United States v. Havens
United States v. Havens
Opinion of the Court
Robert E. Wier, United States District Judge *629The narrow question before the Court is whether the First Step Act of 2018's broadening of
I.
Timothy Havens pleaded guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine, in violation of
On December 21, 2018, President Trump signed into law the First Step Act of 2018 ( Pub. L. No. 115-391,
II.
Section 402 of the First Step Act, titled and effecting a "Broadening of Existing Safety Valve," provides: "APPLICABILITY.-The amendments made by this section shall apply only to a conviction entered on or after the date of enactment of this Act." § 402(b), 132 Stat. at 5221. The Act does not define or further describe the phrase "conviction entered." If the date that a "conviction [is] entered"
*630refers to the entry
"When a term goes undefined in a statute, we give the term its ordinary meaning[,]" Taniguchi v. Kan Pac. Saipan, Ltd. ,
The Supreme Court undertook a like analysis in the context of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, deciding whether the 2010 Act's provisions reducing the crack-to-powder cocaine sentencing ratio applied to crimes committed pre-enactment: "The underlying question before us is one of congressional intent as revealed in the Fair Sentencing Act's language, structure, and basic objectives. Did Congress intend the Act's more lenient penalties to apply to pre-Act offenders sentenced after the Act took effect?" Dorsey v. United States ,
Dorsey dealt with a statute utterly silent on the timing of its applicability. The Court carefully noted that it worked by probing the text for the intent of Congress; Dorsey insisted on assurance that ordinary interpretive considerations "point clearly" to the conclusion that Congress intended to apply "new penalties to a set of pre-Act offenders." Id. at 2332. Ultimately, the Court identified six considerations in finding new-law applicability. Those included thorough review of the Sentencing Reform Act (which required that a sentencing court apply Guidelines in effect at the time of sentencing) and the Fair Sentencing Act's emergency Guidelines amendment authorization (showing that Congress knew the Guidelines timing issue and intended to assure concurrent leniency for newly sentenced offenders). Id. at 2332-33.
Unlike the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, the First Step Act lacks clear or even "fair implication" of an intent to apply the more lenient safety valve to those pronounced guilty pre-Act; rather, the language and structure of the First Step Act strongly suggest the opposite conclusion. Within the Sentencing Reform Title of the First Step Act, Congress included three express "applicability" provisions. In both §§ 401 and 403 (the provisions governing § 841 mandatory minima and § 924(c) stacking, respectively), Congress used the following language: "APPLICABILITY TO PENDING CASES.-This section, and the amendments made by this section, shall apply to any offense that was committed before the date of enactment of this Act, if a sentence for the offense has not been imposed as of such date of enactment." §§ 401(c) & 403(b), 132 Stat. at 5221, 5222. This describes the precise timeline in Havens's case-offense commission (and Havens's guilty plea) occurred pre-Act, but "a sentence for the offense ha[d] not been imposed as of" December 21, 2018.
*632It is counterintuitive-and contrary to statutory interpretation directives-to assume that Congress intended the applicability provisions of §§ 401, 402, and 403 to convey the same meaning despite their very different phrasing. See, e.g. , Keeley ,
The Court also finds the First Step Act's § 924(c) fix instructive. Deal had interpreted § 924(c)(1)(C) to require penalty stacking when a jury made sequential, cascading guilt findings on multiple § 924(c) counts within one Indictment. See
Equally important is the language Congress omitted in Title IV of the First Step Act. In finding the requisite indicia of Congressional intent in the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, the Dorsey Court heavily relied on the 2010 Act's inclusion of Guidelines "emergency amendment" authority, "allowing 'the Commission to incorporate the statutory changes' in the Guidelines while 'minimiz[ing] the lag between any statutory and guideline modifications for cocaine offenders.' " 132 S.Ct. at 2329 (citation omitted).
III.
To date, two district courts have considered this precise issue, and both have reached the same conclusion the Court does here. In a case from this District, Judge Reeves concluded that, despite party reliance-as here-on the policy goal of avoiding unwarranted sentencing disparities, as well as the First Step Act's general theme of greater leniency in sentencing, the language implementing the safety valve changes controlled in the pre-Act *634plea scenario. See United States v. Slone , No. 5:17-135-DCR-4,
Given the language and structure of Title IV, the Court is likewise unable to find any textual "fair implication" of Congress's intent to apply the new, more lenient variant of § 3553(f) in this circumstance. The differing applicability provisions-analyzed in light of background interpretation principles and, particularly, the Supreme Court's decision in Dorsey -lead the Court to conclude that "conviction entered" in the context of § 402(b) correlates with the entry of a finding of guilt, rather than entry of judgment. The sincere and important contra policy arguments cannot override or transform the text, which clearly points against the advocates' view. Accordingly, absent circuit or Supreme Court authority, the Court is bound by the mandatory minimum incarceration term.
