Sentencing; Drug quantity; Five-year mandatory minimum under 21 USC § 841(b)(1)(B); Eligibility for relief under the “safety-valve” provision (18 USC § 3553(f)(1)); Whether § 3553(f)(1) requires a defendant to show he or she has none of the criminal history set forth in parts (A)-(C) or only to show that he or she lacks the criminal history described in any one of those subsections

The court affirmed the district court’s ruling finding defendant-Haynes ineligible for “safety-valve” relief from the mandatory minimum five-year sentence based on drug quantity. It agreed with the district court that § 3553(f)(1) requires a defendant to show that he or she “has none of the criminal history described in subsections (A)-(C)[.]” Haynes pled guilty to conspiring to possess with intent to distribute 40 grams or more of fentanyl and 100 grams or more of heroin. He was subject to a mandatory minimum five-year sentence based on the drug quantity. He argued he was eligible for relief under the safety valve provision, § 3553(f), which allows a court to sentence below the five-year minimum if a defendant meets certain requirements. The district court ruled that he was ineligible due to a prior conviction for which he had received three points under the Sentencing Guidelines. He did receive a reduction for “his ‘substantial assistance’ in prosecuting other members of the conspiracy.” The district court sentenced him to 32 months. The issue on appeal was whether § 3553(f)(1) “requires the defendant to show that he has none of the criminal history described in subsections (A)-(C); or whether . . . the defendant must show only that he lacks the criminal history described in any one of those subsections.” Focusing on the word “and” in subsection (B), the court agreed with the government’s reading that the “more plausible” meaning, and its meaning to the ordinary reader, required that to obtain relief under the safety-valve, “the defendant must not have any of three disqualifying conditions in his criminal record: first, ‘more than 4 criminal history points,’ itself a fourfold increase over the prior cap; second, a prior offense serious enough to add three points to his criminal record; and third, a prior 2-point ‘violent offense[.]’” The court noted that each condition “on its face is quite plausibly an independent ground to deny a defendant the extraordinary relief afforded by the safety valve—which means this reading is logically coherent.” It found the same could not be said for Haynes’s interpretation.