Koons v. United States
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 4, 2018 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- June 4, 2018
- Term
- October Term 2017
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Alito
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2), a defendant is eligible for a sentence reduction if he was initially sentenced "based on a sentencing range" that was later lowered by the United States Sentencing Commission. The five petitioners in today's case claim to be eligible under this provision. They were convicted of drug offenses that carried statutory mandatory minimum sentences, but they received sentences below these mandatory minimums, as another statute allows, because they substantially assisted the Government in prosecuting other drug offenders. We hold that petitioners' sentences were "based on" their mandatory minimums and on their substantial assistance to the Government, not on sentencing ranges that the Commission later lowered. Petitioners are therefore ineligible for § 3582(c)(2) sentence reductions. I All five petitioners pleaded guilty before the same sentencing judge to methamphetamine conspiracy offenses that subjected them to mandatory minimum sentences under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1). Before the District Court imposed those sentences, however, it first calculated petitioners' advisory Guidelines ranges, as district courts do in sentencing proceedings all around the country. These ranges take into account the seriousness of a defendant's offense and his criminal history in order to produce a set of months as a…
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