United States v. Louis Pegram ( 2021 )

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
File Name: 21a0085n.06
No. 20-1906
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
FILED
Feb 10, 2021
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, )
) DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk
Plaintiff-Appellee, )
)
ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
v. )
STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
)
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
LOUIS PEGRAM, )
)
OPINION
Defendant-Appellant. )
Before: COLE, Chief Judge; STRANCH and THAPAR, Circuit Judges.
JANE B. STRANCH, Circuit Judge. Louis Pegram appeals the district court’s denial of
his motion for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). We AFFIRM.
I. BACKGROUND
In 2015, Pegram was sentenced to ten years in prison and three years of supervised release
after pleading guilty to possession of a stolen firearm under 18 U.S.C. § 922(j). Between his first
appearance and his surrender to custody, he was free on bond without incident. To date, he has
completed over half his custodial sentence.
In July 2020, Pegram filed a motion for sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C.
§ 3582(c)(1)(A) (commonly known as the “compassionate release” provision). Citing the
Probation Office’s presentence report (PSR), he stated that “for decades,” he had “congestive heart
failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), sleep apnea, asthma, hypertension and
high blood pressure”; “require[d] a CPAP machine equipped with oxygen”; and had previously
No. 20-1906, United States v. Pegram
suffered a heart attack and stroke. The PSR also acknowledged that the Michigan Department of
Corrections had described Pegram’s health as “poor” and that Pegram’s health had prevented him
from working most jobs since 1998. In his reply to the Government’s response to his motion,
Pegram cited the Bureau of Prisons’ (BOP) records to show that while incarcerated, he had also
developed “hypertensive chronic kidney disease . . . [in] Stage III,” “hypertensive
nephrosclerosis,” “arthritis,” “intestinal disease with serious colon cancer concerns,” “borderline
diabetes,” “obesity,” “gout,” “edema,” “hyperlipidemia,” “venous insufficiency,” and “gross
hematuria,” in addition to taking a prescribed immunosuppressant medicine. He argued that his
very poor cardiac and respiratory health made him highly susceptible to severe COVID-19 with
long-lasting effects (that is, assuming successful recovery from an active infection). And he
emphasized that when he contracted pneumonia while in custody in 2015, he had to be intubated
in an intensive care unit, strongly suggesting a poor prognosis if he were to be infected with
COVID-19.
The district court denied Pegram’s motion. It stated, correctly, that it could reduce
Pegram’s sentence if it determined that “extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant such a
reduction” and if the factors outlined in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) weighed in favor of release. 18 U.S.C.
§ 3582(c)(1)(A); see United States v. Elias, 984 F.3d 516, 519 (6th Cir. 2021). And it treated
Pegram as having exhausted his administrative remedies, choosing to reach the merits of his
motion. See United States v. Alam, 960 F.3d 831, 833–34 (6th Cir. 2020) (holding that the
exhaustion requirement is nonjurisdictional). But it also reasoned that a sentence reduction had to
comport with the Guidelines’ policy statement in USSG 1B1.13, which delineate a set of
extraordinary and compelling reasons. The district court noted the intracircuit disagreement at the
time, briefed by the parties, of whether § 1B1.13 applied to motions filed by incarcerated people
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themselves (as opposed to by the Director of the BOP). Then, without drawing explicit
conclusions regarding the ample evidence Pegram provided of his poor health, the district court
decided that the § 3553(a) factors weighed against release.
II. DISCUSSION
We “must apply the law in effect at the time [we] render [our] decision,” Henderson v.
United States, 568 U.S. 266, 276 (2013) (quoting Thorpe v. Hous. Auth. of City of Durham, 393
U.S. 268, 281 (1969)), and since the district court’s September 15, 2020, order, that law has
changed significantly. “For thirty-four years, only the BOP’s Director could file motions for
compassionate release,” and “the Director seldom wielded this significant power.” United States
v. Jones, 980 F.3d 1098, 1104 (6th Cir. 2020). In an effort “to boost grants of compassionate
release,” Congress passed the First Step Act of 2018, which allows imprisoned people to file
motions for compassionate release themselves as long as they exhaust their administrative
remedies or wait 30 days after the warden’s receipt of a compassionate release request (whichever
comes first). Id. at 1104–05; see Alam, 960 F.3d at 832–34. Last year, we clarified that “sentence-
modification decisions pursuant to § 3582(c)(1)(A) embody a three-step inquiry: [(1)] district
courts must ‘find’ both that ‘extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant [a sentence] reduction’
and that [(2)] ‘such a reduction is consistent with applicable policy statements issued by the
Sentencing Commission’ before [(3)] considering all relevant sentencing factors listed in 18 U.S.C.
