Author Archive | Daniel Habib

In United States v. Chestnut, the Second Circuit (Sullivan, joined by Cabranes and Raggi) dismissed as moot a defendant’s appeal from the denial of his compassionate release motion, where the defendant had completed his sentence, and had “neither requested that the district court reduce his term of [supervised release] nor advanced any arguments to suggest that such a reduction is warranted.”

Chestnut sought compassionate release based on (i) his need to care for his children after their removal from their mother’s custody; and (ii) his medical conditions, which placed him at risk of severe illness from COVID-19. The district court (Daniels, SDNY) denied the motion. While Chestnut’s appeal was pending, he was released from BOP custody.

The Circuit concluded that the appeal was moot because Chestnut only sought a reduced prison sentence, and his prison sentence was now complete. In some cases, the Circuit said, “an appeal challenging a …

In United States v. Havis, the en banc Sixth Circuit held, unanimously, that a Tennessee state offense criminalizing the attempted delivery of a controlled substance was not a “controlled substance offense,” for purposes of U.S.S.G. §§ 2K2.1 and 4B1.2. ___ F.3d ___, 2019 WL 2376070 (6th Cir. June 6, 2019) (en banc). Overruling prior Circuit precedent, the Court explained that attempts appear only in Application Note 1 to § 4B1.2(b), not in the text of the Guideline itself. Consequently, the inclusion of attempts was not an interpretation of § 4B1.2(b)’s text, to which deference would be owed under Stinson v. United States, 508 U.S. 36 (1993), but rather an addition to § 4B1.2(b)’s text, due no deference at all:

To make attempt crimes a part of § 4B1.2(b), the Commission did not interpret a term in the guideline itself—no term in § 4B1.2(b) would bear that …