UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 08-4820
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
JASON CONRAD POOLE,
Defendant – Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Greenbelt. Alexander Williams, Jr., District
Judge. (8:96-cr-00238-AW-1)
Submitted: May 19, 2009 Decided: June 18, 2009
Before MOTZ, TRAXLER, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Robert W. Biddle, C. Justin Brown, NATHANS & BIDDLE, LLP,
Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellant. Rod J. Rosenstein, United
States Attorney, Michele W. Sartori, Barbara S. Skalla,
Assistant United States Attorneys, Greenbelt, Maryland, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Jason Conrad Poole appeals an order of the district
court reinstating his original sentence of 262 months
imprisonment as directed in United States v. Poole, 531 F.3d 263
(4th Cir. 2008). We affirm.
In Poole, we held that the district court improperly
exercised jurisdiction over Poole’s habeas corpus petition filed
under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 (2006). Id. at 274. Having found
jurisdiction, the district court had decided that the savings
clause of 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255 (West Supp. 2008) applied and
addressed the merits of the § 2241 petition. The court vacated
the original sentence, resentenced Poole to 135 months
imprisonment, and ordered him released. We reversed the
district court’s decision and remanded the case with
instructions to reinstate the original sentence.
On remand, Poole moved for an in-court resentencing
with consideration of the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2006) factors and
for a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c) (2006). The
district court held that its only mandate was to reinstate the
original sentence and that it had no authority to consider the
§ 3553(a) factors in doing so. The court granted the
government’s motion for immediate execution of the mandate,
ordered Poole to surrender himself, denied Poole’s request for
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resentencing under § 3553(a), and reserved its ruling on Poole’s
§ 3582(c) motion.
Poole appeals the portion of the district court’s
order which denied his motion for a resentencing under
§ 3553(a), arguing that 18 U.S.C. § 3742(g) (2006) compels the
district court to resentence a defendant under § 3553(a) on
remand.
Poole acknowledges that the “mandate rule” requires a
district court to comply “on remand with the dictates of a
superior court and forecloses relitigation of issues expressly
or impliedly decided by the appellate court.” United States v.
Bell, 5 F.3d 64, 66 (4th Cir. 1993) (citation omitted). He
argues that § 3742(g) nevertheless takes precedence. Section
3742(g) provides that “[a] district court to which a case is
remanded pursuant to subsection (f)(1) or (f)(2) shall
resentence a defendant in accordance with section 3553 and with
such instructions as may have been given by the court of
appeals[.]” Subsections (f)(1) and (f)(2) provide that, if the
court of appeals decides that:
(1) the sentence was imposed in violation of law or
imposed as a result of an incorrect application of the
sentencing guidelines, the court shall remand the case
for further sentencing proceedings with such
instructions as the court considers appropriate; [or]
(2) the sentence is outside the applicable guideline
range and the district court failed to provide the
required statement of reasons in the order of judgment
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and commitment, or the departure is based on an
impermissible factor, or is to an unreasonable degree,
or the sentence was imposed for an offense for which
there is no applicable sentencing guideline and is
plainly unreasonable, it shall state specific reasons
for its conclusions[.]
Neither subsection (f)(1) nor (f)(2) of § 3742 applies
here because we did not remand Poole’s case to the district
court for resentencing to correct an error in the original
sentence. Instead, the case was remanded solely for the
district court to correct its erroneous assertion of
jurisdiction over Poole’s § 2241 petition by reinstating the
original sentence. The district court complied with our
mandate. The district court did not err in determining that it
lacked authority to consider the § 3553(a) factors because it
was without authority to alter the sentence for any reason.
We therefore affirm the district court’s order
reinstating Poole’s original 262-month sentence. We dispense
with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are
adequately presented in the materials before the court and
argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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