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1
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with
Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted March 30, 2012∗
Decided April 10, 2012
Before
FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge
DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge
ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge
No. 11-3909
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appeal from the United
Plaintiff-Appellee, States District Court for the
Central District of Illinois.
v.
No. 07-30030
LELEN L. BONDS, Sue E. Myerscough, Judge.
Defendant-Appellant.
Order
Lelen Bonds pleaded guilty to distributing crack cocaine. We affirmed his
sentence, 289 Fed. App’x 939 (7th Cir. July 18, 2008) (nonprecedential disposition), and
affirmed an order denying his motion for collateral relief under 28 U.S.C. §2255, see 441
Fed. App’x 386 (7th Cir. Oct. 13, 2011) (nonprecedential disposition). Bonds then asked
the district court to reduce his sentence under Amendments 750 and 759 of the
Sentencing Guidelines, which reduce the ranges for crack-cocaine offenses and make
those changes retroactive as of November 1, 2011. See 18 U.S.C. §3582(c)(2).
∗ This successive appeal has been submitted to the original panel under Operating Procedure 6(b). After
examining the briefs and the record, we have concluded that oral argument is unnecessary. See Fed. R.
App. P. 34(a); Cir. R. 34(f).
No. 11-3909 Page 2
The district court dismissed Bonds’s motion, because he was sentenced as a
career offender, and the amended Guidelines do not change the ranges for career
offenders. Because §3582(c)(2) authorizes a sentencing reduction only when the
Guideline ranges have changed, and the offender’s existing sentence exceeds the floor
of the new range, career offenders cannot benefit from retroactive amendments (unless
the Commission changes the ranges for career offenders, which it has not done). See
United States v. Guyton, 636 F.3d 316 (7th Cir. 2010).
Bonds asks us to overrule Guyton, which he contends is inconsistent with
Freeman v. United States, 131 S. Ct. 2685 (2011). But Freeman has nothing to do with how
retroactive amendments affect career offenders. It dealt with the effect of Fed. R. Crim.
P. 11(c)(1)(C), which allows the prosecutor and defendant to reach a plea bargain
specifying a particular term of imprisonment. The Court held that because such an
agreement might be based on a Guideline range, the resulting sentence could be
affected by a retroactive amendment. The career-offender Guideline, by contrast, is
based on the statutory maximum sentence for the offense, see 28 U.S.C. §994(h), and a
career offender’s sentence is based on that Guideline. Unless the Commission changes
the career-offender Guideline with retroactive effect, §3582(c)(2) does not authorize a
reduction in an existing sentence.
AFFIRMED