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Split Sixth Circuit panel finds multiple errors in district court’s reduction of LWOP sentence via 3582(c)(1)(A)

By Douglas Berman

The Sixth Circuit yesterday handed down a notable split panel opinion reversing the grant of compassionate release to a defendant who had been serving a life without parole sentence in US v. Bass, No. 21-1094 (6th Cir. Nov. 3, 2021) (available here).  Here i how the majority opinion gets started:

In 2003, John Bass, a local drug kingpin in the state of Michigan, was convicted of murdering a hitman whom Bass had hired to kill Bass’s half-brother.  Though the Government sought the death penalty, Bass was ultimately sentenced to two concurrent terms of life imprisonment without the possibility of release.  In 2020, Bass moved for compassionate release due to COVID-19.  The district court granted Bass’s request in January 2021 and ordered his immediate release.  In March, a divided panel of this court granted the Government’s emergency motion to stay the release.  In this merits appeal, the Government argues that the district court abused its discretion when it granted Bass’s request for immediate release.  Because the district court’s decision rested upon legal errors, its decision to release Bass constituted an abuse of its discretion.  On remand, moreover, the district court must reevaluate the compassionate release request based on current facts and circumstances, which have materially changed.

The “legal errors” identified by the majority relate largely to how the district court framed and balanced various 3553(a) factors, but the seriousness of the crime seems to be driving much of the analysis:

The district court also reasoned that, balancing Bass’s crimes “with the circumstances under which they were committed,” his twenty-two-year incarceration was “‘sufficient, but not greater than necessary,’ to fulfill the purposes of his punishment.” Bass, 514 F. Supp. 3d at 984 (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)).  This conclusion does not fit the facts of Bass’s case.  Bass’s crimes were so severe that the Government sought the death penalty, and Bass’s own defense counsel assured the jury that Bass would never leave prison in an effort to avoid imposition of the death penalty.  Bass, 460 F.3d at 834.  The district court justified Bass’s release by repeatedly emphasizing Bass’s commitment to rehabilitation and education.  Bass, 514 F. Supp. 3d at 984-88.  But the district court failed to square this lengthy rehabilitation analysis with the fact that Bass’s original sentence was life imprisonment without the possibility of release. This sentence would have ensured that the fifty-two-year-old Bass would remain in prison for the rest of his life, which could conceivably extend for several decades.  In deciding Bass’s original sentence, the jury and the district court had already considered and rejected the possibility that Bass could be rehabilitated, or that his capacity for rehabilitation warranted the potential for an early release.  This is not to say that compassionate release is never available for a defendant sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of release.  We assume that there are circumstances that would warrant compassionate release for a defendant so sentenced.  But the nature of Bass’s life sentence calls into question the district court’s decision to afford substantial weight to Bass’s efforts at rehabilitation after only twenty-two years in prison.

Notably, as detailed here, a few months ago in US v. Hunter, 12 F. 4th 555 (6th Cir. 2021), a unanimous Sixth Circuit panel reversed a life sentence reduced to “only” 21 years in prison based on questionable conclusions that certain factors could never permit a sentence reduction via 3582(c)(1)(A).  Here the reversal is focused on the weighing of 3553(a) factors, and that reality in part drives  the dissent that Judge White penned here.  Her opinion starts and ends this way:

I would not have granted Bass’s motion for compassionate release, but under the compassionate-release jurisprudence this court has developed over the past year and a half or so, our disagreement with a district court’s exercise of its discretion is expressly excluded as a ground for reversal. We require district courts to provide only the most minimal explanation, see, e.g., United States v. Quintanilla Navarro, 986 F.3d 668, 673 (6th Cir. 2021) (affirming a district court’s single-sentence order), and we must defer to their judgment in weighing the § 3553(a) factors and not substitute our own, see United States v. Ruffin, 978 F.3d 1000, 1005 (6th Cir. 2020); United States v. Hogg, 858 F. App’x 816, 818 (6th Cir. 2021); United States v. Keefer, 832 F. App’x 359, 362–65 (6th Cir. 2020)….

As I said at the outset, I would not have granted this motion.  However, the district court adequately explained its decision and did not abuse its discretion in concluding otherwise.  We must apply the same rules on review without regard to whether the government or the inmate is aggrieved by the district court’s decision.  “Our trust in the discretion of the district court must be consistent regardless of whether the district court grants or denies a [compassionate-release motion].” Bass, 843 Fed. App’x at 740.