United States of America v. Anycco M. Rivers

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted November 7, 2025
Decided November 10, 2025
Before
FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge
KENNETH F. RIPPLE, Circuit Judge
DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge
No. 25-1593
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
ANYCCO M. RIVERS,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Central District of Illinois.
No. 22-20015-001
Colin S. Bruce,
Judge.
O R D E R
On a limited remand, the district court eliminated two criminal history points
that it had assigned Anycco Rivers at sentencing for a carjacking conviction, 18 U.S.C.
§ 2119, and sentenced him to 193 months in prison. He appeals, but his appointed
counsel asserts that the appeal is frivolous and moves to withdraw. See Anders v.
California, 386 U.S. 738, 744 (1967). Counsel’s brief details the nature of the case and
discusses issues that an appeal of this kind might be expected to involve. Because
counsel’s analysis appears thorough, and Rivers did not respond to the motion, see CIR .
R. 51(b), we limit our review to the subjects that counsel discusses. See United States v.
Bey, 748 F.3d 774, 776 (7th Cir. 2014).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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No. 25-1593 Page 2
In March 2022, Rivers and his co-defendant approached a car parked with its
engine idling on the side of a street in Bourbonnais, Illinois. Rivers pointed two guns at
the car’s owner and told him to get out of the car. Rivers and his co-defendant then got
in the car and Rivers shot his gun in the air. The pair sped off, drawing the attention of
nearby police. After a car chase, police arrested Rivers. Rivers later was tried by a jury
and found guilty of carjacking, 18 U.S.C. § 2119, and using firearms to commit that
offense, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(iii).
Relevant to this appeal, the district court assessed eight criminal history points,
including two because Rivers was on parole when he committed this offense. The
additional two points resulted in a criminal history category of IV, which, together with
a total offense level of 24, yielded a guidelines range of 77–96 months for the carjacking
charge. The district court sentenced Rivers to 87 months for the carjacking and a 120-
month mandatory consecutive sentence for the § 924(c) charge.
Rivers appealed, challenging only his sentence for carjacking. United States v.
Rivers, 108 F.4th 973, 981 (7th Cir. 2024). We vacated his sentence on that conviction and
remanded for a limited resentencing in light of Amendment 821 to the Sentencing
Guidelines, a retroactive amendment that reduced or eliminated the number of criminal
history points for defendants like him who committed certain offenses while serving
another sentence. Id. at 983–84.
On remand, the district court removed the two criminal history points it had
added to Rivers’s criminal history for committing the offense while on parole. For
purposes of the carjacking sentence, this lowered his criminal history category to III and
his guidelines range to 63–78 months. Rivers agreed with the court’s recalculations. The
court sentenced Rivers to 73 months for that conviction, followed by the 120-month
mandatory sentence for the § 924(c) charge.
Counsel recognizes that the scope of our remand would limit Rivers from raising
potential arguments that do not relate to the vacated sentence. See Sullivan v. Flora, Inc.,
63 F.4th 1130, 1138–39 (7th Cir. 2023) (citing United States v. Husband, 312 F.3d 247, 250-
51 (7th Cir. 2002)). Counsel first consider but rightly reject any procedural challenge to
Rivers’s sentence. Rivers’s sentence is below the statutory maximum, and he waived
any challenge to the Guidelines when he told the district court at the resentencing
hearing that the guidelines calculations were correct. See United States v. Flores, 929 F.3d
443, 449–50 (7th Cir. 2019).

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No. 25-1593 Page 3
Counsel is also correct that Rivers could not successfully challenge the
substantive reasonableness of his within-guidelines sentence. A within-range sentence
is presumptively reasonable, and we will uphold a sentence if the court adequately
explained its reasoning. United States v. Major, 33 F.4th 370, 384–85 (7th Cir. 2022). Here,
the judge explained the sentence with reference to the sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C.
§ 3553(a) (by stating that he incorporated all his findings from the prior sentencing), the
Sentencing Guidelines, and evidence of mitigation that Rivers introduced at the
resentencing.
We GRANT counsel’s motion to withdraw and DISMISS the appeal.

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