United States of America v. Keith Delpree Mahatha

Greensboro, North Carolina criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant seeking a sentence reduction under the First Step Act, Pub. L. No. 115-391, 132 Stat. 5194 (2018).



In 2007, Mahatha pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute cocaine base,

in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A), and was sentenced to a below-Guidelines

term of 161 months' imprisonment and five years' supervised release. In April 2018, he

was released from prison to serve his supervised release term.

Less than six months later, Mahatha violated the terms of his supervised release by

committing new criminal acts for which he was convicted in state court. In light of those

acts, the Government moved to revoke his federal supervised release.



In response, Mahatha petitioned under the First Step Act to be resentenced for his

2007 federal conviction. Due to the First Step Act's provisions and attendant changes to

the Sentencing Guidelines, Mahatha's statutory terms of imprisonment and advisory

Guidelines range would have been significantly less than they had been when he was3

sentenced to the prior 161 months' imprisonment.1 Mahatha argued that the district court

should grant his motion, and then impose a sentence that reflected an equivalent percentage

reduction from his revised Guidelines range to that which he had received based on his

original Guidelines range. Mahatha acknowledged that the sole purpose in obtaining his

desired sentence reduction would be to allow him to "bank” time. Under Bureau of Prison

policy, time a prisoner has "overserved” on his sentence can be applied to any future term

of imprisonment that is imposed based on, inter alia, the revocation of the prisoner's

supervised release. See United States v. Jackson, 952 F.3d 492, 497–98 (4th Cir. 2020)

(discussing the concept of "banked time”). So, for example, because Mahatha had served

161 months in prison for his 2007 federal conviction, if he were resentenced for that offense

to anything less than that term, the BOP could apply that "overserved” time toward a

revocation sentence, meaning that he would serve a fraction or even no additional time in

prison as a result of violating the conditions of his supervised release.



The district court held a joint hearing on Mahatha's motion for resentencing and the

Government's request to revoke his supervised release. During that hearing, the district

court recognized its statutory authority to grant Mahatha's motion despite the fact that he

was no longer in prison. J.A. 30 ("[T]here is no quarrel that statutorily and under case law,

. . . the Court would have the discretion under the Fair Sentencing Act [to resentence

Mahatha].”). After recognizing its power to act, the district court declined to exercise its

discretion to do so, explaining that doing so in this case would "destroy[] any effectiveness

of supervised release.” J.A. 46. In full, the court told Mahatha that



if you were still in prison on the federal sentence and you were serving that

in the Federal Bureau of Prisons and you filed a motion under the First Step

Act and were able to show me what has been shown [today], what I would

have done – of course I would hear from the Government, but I would have

given you a time-served sentence so you could have been released then. I

probably would not have shortened your supervised release. Might have. But

in a resentencing hearing, I wouldn't consider doing that. All it does is give

banked time. It complete[ly] eviscerates, destroys any effectiveness of

supervised release, so I would not have done that, even if you had been in

prison.

J.A. 46.5

After denying Mahatha’s motion, the district court granted the Government’s

request to revoke supervised release and sentenced him to a revocation sentence of 24

months’ imprisonment to be followed by an additional 36 months’ supervised release. It

observed that Mahatha had re-offended less than six months after having served a

substantial sentence for his federal offense and that his state crimes clearly violated the

terms of his release. Last, the court noted that these concerns, coupled with his commission

of those new crimes while in possession of a firearm, led it to conclude that the public was

best served by revoking release. Consequently, the court remanded Mahatha to federal

prison to serve a 24-month sentence.





Affirmed