First Step Act – Compassionate Release

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Ross Thacker

Case No.: 20-2943

Officials: SYKES, Chief Judge, and SCUDDER and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges.

Focus: First Step Act – Compassionate Release

Ross Thacker is serving a 33-year federal sentence for a series of armed robberies he committed in 2002. The sentence included so-called stacked penalties— imposed to run consecutively to one another—for two convictions under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) for using and carrying a firearm during two of the robberies. The first § 924(c) conviction resulted in a mandatory minimum sentence of 7 years, and the second added a mandatory consecutive sentence of at least 25 years. In September 2020 Thacker invoked 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) and sought to reduce his sentence based not only on the health risks of exposure to COVID-19 within prison, but also on the amendment Congress enacted in the First Step Act of 2018 to limit the circumstances in which multiple sentences for violations of § 924(c) can be stacked. The district court denied Thacker’s motion, concluding in part that the discretion in § 3582(c)(1)(A) to reduce a sentence upon finding “extraordinary and compelling reasons” does not include the authority to reduce § 924(c) sentences lawfully imposed before the effective date of the First Step Act’s anti-stacking amendment.

Affirmed

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Derek A Hawkins is Corporate Counsel, at Salesforce.