Sentencing; First Step Act “covered offenses”; § 404(b); The “mandate rule”; Whether the First Step Act authorized the district court to reduce defendants’ sentences on their homicide convictions for which they were convicted & sentenced concurrently with the covered drug-conspiracy offense; Applicability of the “sentencing-package doctrine”

[This appeal was from the ED-MI.] The court held for the first time in a published opinion that the First Step Act’s sentence-reduction authority encompasses cases falling under the sentencing-package doctrine – “a district court can reduce a sentence for a non-covered offense when it is ‘packaged’ with a covered offense for sentencing purposes.” Defendants, members of a drug-distribution gang, were sentenced on drug conspiracy charges and several homicides. The district court sentenced each to life in prison but later changed the sentence to a term of years under the First Step Act. The government appealed, arguing that the Act did not authorize reductions for the homicide convictions, which were not covered under § 404 and were not included in sentencing packages. It also argued that the mandate rule, which provides that a “lower court cannot reconsider any issue that the higher appeals court ‘expressly or impliedly decided’ in an earlier appeal[,]” precluded the district court from reducing defendant-Gordon’s homicide sentence on remand. But the court rejected this argument where there was nothing in its prior remand order that “expressly limited the district court to considering relief only as to the conspiracy conviction.” It then turned to the question of whether the district court had the authority under the Act to reduce the sentences for defendants’ homicide convictions where they were convicted and sentenced concurrently with a “covered offense” (the drug-conspiracy). It held that § “404(b)’s sentence-reduction authority encompasses cases falling under the sentencing-package doctrine.” Noting that it has taken this position in several unpublished cases, the court formally adopted it in this case. But “the First Step Act allows resentencing” only on non-covered offenses “that are part of a sentencing package[.]” And it expressed doubt whether the doctrine applied here. The district court failed to explain how each defendant’s sentences fell within the doctrine. Because its “limited explanation is partially due to the government’s failure to timely address the sentencing-package issue,” the court remanded for “the district court to fully address whether the sentencing-package doctrine truly applies here.” Vacated and remanded.