US v. Troy: In 2004, Troy was part of a group that tried to rob a drug dealer, the attempt ending when Troy shot the dealer in the face (he lived). Troy eventually pleaded guilty to drug and firearm offenses and was designated as a career offender based on (among other things) a prior North Carolina conviction for which he only served ten months in prison. He was sentenced to 276 months in prison, after a downward departure for substantial assistance. In 2019, Troy sought relief under the First Step Act. The district court agreed that he was eligible for relief and that after Simmons he was no longer a career offender, but ultimately decided against reducing Troy's sentence based on the facts of the case and Troy's prior criminal history.
On appeal, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the denial of Troy's First Step Act motion. In doing so, the court relied on the Supreme Court's decision in Concepcion to again limit its own prior decisions related to applying the First Step Act (see also Reed). Concepcion, the court held, limited the recalculation of the Guidelines in First Step Act proceedings to changes directly attributable to the passage of the First Step Act, allowing the consideration of other changes in the law to the discretionary decision of whether (and how much) to reduce a defendant's sentence. That reverses the Fourth Circuit rule (from Chambers), which required courts to consider changes in the law when calculating the applicable Guideline range. Thus, while the district court technically erred here, the error was harmless since it denied the request for a reduction, which left the sentence within the applicable Guideline range. The court also concluded that the district court had adequately considered Troy's arguments for a reduction, sufficiently explained its basis for denying relief, and that the 276-months sentence was, ultimately, substantively reasonable.
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