UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ROBIN PEOPLES, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 21-2630
United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit
Decided July 20, 2022
Argued April 27, 2022
Robert L. Miller, Jr., Judge.
Before SYKES, Chief Judge, and BRENNAN and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.
I
A
Robin Peoples led a gang that robbed four Indiana banks in late 1997 and early 1998. In eaсh robbery, he brandished an assault rifle. And on at least one occasion he pointed the gun at tellers and threatened to kill them if they did not hand over money. Peoples stole getaway cars, which, on two occasions, he then doused with gasoline and set on fire. The robberies netted about $105,000.
Federal charges followed, and in 1999 a jury convicted Peoples on multiple counts of armed bank robbery (
The four
In the end, the district court sentenced Peoples to a total term of imprisonment оf almost 111 years (1,329 months). This consisted
By any measure, Peoples has used his time in prison to better himsеlf. He has taken and successfully completed many classes, including on how to continue with parenting responsibilities in prison, leadership and interpersonal skills development, accounting, music, and typing. All along he has maintained good behavior, receiving no disciplinary infractions. The rеcord even shows that Peoples, at substantial risk to his own safety, took steps to save another person‘s life in prison.
Peoples‘s record in prison so impressed Bureau of Prisons personnel that nine correctional officers came forward and supported his motion for compassionate release that he filed under
Peoples is right that the First Step Act changed the law. See
B
Relying on United States v. Black, 999 F.3d 1071, 1075 (7th Cir. 2021), the district court initially granted Peoples‘s motion and ordered his immediate release. The district court reasoned that it “can, in an appropriate case, find extraordinary and compelling reasons for compassionate release bаsed solely on the unreasonableness—by contemporary standards—of the defendant‘s sentence.” Under this framework, the court emphasized the fact that Peoples, if sentenced after the First Step Act‘s amendment to
The government moved for reconsideration. While that motion was pending, we decided United States v. Thacker, holding that the compassionate release statute “cannot be used to effect a sentencing reduction at odds with Congress‘s express determination embodied in § 403(b) of the First Step Act that the amendment to § 924(c)‘s sentencing structure apply only prospectively.” 4 F.4th at 574. We explained that “the discretion conferred by
To be sure, the district court stood by its prior finding that “[o]ther factors made Mr. Peoples‘s 1999 sentence unreasonable in 2021.” Notwithstanding this observation, the district court took care to acknowledge that it could not “honestly say that it would reach the samе result without considering the extra 45 years for what the law treated as second and subsequent § 924(c) offenses at Mr. Peoples‘s 1999 sentencing.” The court offered this acknowledgement against its recognition of our statement in Thacker, that, at “step one [of a compassionate release motion], the prisoner must identity an ‘extraordinary and compelling’ reason warranting a sentence reduction, but that reason cannot include, whether alone or in combination with other factors, consideration of the First Step Act‘s amendment to § 924(c).” 4 F.4th at 576.
In the course of its reasoning, the district court reinforced its view on the extraordinary degree of Peoples‘s rehabilitation in prison. But so too did the district court determine that after Thacker “those observations no longer support a grant of compassionate release under today‘s understanding of the law in this circuit.”
Peoples reported back to prison the next day and then appealed.
II
A
The compassionate release statute provides that a court “may not modify a term of imprisonment once it has been imposed except” if “after considering the factors set forth in section 3553(a) tо the extent that they are applicable,” it “finds that extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant such a reduction.”
This statutory language led us in Thacker to observe that proper consideration of a motion for compassionate release proceeds in two steps. First, the prisoner “must identify an ‘extraordinary and compelling’ reason warranting a sentence reduction.” Thacker, 4 F.4th at 576. Second, “[u]pon a finding that the prisoner has supplied such a reason,” the district court “exercis[es] the discretion conferred by the compassionate release statute, to consider any appliсable sentencing factors in § 3553(a) as part of determining what sentencing reduction to award the prisoner.” Id.
The district court committed no abuse of discretion in concluding that Peoples failed at step one. In reconsidering its initial ruling, the district court recognized that Thacker forecloses prisoners from using
On this record, we see no shortcoming in the district court‘s reasoning. The district court reconsidered its reasoning in light of Thacker, accurately described our holding there, and then in clear and candid terms explained that, setting aside the significance of the change of law embodied in the First Step Act, it could find no extraordinary and compelling reason for a reduced sentence.
The clarity of that congressional determination resolves the question before us, for “the discretionary authority conferred by
A contrary conclusion would undermine the determinate sentencing scheme Congress established with the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. See Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361, 363–68 (1989). That enactment evinced Congress‘s clear desire to displace the then-existing indeterminate sentencing and parole systems that relied on broad discretion about an “offender‘s amenability to rehabilitation.” Id. This discretion resulted in “[s]erious disparities in sentences” аnd “uncertainty as to the time the offender would spend in prison.” Id. at 365–66. So “Congress overhauled federal sentencing procedures to make prison terms more determinate and abolish the practice of parole. Now, when a defendant is sentenced to prison he generally must servе the great bulk of his assigned term.” United States v. Haymond, 139 S. Ct. 2369, 2382 (2019).
To allow rehabilitation, standing alone, to serve as an extraordinary and compelling circumstance warranting early release would nearly bring us full circle. It would “obviously require[] the judge ... to make their respective sentencing and release decisions uрon their own assessments of the offender‘s” rehabilitation. Mistretta, 488 U.S. at 363. It would bring back the “serious impediment[s] to an evenhanded and effective operation of the criminal justice system” that motivated the Sentencing Reform Act—unwarranted sentencing disparities from judge to judge and uncertainty as to how long an offender would remain incarcerated. Id. at 366. And it would run contrary to what Congress took care to state in
This conclusion carries particular force here. If Peoples were convicted of the same crimes today, he would still face a 55-year mandatory minimum consecutive sentence—five years for the
But be careful not to overread our decision. As the Fourth Circuit has explained, “there is no indication that successful rehabilitation efforts may not be considered as one among other factors” warranting a reduced sentence under
B
Two final points bear discussion. In a letter filed after oral argument, Peoples points us to the Supreme Court‘s recent decision in Concepcion v. United States, which interpreted the First Step Act and held that the statute “allows district courts to consider intervening changes of law or fact,” including the defendant‘s rehabilitation, “in exercising their discretion to reduce a sentence pursuant to the First Step Act.” 142 S. Ct. 2389, 2404 (2022). He contends that Concepcion bolsters his argument that his rehabilitation alone can be an extraordinary and compelling reason for his release.
Not sо in our view. We are not reviewing a resentencing decision under the First Step Act, but instead the denial of a compassionate release motion under
Likewise, and contrary to Peoples‘s contentions, nothing in Concepcion calls into question our decision in Thacker. As we recently explained in United States v. King, “[w]e take the Supreme Court at its word that Concepcion is about the matters that district judges may consider when they resentence defendants.” No. 21-3196, slip. op. at 3–4 (7th Cir. July 11, 2022). With that understanding, Concepcion does not bear on “the threshold question whether any given prisoner has established an ‘extraordinary and compelling’ reason for release.” Id. at 4. Simply put, Concepcion “does not alter [our] understanding” that the prospective amendments to
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Peoples‘s conduct in prison is exemplary. But, standing alone, his rehabilitation efforts are not a ground for release under