In United States v. Lizarraras-Chacon, --- F.3d ---, No. 20-30001 (9th Cir. 2021), the Court reversed the district court’s denial of a motion for reduction of sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2).
It held that legislative and judicial developments affecting mandatory statutory minimums are relevant considerations to the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors at step two of a § 3582(c)(2) motion.
The Court focused in two intervening developments affecting the mandatory minimum: (1) under United States v. Valencia-Mendoza, 912 F.3d 1215 (9th Cir. 2019), the defendant was never lawfully subject to a 20-year mandatory minimum because his 2010 prior conviction was not an offense “punishable by imprisonment for more than a year”; and (2) the First Step Act of 2018’s prospective reduction of the mandatory minimum from 20 to 15 years, and its replacing “felony drug offense” with “serious drug felony” as the predicate-offense requirement for triggering the mandatory minimum.
"[I]n a § 3553(a) factor analysis, a district court must [] use the fullest information possible concerning subsequent developments in the law, such as changes in sentencing guidelines, legislative changes to a mandatory minimum, and changes to a triggering predicate offense to ensure the punishment will “fit the crime” and critically, to ensure that the sentence imposed is also “‘sufficient, but not greater than necessary.’"
