UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 20-7350

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v. ANTHONY JERROD HIGH,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. Terrence W. Boyle, District Judge. (5:18-cr-00173-BO-1)

Argued: March 10, 2021 Decided: May 7, 2021

Before NIEMEYER, MOTZ, and RUSHING, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Niemeyer wrote the opinion, in which Judge Motz and Judge Rushing joined.

ARGUED: Elliot Sol Abrams, CHESHIRE, PARKER, SCHNEIDER, PLLC, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant. Joshua L. Rogers, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Robert J. Higdon, Jr., United States Attorney, Jennifer P. May-Parker, Assistant United States Attorney, Banumathi Rangarajan, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge:

Anthony High, who is currently serving an 84-month sentence of imprisonment, filed a motion in the district court for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) (authorizing district courts to “reduce the term of imprisonment” on finding “extraordinary and compelling reasons”). In his motion, High noted that he has a history of heart conditions that he maintained places him at an elevated risk of serious illness or death were he to contract COVID-19. And moreover, he argued, contracting COVID-19 was likely at a prison facility such as the Federal Correctional Institution at Ashland, Kentucky, where he was serving his sentence. He also relied on his rehabilitation in prison.

The government opposed High’s motion, noting a number of measures that the Federal Bureau of Prisons was taking to protect FCI Ashland’s prison population and the absence of any infection at the institution. It also argued that the sentencing factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) “weigh[ed] heavily against reducing [High’s] term of imprisonment.”

The district court denied High’s motion, relying on the § 3553(a) factors and the fact that High had “very recently [been] sentenced,” at which time his § 3553(a) factors were also considered. It also noted that High had committed the crimes for which he had been sentenced “soon after [he] complete[d] [a prison sentence of] twenty years in state custody for a violent crime.”

For the reasons given, we affirm.

2 I

A little more than a year after High was released from state prison, where he had served 20 years for a murder conviction, he began trafficking in illegal drugs. Between June 2017 and May 2018, he distributed at least 168 grams of crack cocaine, 6.61 grams of marijuana, and 10,325 grams of cocaine powder. Following his arrest in May 2018, he pleaded guilty to distributing crack cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A). On January 16, 2019, the district court sentenced High to 84 months’ imprisonment, which represented a downward departure under U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1 of over 60 months based on High’s substantial assistance to the government. The Federal Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) assigned High to FCI Ashland to serve his sentence.

Some 16 months after his sentencing, on May 11, 2020, High filed a motion in the district court for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). He stated:

This motion should be granted due to the “extraordinary and compelling reasons” confronting the federal prison system by the pandemic of Covid-19 and the fact that Mr. Hi