Sentencing — safety-valve

Listen to this article

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Sentencing — safety-valve

A defendant who received an upward enhancement under U.S.S.G. 3B1.1 as a supervisor is ineligible for a safety-vavle adjustment.

“[U]nder the rules of construction for the United States Code, ‘words importing the plural include the singular’ unless the context indicates otherwise. 1 U.S.C. § 1; see also Rowland v. Calif. Men’s Colony, Unit II Men’s Advisory Council, 506 U.S. 194, 200–01 (1993) (courts may depart from § 1’s presumptive definitions to avoid ‘forcing a square peg into a round hole’); United States v. Holcomb, 657 F.3d 445, 448 (7th Cir. 2011). Further support for denying the safety valve to a supervisor of a single person appears in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(4), which disqualifies a defendant from the safety valve if he was a ‘supervisor of others in the offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines.’ 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(4) (emphasis added). The plain language of § 3553(f)(4) conditions safety-valve relief on whether the defendant is characterized as a supervisor anywhere in the guidelines, see id.; U.S.S.G. § 5C1.2(a)(4); Doe, 613 F.3d at 690, and the commentary to § 3B1.1 authorizes the two-level adjustment as long the defendant supervised ‘one or more’ participants. U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1 cmt. n.2. (emphasis added); see also United States v. Gonzalez-Mendoza, 584 F.3d 726, 728–29 (7th Cir. 2009) (§ 3B1.1 adjustment for defendant’s supervision of one co-conspirator foreclosed argument for safety-valve relief). Because May properly received the two-level adjustment under § 3B1.1, he is not eligible for safety-valve relief.”

Affirmed.

13-2799 U.S. v. May

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Chang, J., Manion, J.