United States of America v. Erscell Julius Worlds

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 21-7535
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
ERSCELL JULIUS WORLDS,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at
Norfolk. Arenda L. Wright Allen, District Judge. (2:14-cr-00141-AWA-LRL-1)
Submitted: May 22, 2024 Decided: July 16, 2024
Before GREGORY and HARRIS, Circuit Judges, and MOTZ, Senior Circuit Judge.
Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Erscell Julius Worlds, Appellant Pro Se. Joseph Attias, Assistant United States Attorney,
OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Erscell Julius Worlds appeals from the denial of his motion for compassionate
release. On appeal, Worlds asserts that the district court abused its discretion in concluding
that changes in sentencing law could not constitute an extraordinary and compelling reason
for release. We agree and thus vacate and remand for further proceedings.
After the district court’s ruling, we decided United States v. Davis, 99 F.4th 647,
656 (4th Cir. 2024), which held that a change in sentencing law can constitute an
extraordinary and compelling reason for compassionate release. This case is very similar
to Davis. In both, the defendants were sentenced as career offenders but, thanks to a change
in sentencing law, would not be considered career offenders if sentenced today. In both,
the defendants sought compassionate release on the basis of this sentencing disparity. And
the district court in Davis, like the district court here, found that this request amounted to
an improper collateral attack and that relief, in any, needed to be sought through 28 U.S.C.
§ 2255. Davis, 99 F.4th at 656.
On appeal in Davis, we vacated the district court’s order and remanded for further
consideration. Davis’s claim, we held, was not an improper collateral attack, because
Davis was not challenging the validity of his sentence. Instead, Davis was seeking
compassionate release based on the sentencing disparity between his actual sentence and
the sentence he would receive if resentenced today. Id. at 657. Because such a disparity,
based on a change in sentencing law, may be grounds for compassionate release, we ruled,
the district court abused its discretion in failing to consider the argument. Id. at 658.

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Davis requires the same result here. Accordingly, we vacate the district court’s
order and remand for consideration of whether the changes in sentencing law at issue
constitute an extraordinary and compelling reason for release in Worlds’ case. We
dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately
presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
VACATED AND REMANDED

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