United States v. Leroy Ragin , 460 F. App'x 282 ( 2012 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 11-4385
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
LEROY RAGIN,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western
District of North Carolina, at Charlotte. Martin K. Reidinger,
District Judge. (3:90-cr-00025-MR-1)
Submitted: October 24, 2011 Decided: January 3, 2012
Before NIEMEYER, KING, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Angela Parrott, Acting Executive Director, Matthew Segal,
Assistant Federal Defender, Heather H. Martin, FEDERAL DEFENDERS
OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA, INC., Asheville, North Carolina, for
Appellant. Amy Elizabeth Ray, Assistant United States Attorney,
Thomas Michael Kent, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY,
Asheville, North Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
In 1990, Leroy Ragin pled guilty to one count of money
laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1)(B)(i), (2)
(2006) and one count of engaging in a continuing criminal
enterprise (“CCE”), in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 848 (2006). The
district court sentenced him to a term of 336 months of
imprisonment, followed by five years of supervised release.
Ragin did not file a direct appeal. On March 16, 2011, after
discovering that Ragin had erroneously been sentenced as a
career offender, the district court issued an amended criminal
judgment sentencing Ragin to time served. Ragin appeals the
amended judgment.
Counsel has filed a brief pursuant to Anders v.
California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), certifying that there are no
meritorious grounds for appeal. Counsel questions, however,
whether Ragin’s guilty plea was knowing and voluntary. Despite
being advised of his right to do so, Ragin has not filed a pro
se supplemental brief. For the reasons discussed below, we
affirm.
Although counsel raises the question of whether
Ragin’s 1990 guilty plea was knowing and voluntary, the scope of
our Anders review in this case does not extend that far. The
district court’s amended judgment sentencing Ragin to time
served does not affect the finality of the court’s initial
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judgment of conviction. See 18 U.S.C. § 3582(b) (2006); United
States v. Sanders, 247 F.3d 139, 143 (4th Cir. 2001) (“The plain
text of § 3582(b) clearly states that [a later sentencing]
modification does not affect the date on which [a defendant’s]
judgment of conviction [becomes] final ‘for all other
purposes.’”); accord Murphy v. United States, 634 F.3d 1303,
1308 (11th Cir. 2011). Although the district court’s amended
judgment has presented Ragin with the opportunity to appeal the
new sentence imposed, it does not reset the clock to allow him
to appeal a twenty-year-old conviction. As explained by the
Eleventh Circuit in Murphy, Congress enacted § 3582(b) to ensure
that the correction or modification of a sentence would not
impact the finality of a judgment of conviction. “Had Congress
not done so, a defendant could have argued that a sentence
modification entitled him a new direct appeal where he could
challenge anything that could have been challenged on a first
direct appeal.” 634 F.3d at 1308.
Accordingly, pursuant to Anders, we have reviewed the
record pertaining to the district court’s amended judgment
sentencing Ragin to time served. Give that Ragin received the
relief he sought, release from imprisonment, we have found no
meritorious issues for appeal. We therefore affirm the amended
judgment. This court requires that counsel inform the client,
in writing, of his right to petition the Supreme Court of the
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United States for further review. If the client requests that a
petition be filed, but counsel believes that such a petition
would be frivolous, then counsel may move in this court for
leave to withdraw from representation. Counsel’s motion must
state that a copy thereof was served on the client. We dispense
with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are
adequately expressed in the materials before the court and
argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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