Opinion
No. 03 CR 339.
September 16, 2008
MEMORANDUM ORDER
Frederick Word, represented by Federal Defender Program Attorney Beth Gaus, has filed a motion for the reduction of his sentence by reason of the recent (and retroactive) Sentencing Guideline amendment tempering the draconian impact of the prior Guideline provision dealing with crack cocaine. Although Word's counsel has noticed up the motion for presentment on October 8, well beyond the 10-business-day limit specified by this District Court's LR 5.3(b), Word's circumstances call for granting his motion without requiring such presentment or any hearing.
Word was originally sentenced after he had pleaded guilty pursuant to a written plea agreement ("Agreement") — a document that the case law uniformly treats as a contract. After the government moved pursuant to Guideline § 5K1.1 for a departure from the applicable Guideline range (a motion that had been anticipated in Agreement ¶ 19), this Court approved and imposed a sentence of 90 months — two thirds of the low end of the then-applicable Guideline range — that Agreement ¶ 19 had specified under Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(c)(1)(C).
Now the retroactive Guideline amendment has lowered Word's offense level by two levels, providing a new Guideline range of 108-135 months. That reduced range in turn brings into play the provision for a comparable reduction in Word's sentence as set pit in Guideline § 1B1.10(b)(2)(B). Two-thirds of the new Guideline range's low end comes to 72 months, and accordingly this Court orders Word's sentence reduced to that 72-month figure.