IV.
For these reasons, the Court must OVERRULE Defendant's objection to the Presentence Investigation Report (DE # 31).
Judge Van Tatenhove transferred this case to the undersigned on January 11, 2019. DE # 28.
The Court treats the word "entered," as used in § 402(b), as simply referring to the Clerk's ministerial act of filing a document (such as an order accepting a plea, any other order, or the final judgment) in the case record. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 55 ("The clerk must enter in the records every court order or judgment and the date of entry."); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 32(k)(1) ("The judge must sign the judgment, and the clerk must enter it.").
Cf. Judgment , Black's Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014), available at Westlaw ("judgment of conviction (1806): 1. The written record of a criminal judgment, consisting of the plea, the verdict or findings, the adjudication, and the sentence ... 2. A sentence in a criminal case. See sentence."). This definition of "judgment of conviction" is consistent with Rule 32 : "In the judgment of conviction, the court must set forth the plea, the jury verdict or the court's findings, the adjudication, and the sentence." Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(k)(1).
Deal has special relevance because one of the sentencing reforms in Title IV is a statutory change to the interpretation of § 924(c) by the Deal Court. This Court can safely assume Congress had in mind the dynamics of Deal.
Of course, the Ex Post Facto Clause would regulate the imposition of later harsher penalties.
Indeed, Havens, in a different sentencing aspect, benefited from the mandatory minimum changes under § 401; his § 841(b)(1)(A) 20-year minimum automatically became a 15-year minimum, and, ultimately, no longer applied as a result of § 401's introduction and definition of the phrase "serious drug felony" in
Treating "conviction entered" as equivalent to "judgment of conviction entered" can create some mind-bending possibilities. Section 3553 regulates "Imposition of Sentence," and § 3553(f) is the safety valve, which directs (when it applies) how a court shall "impose a sentence." Logically, if "conviction entered" means guilt finding, it is no stretch to treat the new safety valve as applying to determine imposition of sentence as to the finding. It is more difficult if "conviction entered" means judgment of conviction because the judgment is the result of sentencing, and § 3553(f) is part of the process of sentencing. Thus, a court would not logically apply a sentencing statute to the judgment itself; the statute would apply to the process of sentencing, which culminates in the judgment. The awkward verbiage is simply another reason the Court has difficulty in thinking Congress clearly meant what the parties advocate. Finally, use of the adverb "only" in the key phrase-that the amendments "shall apply only to a conviction entered" post enactment-linguistically indicates the need for narrower instead of broader application. § 402(b), 132 Stat. at 5221 (emphasis added).
Is this (safety valve extension) different from Dorsey (which involved lowering of the crack-to-powder ratio)? In a sense, the safety valve is not a direct punishment; rather, it is a path to a lower punishment for a given "offense" if specific criteria exist. However, if the § 841 penalty is a "liability incurred" at offense commission, then the safety valve extension would, by operation and its repeal of the prior version, "have the effect to release or extinguish" a penalty otherwise applicable. See
Dorsey also relied in part on disparities a different result would create, and the parties here argued as well that using conviction entry instead of judgment date would work inequities. The Court sees the argument but also notes that any dateline drawn for a statutory change not fully retroactive has winners and losers. Here, Havens entered a valid guilty plea well before the First Step Act came into being. Despite that, he got the benefit of § 401, avoiding a harsh 20-year minimum. It is true that vagaries in plea timing could create disparity. However, quirks in sentencing timing would yield similar distinctions as to §§ 401 and 403. Congress picked its language and created the categories. While Dorsey found that disparities, in context, signaled lenient intent, none of the other key Dorsey factors (the statutory silence, Guidelines status, and the emergency amendment authorization) point that way here. A policy argument simply will not trump otherwise clear text.
Unlike this case and Slone, Tracy presented a variance question, rather than a mandatory minimum issue-Tracy and the United States agreed that a two-level downward variance was appropriate to reflect the First Step Act's safety valve amendments, despite the corresponding Guideline remaining unchanged. In assessing variance propriety, the Tracy court engaged in thorough treatment of the statutory interpretation issue presented here. See
The Court notes, however-as stated fully on the record at Havens's sentencing hearing-that, if it could have applied § 402 of the First Step Act, Havens would have qualified for the new § 3553(f), and the Court would have chosen to impose a sentence below the ten-year mandatory minimum.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- United States v. Timothy HAVENS
- Cited By
- 5 cases
- Status
- Published