Sentencing – Crack cocaine

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Sentencing – Crack cocaine

A defendant who pleads guilty pursuant to FRCP 11(c)(1)(C) cannot receive a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c).

“Scott’s plea agreement did not identify a guidelines range or suggest that the agreed-upon sentence was based on the guidelines. To the contrary, although the agreement mentioned a base offense level, it expressly refused to calculate a criminal-history score and thus omitted one of the critical inputs necessary to find a final advisory guidelines range. It is therefore impossible to infer from this agreement that the parties based their agreed 192-month term on any guidelines range, let alone a range that the Sentencing Commission reduced through a retroactive amendment, as § 3582(c)(2) contemplates. In Dixon, the plea agreement specified both an offense level and a criminal-history category, but because the agreement did not ‘expressly link’ those calculations to the agreed sentencing range, we concluded that it did not meet either of the Freeman exceptions. Here, Scott’s plea agreement did not even calculate a criminal-history score, nor was there an attempt to link his criminal history and offense level to his agreed sentence. Therefore, any error that the district court may have made in failing to provide an adequate explanation or in the use of its form is beside the point. It correctly rejected Scott’s motion to have his sentence reduced under § 3582(c)(2).”
Affirmed.

12-2555 U.S. v. Scott

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Barker, J., Wood, J.

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