Law360 (October 27, 2026, 11:25 PM EDT) -- An Eleventh Circuit panel on Tuesday reversed a Florida federal judge's decision to reduce on compassionate-release grounds the 39-year sentence of a man convicted of robbing drug dealers, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's recent opinion in a similar case, Rutherford v. U.S.

The opinion, authored by U.S. Circuit Judge Frank M. Hull, said the high court held that the First Step Act of 2018's nonretroactive elimination of a 20-year mandatory-minimum sentence for certain offenders was not an "extraordinary and compelling reason" for a sentence reduction.

The decision restores a 20-year consecutive portion of Abel Rizo's sentence from 1997. The appellate panel's opinion reversed a district court's ruling to reduce it to five years — what Rizo had argued it would have been had he been sentenced after the 2018 amendment.

In the 1990s, Rizo and others spied on drug dealers to find their stash houses, according to the opinion. They went there, posing as police officers, and robbed the dealers at gunpoint.

A jury found him guilty of two counts of cocaine possession with intent to distribute, three counts of Hobbs Act robbery, and two counts of using or carrying a gun during a crime of violence or drug trafficking crime under Title 18, Section 924(c) of the U.S. Code.

A district court sentenced Rizo in 1997 to 39 years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release. It included two concurrent 14-year sentences for the drug charges and three concurrent five-year sentences for the robberies.

Rizo also received a five-year consecutive sentence for his first gun conviction. The second gun conviction, however, accounts for more than half of his total sentence; the law at the time required a mandatory-minimum consecutive sentence of 20 years for a "second or subsequent conviction" — even for first-time offenders with multiple convictions in a single prosecution, the opinion said.

Congress' First Step Act of 2018 later amended Section 924(c) to require a 25-year mandatory-minimum sentence for defendants with previous convictions under the same law. But the new version of the law only applied that increased sentence after the prior conviction has become final.

"Pursuant to the 2018 amendment, a first-time offender, like Rizo, with two § 924(c) convictions in the same prosecution would not receive the enhanced mandatory minimum for his second § 924(c) conviction," the opinion said.

The amendment, however, was nonretroactive to defendants who had already been sentenced before it was enacted, the opinion said.

In 2024, Rizo filed a pro se motion seeking to reduce his sentence under a compassionate release exception. He cited a 2023 U.S. Sentencing Commission policy statement that nonretroactive changes in law can constitute an "extraordinary and compelling" reason for a sentence reduction — in his case, the 2018 amendment.

The district court granted Rizo's motion and reduced his second Section 924(c) sentence to five years. The government appealed.

The appeal was stayed in June 2025 pending the U.S. Supreme Court's resolution of Rutherford v. U.S.

In May, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 6-3 opinion in Rutherford, holding that the First Step Act's nonretroactive reductions in mandatory minimums did not qualify as an extraordinary and compelling reason for compassionate release.

On Tuesday, the Eleventh Circuit based its opinion squarely on Rutherford.

"In light of Rutherford, we hold that the district court erred in concluding that Rizo was eligible for a sentence reduction under [the federal compassionate release statute] based on the 2018 non-retroactive statutory amendment to § 924(c)" and the U.S. Sentencing Commission's policy statement, the opinion said.

The appellate court remanded the case to the district court, ordering it to vacate its 2024 sentence and reinstate Rizo's original sentence from 1997.

U.S. Circuit Judges Elizabeth L. Branch, Andrew L. Brasher and Frank M. Hull sat on the panel for the Eleventh Circuit.

The government is represented by Hayden O'Byrne, Daniel Matzkin, George Doty III and Francesse Cheron of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Rizo is represented by Tracy Dreispul and Michael Caruso of the Federal Public Defender's Office.

The case is U.S. v. Abel Rizo, case number 24-11349, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

--Editing by Michael Watanabe.

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