Yesterday, the Fourth Circuit reminded us once again that “extraordinary and compelling reasons” sufficient to justify compassionate release under the First Step Act are not limited to COVID-19 and medical issues. In United States v. Brown, No. 21-7752 (4th Cir. Aug. 16, 2023), a split panel of the Fourth Circuit reversed the denial of compassionate release based on stacked § 924(c) convictions and ordered a 20-year reduction in sentence.
In 2014, Mr. Brown was convicted of seven counts, including two counts of possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). At the time of sentencing, the 924(c) convictions carried a consecutive five- and twenty-five year mandatory minimum sentence, respectively. Mr. Brown was sentenced to fifty-seven years imprisonment, including thirty years for his § 924(c) convictions.
In 2020, Mr. Brown moved for compassionate release pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), primarily arguing that he was at risk for COVID-19, and that under the First Step Act’s amendment to § 924(c), he would only be subject to a combined 10-year minimum mandatory consecutive sentence if he were sentenced today. The district court twice denied Mr. Brown’s compassionate release motion without addressing the disparity between his stacked § 924(c) sentence and much shorter First Step Act § 924(c) penalty.
The Fourth Circuit reversed and held the district court abused its discretion. After affirming the denial of relief based on COVID-19 risks, the court found two errors. First, the district erred by declining to consider Mr. Brown’s disparate sentence for his § 924(c) convictions constitutes “extraordinary and compelling reasons” for his release because it concluded he failed to exhaust his administrative remedy for this claim. This was error under Fourth Circuit precedent that “§ 3582(c)(1)(A) does not require issue exhaustion.” See United States v. Ferguson, 55 F.4th 262, 269 (4th Cir. 2022). “Ferguson makes clear that a compassionate release motion in the district court is not limited ‘to only those grounds for compassionate release [the defendant] identified in his request to the BOP.’” Second, because Mr. Brown’s disparate sentence is relevant to both the “extraordinary and compelling reasons” inquiry and the § 3553(a) factors, “the district court’s failure to engage with that argument at either step of the compassionate release analysis was error.”
Rather than remand the case to the district court to consider Mr. Brown's disparate sentence in the first instance—after the district court had twice neglected to address his disparate sentence, including once after remand—the court reversed the district court’s denial of Mr. Brown’s compassionate release motion and remanded with instructions to grant his motion and reduce his sentence by twenty years. In doing so, the court reasoned that "any additional analysis by the district court is unnecessary because any further decision that declined to reduce Brown's sentence to ameliorate his § 924(c) sentence disparity would constitute an abuse of discretion."