Background
Antonio Brown and a co-defendant robbed two Tampa auto-parts stores while armed and masked. During each robbery, they brandished handguns, demanded money, and ordered employees to the back of the store to lie down while they escaped. Brown pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery, two Hobbs Act robberies, and one count of brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence. In exchange, the government dismissed a second brandishing count and agreed to recommend a sentence within the Sentencing Guidelines range.
The district court applied a two-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 2B3.1(b)(4)(B), then understood in the Eleventh Circuit to cover conduct that left victims no alternative but compliance. With that enhancement, Brown’s Guidelines range for the Hobbs Act offenses was 70 to 87 months. The court varied upward and imposed 120 months on those offenses plus the firearm count’s mandatory consecutive 84 months, for a total sentence of 204 months. Brown appealed, arguing that the government breached the plea agreement, the physical-restraint enhancement was improper, and the sentence was substantively unreasonable.
The Court’s Holding
The Eleventh Circuit held that the government did not breach the plea agreement. Although the prosecutor remarked that a top-of-the-Guidelines sentence might be considered lenient, he repeatedly recommended that sentence as promised. The agreement did not require an enthusiastic recommendation, and the prosecutor did not functionally argue against the agreed recommendation. The court therefore affirmed Brown’s convictions.
The court nevertheless vacated Brown’s sentence. After his sentencing, the Sentencing Commission amended § 2B3.1(b)(4)(B) to require that a victim’s freedom of movement be restricted through physical contact or confinement, such as by being tied, bound, or locked up. The court deemed that amendment clarifying and therefore retroactive. Because Brown merely brandished a gun and ordered the victims to lie down, the district court had applied the wrong legal standard. That error was plain at the time of appellate review, and there was a reasonable probability that it affected Brown’s sentence because the district court had not said it would impose 204 months regardless of the Guidelines calculation.
The court remanded for resentencing under the proper standard while emphasizing that the district court remains free to impose the same 204-month sentence if it finds that sentence appropriate. Because resentencing was required, the court did not decide Brown’s substantive-reasonableness challenge.
Key Takeaways
- A prosecutor does not breach a promise to recommend a Guidelines sentence merely by making the recommendation without enthusiasm; a breach requires conduct that functionally argues against the promised position.
- The 2025 amendment to U.S.S.G. § 2B3.1(b)(4)(B) is clarifying and applies retroactively in the Eleventh Circuit.
- Brandishing a firearm and ordering robbery victims to lie down, without physical contact or confinement, does not by itself satisfy the amended physical-restraint standard.
Why It Matters
The decision narrows the circumstances in which robbery defendants in the Eleventh Circuit may receive the physical-restraint enhancement and abrogates the circuit’s broader prior interpretation. Defendants whose direct appeals remain pending may invoke the clarified standard even if the enhancement was proper under circuit precedent when they were sentenced.
The opinion also reinforces that an incorrect Guidelines range will ordinarily warrant correction on plain-error review when the record does not clearly establish that the district court would have imposed the same sentence under the correct range.