United States v. Mark Carrie , 572 F. App'x 804 ( 2014 )

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 13-13750
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 1:01-cr-00892-CMA-1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
MARK CARRIE,
Defendant-Appellant.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
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(July 21, 2014)
Before TJOFLAT, JORDAN, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
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Mark Carrie, a federal prisoner proceeding pro se, appeals the district court’s
denial of his motion to correct his judgment under Fed.R.Crim.P. 36. He argues
that his written judgment, originally entered in 2004, conflicts with the oral
pronouncement of his total sentence, and should be corrected to reflect a
modification and sentencing credit under U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3(b). In the alternative,
he argues that because he pled guilty based, in part, on a promise that he would
receive the sentencing credit he now seeks, he is entitled to specific performance.
We review de novo a district court’s application of Rule 36. United States v.
Portillo, 363 F.3d 1161, 1164 (11th Cir. 2004). Rule 36 provides that “the court
may at any time correct a clerical error in a judgment, order, or other part of the
record, or correct an error in the record arising from oversight or omission.”
Fed.R.Crim.P. 36. However, Rule 36 cannot be used “to make a substantive
alteration to a criminal sentence.” United States v. Pease, 331 F.3d 809, 816 (11th
Cir. 2003). Rule 36 is the appropriate remedy to correct clerical errors that cause
the written judgment to differ from the oral pronouncement of sentence. See
United States v. Bates, 213 F.3d 1336, 1340 (11th Cir. 2000) (remanding to correct
written judgment stating supervised release was three years, when the court had
unambiguously pronounced it to be five years).
The Former Fifth Circuit addressed situations similar to the one presented
here, albeit under a predecessor version of the rule. In Fitzgerald v. United States,
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296 F.2d 37 (5th Cir. 1961), the appellant was given a sentence of one year and
one day in Georgia, which was to run consecutive to a sentence he was already
serving in North Carolina. Fitzgerald, 296 F.2d at 37. He was then given another
sentence of one year and one day, this time in Florida, and it was set to “run
consecutively with sentence or sentences said defendant is now serving.” Id. at 37-
38. After being told he would have to serve the Georgia and Florida sentences
consecutively, the appellant filed a petition contending that the two sentences
should run concurrently. Id. at 38. The district court judge who imposed the
Florida sentence heard the petition, dismissed it, and amended the commitment
order so that it read that the sentence was to “run consecutively with the sentence
or sentences defendant is now serving or to be served pursuant to any and all
previously imposed sentences.” Id. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit determined that
Rule 36 authorized the district court to correct the commitment order to resolve the
ambiguity, especially because the amendment did not alter the sentence but
“merely rendered its original intention beyond dispute.” Id. at 38-39.
More recently, in United States v. Whittington, 918 F.2d 149 (11th Cir.
1990), we dealt with an appellant whose plea bargain agreement provided that he
would serve exactly five years in prison regardless of Parole Commission
guidelines. Whittington, 918 F.2d at 150. The district court then sentenced the
appellant to a maximum of 60 months’ imprisonment. Id. When the Parole
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Commission scheduled the appellant’s release after just three years served, the
government filed an emergency motion to correct the district court’s order, and the
district court ordered that the sentence be corrected to read that the appellant
should be sentenced to a minimum of 60 months and a maximum of 60 months.
Id.(emphasis added). We held that the district court erred by using Rule 36 to
fundamentally alter the defendant’s sentence from three to five years’
imprisonment in an attempt to conform the sentence to the intention of the parties
as reflected in the plea agreement. Id. at 151.
At the time of Carrie’s sentencing in 2004, commentary to § 5G1.3 stated
that if subsection (b) applied, and the court adjusted the sentence for time served,
the court should note §5G1.3(b) on the order, along with: (i) the amount of time the
sentence was being adjusted; (ii) the undischarged term for which the adjustment
was given; and (iii) the fact that the sentence imposed is a sentence reduction for a
period of imprisonment that will not be credited by the BOP. U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3,
comment. (n.2(A)(C)) (2003).
The district court did not err in denying Carrie’s motion, because the relief
sought was beyond the scope of Rule 36. Carrie asked the district court at his
sentencing in 2004 to follow the commentary to § 5G1.3 by mentioning that
provision and subtracting the number of months it intended to credit him from his
total sentence. The district court declined to do so, stating that it would make its
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intentions known through stating that credit should be given from February 21,
2001. Thus, this case is factually distinguishable from Fitzgerald, because the
district court there was not presented at sentencing with the argument that
ambiguity could arise from the wording of its order, so the ambiguity could have
been construed as a clerical error. See Fitzgerald, 296 F.2d at 37. Here, however,
the district court made clear that it did not intend to subtract the credited months
from Carrie’s total sentence or mention § 5G1.3 in its written judgment, so the
omission of those things from the written judgment could not be considered a
“clerical error,” and therefore could not be remedied by Rule 36. Fed.R.Crim.P.
36. The district court here was presented with a situation more akin to
Whittington, where Rule 36 could not be used as a means to alter a sentence’s
length, even after it became clear that the court’s intentions would not be followed.
See Whittington, 918 F.2d at 151. In sum, the district court did not err by refusing
to mention § 5G1.3 or subtract months from a total sentence after the fact, because
doing so would have been a substantive alteration of a sentence, which is not Rule
36’s purpose. Pease, 331 F.3d at 816.
Additionally, because Carrie did not raise his specific performance claim
before the district court in the present case, and Rule 36 did not authorize the
district court to entertain such a claim in any event, the district did not err, or
plainly err, in that respect.
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Because Rule 36 could not provide the relief sought, the court did not err in
denying Carrie’s motion. Accordingly, we affirm.
AFFIRMED.
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