UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 20-6829
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
ANTONIO GERMAINE JOHNSON,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Florence.
R. Bryan Harwell, Chief District Judge. (4:02-cr-00579-RBH-1)
Submitted: December 1, 2020 Decided: December 22, 2020
Before FLOYD and RUSHING, Circuit Judges, and SHEDD, Senior Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Antonio Germaine Johnson, Appellant Pro Se. Arthur Bradley Parham, Assistant United
States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Florence, South
Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Antonio Germaine Johnson appeals the district court’s order denying his “Motion
for Compassionate Relief Pursuant First Step Act 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A).” As the
district court observed, despite the label, Johnson’s motion in fact seeks reconsideration of
the district court’s order denying Johnson’s motion for a reduction in sentence under § 404
of the First Step Act of 2018 (“First Step Act”), Pub. L. No. 115-391, § 404, 132 Stat. 5194,
5222. See United States v. Winestock, 340 F.3d 200, 203 (4th Cir. 2003) (recognizing “the
longstanding practice of courts to classify pro se pleadings from prisoners according to
their contents, without regard to their caption”).
Under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(B), a previously imposed sentence may be modified
“to the extent . . . expressly permitted by statute.” The First Step Act, in turn, expressly
authorizes a district court to impose a reduced sentence for defendants convicted of a
“covered offense” as if certain provisions of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, Pub. L. No.
111-220, §§ 2-3, 124 Stat. 2372, 2372, were in effect at the time the covered offense was
committed. First Step Act, § 404(b), (c), 132 Stat. at 5222. And “the appropriate vehicle
for a First Step Act motion” is 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(B). United States v. Wirsing, 943
F.3d 175, 183 (4th Cir. 2019).
A defendant’s “eligibility depends on the existence of a covered offense,” and
“[u]nder the [First Step] Act, there is no eligibility requirement beyond the threshold
question of whether there is a covered offense.” United States v. Gravatt, 953 F.3d 258,
262 (4th Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks omitted); see Wirsing, 943 F.3d at 186
(observing that “[t]here is no indication that Congress intended a complicated and
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eligibility-limiting determination at the ‘covered offense’ stage of the analysis”). Even if
a defendant is eligible for relief under the First Step Act, “the decision whether to grant a
reduction is entrusted to the district court’s discretion.” United States v. Jackson, 952 F.3d
492, 495 (4th Cir. 2020); see Wirsing, 943 F.3d at 180 (“Congress left the decision as to
whether to grant a sentence reduction to the district court’s discretion.”).
In Gravatt, this court addressed the question—similarly presented in Johnson’s
motion under § 404 of the First Step Act—of whether a defendant “was convicted of a
‘covered offense’ where he was charged conjunctively with conspiring to distribute both
powder cocaine and crack cocaine.” 953 F.3d at 264. In concluding that defendant met
the threshold eligibility requirements of the First Step Act, we observed that “nothing in
the text of the [First Step] Act requir[es] that a defendant be convicted of a single violation
of a federal criminal statute whose penalties were modified by section 2 or section 3 of the
Fair Sentencing Act.” Id. This court “decline[d] to expand the limitations crafted by
Congress,” noting that “[i]f Congress intended for the [First Step] Act not to apply if a
covered offense was combined with an offense that is not covered, it could have included
that language.” Id. Accordingly, we held that “the district court should have reviewed
[defendant’s] motion on the merits, applying its discretion under Sections 404(b) and (c).”
Id.
Before we issued our decisions in Gravatt and Wirsing, Johnson was found
ineligible for relief under § 404 of the First Step Act. As the district court acknowledged
in resolving the subject motion, Gravatt makes clear that Johnson was eligible for relief
under § 404 of the First Step Act. However, the court stated that, even if it had the benefit
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of Gravatt and had addressed Johnson’s motion under § 404 of the First Step Act on the
merits it would not have exercised its discretion to reduce his sentence, because Johnson
absconded after pleading guilty, was responsible for multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine
and crack, and had a history of violent use of firearms—all reasons grounded in 18 U.S.C.
§ 3553(a). See United States v. Chambers, 956 F.3d 667, 674-75 (4th Cir. 2020) (holding
that, when exercising its discretion in the First Step Act § 404(b) context, the district court
must consider the § 3553(a) sentencing factors). Furthermore, the court noted that Johnson
had already benefited from several sentence reductions. We conclude that the district court
acted within its discretion in denying Johnson relief.
Accordingly, we affirm. We deny as moot Johnson’s motion to expedite and
dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately
presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
AFFIRMED
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