United States v. Latonya Clavielle

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
United States v. Latonya Clavielle, 505 F. App'x 597 (7th Cir. 2013)

United States v. Latonya Clavielle

Opinion

ORDER

Latonya Clavielle appeals the denial of her motion for a reduced sentence, primarily arguing that she had a right to be resentenced under Pepper v. United States, — U.S. —, 131 S.Ct. 1229, 179 L.Ed.2d 196 (2011), based on her postsen-teneing rehabilitation. The district court construed the motion as arising under 18 U.S.C. § 3582 and denied it. We affirm.

A jury convicted Ms. Clavielle of several counts of mail fraud, see 18 U.S.C. § 1341, and aggravated identity theft, see 18 U.S.C. § 1028A. Ms. Clavielle had applied for 162 credit cards — and obtained 31— using false variations of her own personal data and that of her children and her boyfriend’s children; she ultimately accumulated about $42,000 in unpaid debts. The district court sentenced Ms. Clavielle to 61 months’ imprisonment, and we affirmed her sentence. See United States v. Clavielle, 429 Fed.Appx. 617 (7th Cir. 2011). A year later, Ms. Clavielle moved to vacate her sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, alleging that her trial counsel was ineffective. The district court denied the motion, and we dismissed her appeal as untimely.

More than two years after she was sentenced, Ms. Clavielle filed a self-styled “Motion for Downward Departure,” in which she asserted generally that her sentence should be reduced under Koon v. United States, 518 U.S. 81, 116 S.Ct. 2035, 135 L.Ed.2d 392 (1996), and Pepper v. United States, based on her exceptional *598 post-offense rehabilitation. Ms. Clavielle noted that she had obtained her GED, taken training courses, maintained employment in prison, accepted responsibility for her actions, and kept a clean disciplinary record. The district court construed her motion as arising under § 3582(c) and in a minute order denied it, concluding that a term of imprisonment once imposed, as a general matter, could not be modified.

On appeal, Ms. Clavielle maintains that the district court overlooked her citation to Pepper v. United States, which in her view allows postsentencing rehabilitation to be considered an “extraordinary and compelling” reason warranting a sentencing reduction under § 8582(c)(1)(A)(i). This argument, however, misapprehends how that provision operates. A district court may reduce a defendant’s sentence under § 8582(c)(1)(A)(i) only on a motion by the Director of the Bureau of Prisons. But no such motion has been made here. Nor in any event does Pepper help her. There the Supreme Court held that “when a defendant’s sentence has been set aside on appeal and his case remanded for resen-tencing, a district court may consider evidence of a defendant’s rehabilitation since his prior sentencing.” Pepper, 131 S.Ct. at 1241. But Ms. Clavielle’s sentence was not set aside on appeal nor remanded for resentencing. Pepper, therefore, does not support her request for a sentence reduction to account for her postsentencing rehabilitation.

We have considered Ms. Clavielle’s other arguments, and they do not merit further discussion.

AFFIRMED.

Reference

Full Case Name
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Latonya M. CLAVIELLE, Defendant-Appellant
Cited By
1 case
Status
Unpublished