Career Offender Status Precludes Crack Sentence Reduction

US v. Hodge, No. 13-6042 (WD Okla, 8/1/13)(Published) - Another crack defendant who was not eligible for a sentence reduction because he was sentenced as a career offender. He had already lost such a claim based on Amendment 706. This case involved Amendment 750, adopted after the effective date of the Fair Sentencing Act. The court had already held in a series of unpublished opinions that he same reasoning that applied to the Amendment 706 cases applied to Amendment 750 cases. This opinion was apparently published to make that official. Plus, the defendant could not benefit from the FSA itself because it was not a proper basis for a sentence reduction, and also was not retroactive. Finally, the court rejected defendant’s due process argument because sentence reductions proceedings are not constitutionally required and therefore do not implicate a liberty interest.