In United States v. Edward, No. 19-13366 (May 13, 2021) (Jordan, Newsom, Tjoflat), the Court affirmed the ruling on the defendant’s motion for reduced sentence under Section 404 of the First Step Act.
First, the Court held that Section 404 is self-executing. Therefore, a motion under that Section need not be brought under 3582(c)(1)(B), which is limited to reductions to the term of imprisonment (and not supervised release). Second, and as a result, a district court has the authority under Section 404 to add a new term of supervised released, provided that it reduces the defendant’s overall sentence. Here, the court appropriately exercised that authority by reducing a life sentence down to 260 months, and then adding an 8-year term of supervised release.
