United States v. Eddie Lamont Bell
In United States v. Bell, No. 23-50755 (5th Cir. Feb. 28, 2025) (unpublished), the Fifth Circuit vacated the defendant’s sentence for possessing a firearm following a felony conviction in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The court agreed with Bell that the district court erred by denying him credit for acceptance of responsibility under USSG § 3E1.1.
Relevant Background: In court, Bell pled guilty to possessing a pistol while he had a prior felony conviction. The relevant incident occurred after Bell’s guilty plea but before his sentencing hearing.
Bell was detained while his case progressed through the district court. One day, Bell “got into an altercation with a fellow inmate … at the correctional facility where they were housed after Bell apparently asked [the other man] to stop loudly snoring.” The incident was captured on video, but no audio was recorded.
The two men stood up in their cell, and Bell points at the other man twice. The other man responded by pushing Bell’s hands away and then punching Bell in the face. In response, Bell grabbed a broom and continued to speak to the other man, at which point the other man “strikes Bell’s head with a water cooler.” In “the last seconds of the encounter,” Bell attempted to punch the other man once before detention officers arrived to end the altercation. Bell never received discipline from the detention center or any criminal charges for the incident.
Before sentencing, Bell’s Presentence Investigation Report (“PSR”) recommended that Bell not receive any downward adjustment under USSG § 3E1.1. The PSR said that Bell “accept[ed] responsibility for his actions,” but it recommended that he not receive credit for that acceptance because he “failed to terminate or withdraw from criminal conduct,” as evidenced by the fact that the “appear[ed] to be the aggressor in th[e] altercation.” At sentencing, the district court agreed—it denied Bell credit for acceptance of responsibility and sentenced him to spend 115 months in prison.
Issue: Was the district court wrong to deny Bell credit for acceptance of responsibility? Held: Yes.
Under USSG § 3E1.1, a district court should consider several factors in determining whether to award a defendant credit for accepting responsibility. Those factors include (1) “truthfully admitting the conduct”; (2) “voluntary termination or withdrawal from criminal conduct or associations”; and (3) the “timeliness” of acceptance of responsibility. Id. cmt., n.1. The Guideline commentary also notes that the entry of a guilty plea before trial,” “combined with truthfully admitting the conduct comprising the offense” constitutes “significant evidence of acceptance of responsibility.” Id. cmt., n.3
The court noted that “[n]ot every incident of wrongful conduct” pre-sentencing “is a reflection of an individual’s failure to demonstrate acceptance of responsibility as that term is defined in § 3E1.1” (quoting United States v. Cooper, 998 F.3d 806, 812 (8th Cir. 2021) (Kelly, J., concurring)).
The court explained that in many cases an assault will be sufficient to make “the criminal nature of an inmate’s conduct … self-evident, … warranting the denial of acceptance of responsibility.” But in this case, the court concluded that an “inmate who asks his cellmate to stop snoring can hardly be described as an ‘aggressor’ of ‘criminal conduct’ when the cellmate later escalates the encounter to physical violence. Further, “Bell’s decision to stand ready to defend himself when [the other man] attacked him, without opposite analysis, was in self-defense, which would negate the criminality of his conduct, insofar as it is present.” (citing United States v. Santiago, 96 F.4th 834, 849 (5th Cir. 2024)).
Conclusion: The court vacated Bell’s sentence and remanded the case for resentencing. The court summarized:
Because Bell did not initiate violence and appears to have acted in self-defense, his conduct does not outweigh the “significant evidence” of his acceptance of responsibility. Accordingly, the district court erred in denying Bell an acceptance-of-responsibility adjustment pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1.
NB: This decision was originally issued on January 10, 2025, as a published opinion, 125 F.4th 662. Later, the Government filed a petition for panel rehearing, and the court withdrew its original opinion. Instead, the court substituted an unpublished opinion that was substantially the same as the original. In the revised opinion, the court added footnotes 2 and 3, which articulated two grounds upon which the court did not decide the case.