Sentencing — substantial assistance

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Sentencing — substantial assistance

Because Rule 35(b) hearings are not an opportunity for a full resentencing, the district court cannot consider factors other than the defendant’s substantial assistance in deciding by how much to reduce the defendant’s sentence if the reduction is less than the request.

“Shelby stands for the notion that a district court hearing a Rule 35(b) motion may not use the § 3553(a) factors to further reduce the defendant’s sentence once the value of his assistance has been assessed. To allow otherwise would disturb the underlying original sentence, rather than merely subtract the value of the assistance provided. Chapman gives district courts the option of using the § 3553(a) factors to determine if granting the full sentence reduction agreed upon by the two parties would result in an unjust sentence. In the present case, the government did not agree to a specific reduction, and indeed, the defendant did not propose a specific reduction. If we adopted Webster’s position, a request for as large a reduction as possible would always trigger a review of the § 3553(a) factors. We see no reason to endorse such an approach.”

Affirmed.

11-1226 U.S. v. Webster

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, Crabb, J., Cudahy, J.