NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
File Name: 16a0654n.06
Case No. 16-1338
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED
Dec 06, 2016
DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, )
)
Plaintiff-Appellee, )
) ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
v. ) STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR
) THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF
CARLOS VANCE WATTS, ) MICHIGAN
)
Defendant-Appellant. )
)
)
BEFORE: GIBBONS, SUTTON, and WHITE, Circuit Judges.
SUTTON, Circuit Judge. Carlos Watts pleaded guilty to drug and firearms charges and
was sentenced to 156 months’ imprisonment under the terms of a binding plea agreement. The
Sentencing Commission later retroactively amended and reduced the guidelines range applicable
to his drug conviction. Watts moved for a sentence reduction in light of that amendment. The
district court denied his motion on the ground that it lacked the authority to reduce a sentence
based on a binding plea agreement rather than the guidelines. Because the 156-month sentence
in Watts’s plea agreement is not expressly based on the guidelines, we agree and affirm.
18 U.S.C. § 3582(c) authorizes district courts to reduce sentences “based on a sentencing
range that has subsequently been lowered by the Sentencing Commission.” But a sentence
imposed under a mandatory plea agreement, see Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(c)(1)(C), may be reduced in
light of a guidelines amendment “only when that guideline range is explicitly referenced in a plea
agreement.” United States v. McNeese, 819 F.3d 922, 927 (6th Cir. 2016) (emphasis in original)
Case No. 16-1338
United States v. Watts
(quotation omitted). That rule derives from Justice Sotomayor’s controlling concurrence in
Freeman v. United States, which held that sentences in Rule 11(c)(1)(C) agreements are
generally “based on” the agreements themselves rather than the guidelines, except where an
agreement “expressly uses a Guidelines sentencing range . . . to establish the term of
imprisonment.” 564 U.S. 522, 534 (2011) (Sotomayor, J., concurring); see McNeese, 819 F.3d at
927.
This plea agreement does not explicitly refer to any guidelines range, and Watts is thus
ineligible for a sentence reduction under § 3582(c). The agreement, in relevant part, explains
that the parties “agree to a sentence of 156 months’ imprisonment . . . [after] independent
evaluation of the time, risks, and potential outcomes associated with a trial. Both parties have
also independently concluded, after referencing the United States Sentencing Guidelines and
potential litigation associated with their application, that the agreed-upon term of imprisonment
is substantively reasonable.” R. 47 at 7. The agreement does not provide, as the Freeman
agreement did, that Watts was to be sentenced within any particular guidelines range. See
Freeman, 564 U.S. at 542. Nor does it otherwise use a particular guidelines range as “the basis
for the specified term” of imprisonment. McNeese, 819 F.3d at 927; see Freeman 564 U.S. at
539. It says instead that a 156-month sentence was agreed to after the parties “independently
concluded” that not just the guidelines, but the costs and risks of trial as well, made this an
equitable sentence. That means that the sentence is explicitly based on “a whole range of
considerations,” R. 85 at 3, and does not “expressly use[]” any particular guidelines range.
Freeman, 564 U.S. at 539.
Confirming the point is the reality that the parties never agreed on what the proper
guidelines range was. The presentence report calculated a guidelines range of 248–295 months.
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Case No. 16-1338
United States v. Watts
At the sentencing hearing, where the district court heard argument on the guidelines in order to
assess the reasonableness of the agreement, Watts objected to three of the enhancements in the
presentence report’s calculation. The government argued that two of those three enhancements,
for leadership in a conspiracy and obstruction of justice, were appropriate. The district court
sustained Watts’s objections to two of the three enhancements and eventually settled on a range
of 190–222 months before accepting that the agreement’s 156-month sentence was reasonable.
The parties cannot have agreed to a guidelines range they did not agree on, which means this
Rule 11(c)(1)(C) agreement cannot be “based on” the guidelines.
Watts responds that he is eligible for a reduction under Freeman because the agreement
“repeatedly referenced the sentencing guidelines.” Appellant’s Br. 23. But general references to
the guidelines, which clarify that the parties and the court independently considered them, is not
the same as expressly using a particular “Guidelines sentencing range” to determine the
sentence. Freeman, 564 U.S. at 539 (emphasis added). The agreement’s references to the
guidelines show that the parties had not agreed on a guidelines range because they contemplated
an eventual dispute over the proper range at the sentencing hearing. There was no guideline
calculation worksheet attached to the agreement, as there was when we allowed a sentence
reduction in United States v. Smith, 658 F.3d 608, 613 (6th Cir. 2011). The agreement did not
cap the possible sentence at the top of a particular guidelines range or specify an “Agreed
Guideline Range,” as in United States v. Garrett, 758 F.3d 749, 751 (6th Cir. 2014). And Watts
received a specific term of imprisonment far below even the revised guidelines range. That
means his sentence is no more “based on” the guidelines than any sentence imposed under a Rule
11(c)(1)(C) agreement that does not depend on the guidelines themselves. Rather, his sentence is
“based on” the agreement itself. Watts is therefore ineligible for relief under § 3582(c).
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Case No. 16-1338
United States v. Watts
For these reasons, we affirm.
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