§ 3553(a).” Jones, 980 F.3d at 1101 (second alteration in original) (quoting 18 U.S.C.
§ 3582(c)(1)(A)); see also United States v. Ruffin, 978 F.3d 1000, 1004–05 (6th Cir. 2020). And
we held that for purposes of the third requirement, USSG 1B.13 “is not an ‘applicable’ policy
statement in cases where incarcerated persons file their own motions in district court for
compassionate release,” so district courts “may skip step two of the § 3582(c)(1)(A) inquiry.”
Jones, 980 F.3d at 1101, 1111; see also Elias, 984 F.3d at 519.
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In other words, “district courts have full discretion . . . to determine whether an
‘extraordinary and compelling’ reason justifies compassionate release when an imprisoned person
files a § 3582(c)(1)(A) motion.” Jones, 980 F.3d at 1109; see also Elias, 984 F.3d at 519–20.
Simultaneously, though, “district courts may deny compassionate-release motions when any of the
three prerequisites listed in § 3582(c)(1)(A) is lacking and do not need to address the others.”
Elias, 984 F.3d at 519. Whatever its basis, we review such a decision for abuse of discretion.
Jones, 980 F.3d at 1112.
Here, the district court employed the wrong legal standard by considering its discretion
circumscribed by § 1B1.13. This was error.1 After discussing the limits § 1B1.13 putatively
imposed, the district court then analyzed only the § 3553(a) factors, choosing not to determine
whether Pegram had established extraordinary and compelling reasons for release. Our cases
allow that choice. See Elias, 984 F.3d at 519. In United States v. Hampton, No. 20-3649, --- F.3d
----, 2021 WL 164831, at *3 (6th Cir. Jan. 19, 2021), for instance, we examined an order denying
compassionate release that both did not consider the correct ambit of district courts’ discretion to
determine extraordinary and compelling reasons and did not sufficiently discuss the § 3553(a)
factors. We opined that if it had done the latter, “that determination likely would have provided
us with a sufficient, alternative basis for review.” Id. (citing Ruffin, 978 F.3d at 1006). Here, the
district court’s order discussed the § 3553(a) factors and concluded that “[t]he health risks
presented by COVID-19 do not outweigh the several § 3553(a) factors that weigh in favor of
continue[d] incarceration.” Under our precedent, that is a sufficient, alternative basis for review.
1
The abuse-of-discretion standard “does not preclude an appellate court’s correction of a district court’s legal or
factual error.” Jones, 980 F.3d at 1112 (quoting Highmark Inc. v. Allcare Health Mgmt. Sys., Inc., 572 U.S. 559, 563
n.2 (2014)). A district court’s “misread[ing] the meaning of the extraordinary-reason requirement” or “interpret[ing]
the law to bar it from granting a reduction when, in fact, it has discretion to do so” can constitute an abuse of discretion.
Id. (quoting United States v. Keefer, 832 F. App’x 359, 363 (6th Cir. 2020)); see also Ruffin, 978 F.3d at 1005. We
note, rather than correct, the district court’s error here because it asserted an alternative, appropriate basis for denying
relief, which our cases have held is sufficient. See Elias, 984 F.3d at 519.
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By contrast, this is not a situation in which “the order relie[d] exclusively on an impermissible
consideration”—i.e., an erroneous application of § 1B.13—which would require us to vacate and
remand for reconsideration. United States v. Sherwood, No. 20-4085, --- F.3d ----, 2021 WL
345405, at *2 (6th Cir. Feb. 2, 2021).
We may affirm a denial of a compassionate relief motion based on the district court’s
weighing of the § 3553(a) factors alone. Elias, 984 F.3d at 519. And we have noted that “[t]he
district court is best situated to balance the § 3553(a) factors.” Jones, 980 F.3d at 1114 (quoting
United States v. Kincaid, 802 F. App’x 187, 189 (6th Cir. 2020)). Given the standard of review
we apply to these decisions, we cannot confidently say on this record that the district court “relie[d]
on clearly erroneous findings of fact, applie[d] the law improperly, or use[d] an erroneous legal
standard” when weighing the § 3553(a) factors. Id. at 1112 (quoting United States v. Pembrook,
609 F.3d 381, 383 (6th Cir. 2010)).
III. CONCLUSION
Therefore, we AFFIRM the district court’s order denying Pegram’s motion for
compassionate release.
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