United States v. Bobby Venable, 943 F.3d 187

Venable pleaded guilty (1997) to possession with intent to distribute cocaine base (12.1 g) and a related firearms offense; the drug count was then a Class B felony. He was sentenced to 110 months concurrent and supervised release.
In 2008 the district court reduced his sentence to 92 months; having served more, Venable was released to a four-year term of supervised release.
While on supervised release, Venable committed new state drug offenses; the district court revoked his federal supervised release and sentenced him to 15 months imprisonment (consecutive to a 10-year state term). He is currently in federal custody serving that revocation sentence.
Venable moved under § 404 of the First Step Act to reduce his sentence, arguing the Fair Sentencing Act reclassified his original offense (Class B → Class C), which lowers both original and revocation statutory limits and would permit crediting overserved time.
The district court summarily denied the motion, reasoning Venable had finished his original term and was in custody on a revocation sentence, so no reduction was authorized; Venable appealed.
The Fourth Circuit vacated and remanded, holding the court erred: under the unitary theory a revocation sentence is part of the original sentence, so the First Step Act can be applied to a defendant serving a revocation term for a covered offense; the panel did not decide whether relief should be granted on the merits.

Issue	Venable's Argument	Government's Argument	Held
Whether a district court may reduce a sentence under §404 of the First Step Act when the defendant completed the original prison term but is serving a revocation prison term	Revocation is part of the unitary original sentence; his underlying conviction is a "covered offense," so the court may reduce the revocation term	Initially: revocation sentences are separate under §3583(e)(3) and not covered; alternatively, any error was harmless policy-wise. Later: conceded authority but argued district court correctly refused to reduce the completed original term	Vacated; court erred: revocation imprisonment is a component of the original sentence under Johnson/Ketter unitary framework, so the First Step Act may be applied; remanded for merits consideration
Standard of review: whether the Government’s late argument that Venable waived the revocation-ground triggered plain-error review	De novo review (preserved)	Urged plain-error review based on alleged waiver and Venable raising the revocation-reduction theory on appeal	Court declined to entertain the Government’s last-minute procedural ambush (Ashford); applied de novo review

Johnson v. United States, 529 U.S. 694 (2000) (revocation/reimprisonment treated as part of the original sentence; revocation is a recall, not a termination)
United States v. Haymond, 139 S. Ct. 2369 (2019) (plurality reaffirming that supervised-release penalties are part of the initial offense’s penalty)
United States v. Ketter, 908 F.3d 61 (4th Cir. 2018) (adopting unitary-sentence framework; custodial and supervised-release terms are components of one sentence)
United States v. Evans, 159 F.3d 908 (4th Cir. 1998) (reaffirming that supervised release, revocation, and additional imprisonment are part of the original sentence)
United States v. Woodrup, 86 F.3d 359 (4th Cir. 1996) (sentence upon revocation is an authorized part of the original sentence)
United States v. Ashford, 718 F.3d 377 (4th Cir. 2013) (court may decline to apply plain-error review when government raises an eleventh-hour waiver argument; rejects procedural ambush)
Sierra Club v. U.S. Dep’t of the Interior, 899 F.3d 260 (4th Cir. 2018) (parties cannot waive the correct standard of review by brief; cited on standards but distinguished in application)