Act specified that the clarification didn't apply retroactively to defendants like Mr. Watford. As this court reads the First Step Act, a court can't effectively convert the non-retroactivity provision into an extraordinary ground for compassionate release, even if yesterday's way of applying § 924(c) produced a manifestly unreasonable sentence by today's standards. Mr. Watford also cited his health and the COVID-19 pandemic as grounds for compassionate release, but he doesn't have any conditions that place him at greater risk than other inmates.

Our court of appeals hasn't decided whether a sentence's unreasonableness can alone amount to grounds for compassionate release, and might disagree with this reading of the First Step Act; some other circuit courts read the law as Mr. Watford does. Given that possibility, this opinion goes on to evaluate the statutory sentencing factors, and to conclude that while Mr. Watford's 802-month sentence was mandatory at the time of sentencing, it is extraordinarily unreasonable today. This court would order compassionate release if it had jurisdiction to do so.

I. FACTS

John Watford, now aged forty-eight, is serving an 802-month sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Memphis, Tennessee. He was convicted of three counts of aggravated bank robbery, which accounted for 262 months of his sentence, and three counts of carrying a firearm in furtherance of a crime ofviolence under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), which produced the remaining 540 months of his sentence.

A little before 11:00 a.m. on May 2, 1997, Mr. Watford and Ricky Anderson entered a Sobieski Federal Savings and Loan branch in South Bend. Mr. Watford went to the teller with a plastic grocery bag while Mr. Anderson waited at the door and ordered the tellers to put money (but no dye packs) in the bag. Mr. Anderson displayed the only handgun the tellers saw. The robbers fled with just under 7,000 federally insured dollars.

Mr. Watford and Mr. Anderson returned to the same Sobieski Federal branch two and a half weeks later. This time each had and displayed a handgun, and each approached the tellers, telling them to give them money with no dye packs. They took a little over $2,000.00.

They tried to rob the Elcose Federal Credit Union in Elkhart, Indiana, the next day. Mr. Anderson had a handgun. They left with nothing.

Mr. Watford and Mr. Anderson didn't limit their activity to the Northern District of Indiana. Two days before their first Sobieski robbery, they robbed an Indianapolis branch of the National Bank of Detroit. Mr. Anderson was armed, and they left with a little over $1,700.00. A week after the attempted Elcose robbery, they robbed the Star Financial Bank in Anderson and stole about $20,000. Both men might have been armed.

Mr. Watford has moved for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). The government opposes his motion.

A court considering a motion for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) must decide whether the movant has exhausted his remedies within the Bureau of Prisons, 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), decide whether "extraordinary and compelling reasons" warrant the relief sought, 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i), and consider the sentencing factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1)(A)(iii). Until the Sentencing Commission updates the pertinent application notes to include prisoner-initiated applications, district judges must apply the statutory criteria of extraordinary and compelling reasons. United States v. Gunn, 980 F.3d 1178 (7th Cir. 2020).

II. EXHAUSTION

A petitioner for compassionate release must first exhaust his remedies within the Bureau of Prisons. See United States v. Sanford, 2021 WL 236622 (7th Cir. Jan. 25, 2021). Mr. Watford made his compassionate release request to the warden of his institution on October 15, 2020, and the warden didn't respond within thirty days, so Mr. Watford has exhausted his administrative remedies for purposes of a motion for compassionate release.

III. EXTRAORDINARY AND COMPELLING REASONS

A. The Applicable Law

Mr. Watford and the government disagree about what can or must be shown to satisfy the requirement of extraordinary and compelling reasons for compassionate release. Mr. Watford maintains that his 1998 sentence is unreasonable when seen through the lenses of 2021 sentencing law, and that the unreasonableness of his sentence can constitute an extraordinary and compelling reason for compassionate release. The government contends that the application notes to U.S.S.G. § 1B1.13 define extraordinary and compelling reasons. Neither side agrees with the other.

1. The Government's Argument: Application Notes Are Limiting

The government maintains its position, apparently to preserve the issue for appeal, that the application notes to U.S.S.G. § 1B1.13 contain the only permissible definition of extraordinary and compelling reasons. Section 3582(c) of Title 18 limits a court's power to modify a sentence to three situations:

• when the Sentencing Commission has reduced a sentencing range and made its amendment retroactive, 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2);

• when allowed by a statute or Fed. R. Crim. P. 35, 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(B); and• when the court finds that extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant a reduction, "and that such a reduction is consistent with applicable policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission . . . ." 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A).

The only policy statements addressing compassionate release are those accompanying U.S.S.G. § 1B.13, the government's argument goes, so a compassionate release order can issue only if it consistent with those policy statements.

The government cites several cases in which circuit and district courts agreed with that position, but district courts in this circuit must reject the government's position. In United States v. Gunn, 980 F.3d 1178 (7th Cir. 2020), our court of appeals recognized that while the Sentencing Commission has issued policy statements to address motions or determinations by the Director of the Bureau of Prisons, the First Step Act authorized—for the first time—prisoners to file compassionate release motions with the court. The policy statement in U.S.S.G § 1B1.13 is self-limiting because it begins with "Upon motion of the Director of the Bureau of Prisons . . . ." Having lacked a quorum for the last few years, the Sentencing Commission hasn't issued any policy statement to address the meaning of extraordinary and compelling when a prisoner makes the motion.

When dealing with an inmate-generated motion for compassionate release, district courts in this circuit "must operate under the statutorycriteria—extraordinary and compelling reasons—subject to deferential appellate review." United States v. Gunn, 980 F.3d at 1180.

The Gunn holding undercuts the value of the government's cited case law. For example, the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit decided in United States v. Saldana, that the district court should have dismissed for want of jurisdiction a compassionate release petition based on rehabilitation and changes in sentencing law "[b]ecause Mr. Saldana is unable to show that he satisfied 'one of the specific categories authorized by section 3582(c) . . . .'" 807 Fed. Appx. 816, 820 (10th Cir. 2020) (quoting United States v. Brown, 556 F.3d 1108, 1113 (10th Circuit 2019)). The Gunn court held that other paths are available to a petitioner.

The district court's holding in United States v. Dodd flowed from its understanding that "[t]he Commission's policy statements . . . are binding concerning what should be considered extraordinary and compelling reasons for sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)." 471 F. Supp. 3d 750, 754 (E.D. Tex. 2020). Gunn holds otherwise. The holding in United States v. Brown was based on the district court's conclusion that, "The Court agrees with the reasoning of those courts that have found that applying the policy statement . . . to motions filed by defendants, just as it applies § 1B1.13 to motions filed by the BOP, is proper absent any authoritative indication to the contrary." 2020 WL 3511584 at *5 (E.D. Tenn. June 29, 2020). Again, Gunn requires a different approach.

The court agrees with Mr. Watford that the application note to U.S.S.G. § 1B1.13 doesn't provide the complete definition of extraordinary and compelling reasons as the First Step Act uses that phrase in 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A).

2. Mr. Watford's Argument: Sentence Unreasonableness as Grounds for Release

Mr. Watford argues,...