Description: Albuquerque, New Mexico criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendans charged with unrelated drug offenses.

Appellants Pedro Solis-Rodriguez and Richard Wilborn (collectively, “Appellants”) pleaded guilty to unrelated drug offenses. The same district court judge in the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico accepted their plea agreements and sentenced them at the low end of their respective Guidelines ranges. Months later, the United States Sentencing Commission published Guidelines Amendment 821, thereby retroactively decreasing Appellants’ Guidelines ranges. In light of Amendment 821, Appellants moved, with the government’s support, to reduce their sentences under 18 U.S.C. § 852(c)(2).

A district court may only grant such a motion “after considering the factors set forth in [18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)] to the extent that they are applicable.” 18 U.S.C. § 3852(c)(2). The district court denied Appellants’ sentence-reduction motions with near-identical form orders. Averring that the district court abused its discretion by failing to “consider” the § 3553(a) factors as required by § 3582(c)(2), Appellants ask us to vacate the district court’s sentencing judgments and remand for reconsideration of the § 3553(a) factors. For the reasons that we discuss below, we conclude that Appellants’ requests are legally untenable and accordingly decline to grant them.

Outcome: Defendants' motions of amend were overruled.

Affirmed

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Defendant's Experts:

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