Lеrvon Campbell pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and received a fifteen-year mandatory minimum sentence. At the time he was sentenced, Campbell had served apрroximately nine months of an unrelated state sentence after his supervised release had been revoked due to his arrest on the federal charges. The district court imposed Campbell’s federal sentence to run concurrently with the remainder of that state sentence, but did not credit the nine months he had already served, believing that U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3(c) did not give it the authority to do so. Campbell appeals, arguing that the district court erred in concluding that it lacked the authority to impose his federal sentence “fully” concurrently with his state sentence. Because the district court had the discretion to adjust Campbell’s sentence to take into account the time he had served on his undischarged state term, we vacate his sentence and remand for resentencing.
I. BACKGROUND
On Decеmber 29, 2008, Milwaukee police officers executing a search warrant at Campbell’s home discovered powder cocaine, crack cocaine, and marijuana, and saw Cаmpbell attempt to throw a gun out of his bedroom window. At the time, Campbell was on supervised release for prior unrelated Wisconsin state convictions. As a result of the new arrest, the state of Wisconsin revoked his supervised release and ordered Campbell to serve three years in prison on the state offenses.
Campbell pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) and was sentenced in federal court on August 31, 2009, by which time he had served approximately nine *960 months of his state term. Campbell acknowledged that he qualified as an armed career criminal under 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), subjecting him to a fifteen-year mandatory minimum sentence. Campbell’s guidelines range was 188 to 235 months, but the district court concluded that the statutory minimum was appropriate and ordered the fifteen-year sentence to run concurrently with the remainder of his three-year state term.
Campbell asked the court to adjust his federal sentence to take into account the nine months that he had already served, so that his federal term would be run effectively “fully” concurrent to his state sentence. The district court indicated that it was not opposed to doing so, but denied the request after concluding that it lacked the authority to do so. The court reasoned that while U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3(b) would permit a downward adjustment, Campbell’s situation fell under § 5G1.3(c), which did not. Section 5G1.3(b) states that the district court should adjust a federal sentence to account for any period of imprisonment already served on a state term, when the state sentence results from an offense that was relevant conduct to the federal offense of conviction and led to an increase in the defendant’s offense level. Section 5G1.3(c), which applies to cases (like Campbell’s) in which a defendant was on supervised release at the time of the instant offense and had it revoked, provides that a sentence may be imposed to run “concurrently, partially concurrently, or consecutively to the prior undischarged term of imprisonment to achieve a reasonable punishment for the instant offense.” U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3(c). Unlike § 5G1.3(b), however, § 5G1.3(c) does not authorize a downward adjustment. An application note provides that, with the exception of extraordinary cases, “[ujnlike subsection (b), subsection (c) does not authorize an adjustment of the sentence for the instаnt offense for a period of imprisonment already served on the undischarged term of imprisonment.” U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3, cmt. 3(E).
The district court, after receiving supplemental briefing from the parties, concluded thаt it had no authority to grant an adjustment in a § 5G1.3(c) situation such as Campbell’s, and denied the request. Campbell appeals.
II. ANALYSIS
Title 18, section § 3584 of the United States Code gives a district court the discretion to impose a term of imprisonment either concurrently or consecutively to a prior undischarged term, taking into consideration the factors enumerated in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). The guideline at issue in this case is U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3, which governs the imposition of a sentence that is subject to another undischarged term of imprisonment.
The district court was correct in noting that subpart (b) of § 5G1.3 expressly authorizes a downward adjustment of a sentence to take into account a period already served on an undischarged term of imprisonment, while subpart (c) does not. But the district court erred in concluding that this distinction in the guideline
limits
its exercise of discretion. Although § 5G1.3 expresses the Sentencing Commission’s views about how a court’s § 3584 sentencing discretion should be exercised, it does not restrict that discretion after
United States v. Booker,
Nor does the § 924(e)(1) mandatory minimum to which Campbell is subject *961 preclude the sentence adjustment he seeks. Section 924(e)(1) says that a defendant must “be imprisoned ... not less than fifteen years,” 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1) (emphasis added). We have on two occasions held that this requirement is satisfied so long as a defendant’s total period of incarceration, state and federal сombined, equals or exceeds the statutory minimum.
First, in
United States v. Ross,
The computation of the total term of imprisonment for purposes of § 924(e) may, consistently with Application Note 2 to § 5G1.3, be accomplished by adding up the number of months the defendant hаs served on the related conviction and the number of months assessed in the federal judgment. The total must equal or exceed the statutory mandatory minimum of 180 months.
Id. To hold otherwise, we concluded, wоuld be to “exalt form over substance.” Id. at 594. We noted that giving a credit in this manner “is not a departure from the guideline range [which would be prohibited except under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(e) or (f) ]; it is simply another way of aсhieving the required period of imprisonment.” Id. at 595.
More recently, in
United States v. Cruz,
The fact that Ross involved § 5G1.3(b) and not § 5G1.3(c) does not limit Ross’s applicability to this case. It is § 3584 that gives a sentencing court the discretion to impose a concurrent sentence, taking into consideration the factors set forth in § 3553(a). 18 U.S.C. § 3584(b). Section 5G1.3 is advisory, and thus its distinction between subsections (b) and (c) is informative in, but not binding on, the way a district court exercises its § 3584 discretion. And clearly, Ross’s interpretation of § 924(e) does not depend on the applicabil *962 ity of a specific guideline. So, contrary to its conclusion at sentencing, the district court had the discretion to adjust Campbell’s sentence to account for the time he had served on his state revocation.
Of course, the question of whether the court has this discretion is distinct from the question of how it should be exercised. The time for which Campbell seeks credit is from a prison term for conduct wholly unrelated to that underlying his federal sentence, and the argument can be made that adjusting his term for that time provides him with something of a windfall. Subsections (b) and (c) of § 5G1.3 reflect a sensible policy distinction between treatment of undischarged terms of imprisonment that involve relevant conduct to the instant offense, and those that do not. On remand, should the district court decide to make the adjustment Campbell seeks, its reasons for doing sо should be articulated in light of the § 3553(a) factors and the policy considerations set forth in § 5G1.3. If the district court disagrees with the methodology set forth in § 5G1.3—which it necessarily will be doing if it grants the adjustment—an adequаte explanation to “allow for meaningful appellate review and to promote the perception of fair sentencing” should be given.
Gall v. United States,
III. CONCLUSION
Campbell’s sentence is Vacated and the case is Remanded for resentencing.