Full Opinion

USCA11 Case: 25-12883 Document: 33-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 1 of 14 NOT FOR PUBLICATION In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 25-12883 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus RODRIGUEZ D. JONES, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia D.C. Docket No. 1:25-cr-00116-MLB-1 ____________________ Before ROSENBAUM, GRANT, and TJOFLAT, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Rodriguez Jones appeals his 48-month sentence imposed fol- lowing the revocation of his supervised release term. On appeal, Jones argues the District Court procedurally erred in failing to USCA11 Case: 25-12883 Document: 33-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 2 of 14 2 Opinion of the Court 25-12883 acknowledge the First Step Act “essentially reclassified” his prior conviction as a Class B felony and substantively erred in applying a five-year statutory maximum pursuant to its understanding of his underlying offense as a Class A felony. Jones also argues the District Court clearly erred in finding Jones violated the terms of his super- vised release by possessing with intent to distribute the drugs found in his bedroom. After careful review, we affirm Jones’s sentence. I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY In 2000, Jones was charged by a grand jury in the Central District of Illinois with conspiring to distribute at least 50 grams of cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Jones was found guilty at trial. At sentencing, the district court found Jones respon- sible for distributing at least 90 kilograms of cocaine and calculated his sentencing range to be 360 months to life imprisonment. The court sentenced Jones to 480 months’ imprisonment to be followed by 10 years of supervised release. It imposed mandatory conditions of supervised release prohibiting Jones from committing another federal, state, or local crime and prohibiting him from possessing a firearm, as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 921. The district court also im- posed special supervised release conditions prohibiting Jones from owning, purchasing, or possessing a firearm, ammunition, or other dangerous weapons and prohibiting him from purchasing, pos- sessing, using, distributing, or administering any controlled sub- stance. USCA11 Case: 25-12883 Document: 33-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 3 of 14 25-12883 Opinion of the Court 3 While Jones was serving his sentence, Congress enacted the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, which reduced the crack-to-powder cocaine disparity from 100–to–1 to 18–to–1. Fair Sentencing Act, Pub. L. No. 111-220, 124 Stat. 2372. In Dorsey v. United States, the Supreme Court described the events leading to the passage of the Fair Sentencing Act: During the next two decades, the [Sentencing] Com- mission and others in the law enforcement commu- nity strongly criticized Congress’s decision to set the crack-to-powder mandatory minimum ratio at 100– to–1. The Commission issued four separate reports telling Congress that the ratio was too high and un- justified because, for example, research showed the relative harm between crack and powder cocaine less severe than 100–to–1, because sentences embodying that ratio could not achieve the Sentencing Reform Act’s “uniformity” goal of treating like offenders alike, because they could not achieve the “proportion- ality” goal of treating different offenders (e.g., major drug traffickers and low-level dealers) differently, and because the public had come to understand sentences embodying the 100–to–1 ratio as reflecting unjusti- fied race-based differences. 567 U.S. 260, 268, 132 S. Ct. 2321, 2328 (2012). As relevant to this case, the 10-year mandatory minimum imposed by 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A) became triggered by the distribution of 280 grams or more of crack cocaine (rather than 50 grams). That remains the case today. USCA11 Case: 25-12883 Document: 33-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 4 of 14 4 Opinion of the Court 25-12883 Although the Fair Sentencing Act reformed the crack to powder cocaine disparity for all cases moving forward, it did not have retroactive impact. Thus, in 2018, while Jones was still serving his sentence, Congress passed the First Step Act of 2018. Pub. L. No. 115-391,132 Stat. 5194. This law gave district courts the discre- tion “to apply retroactively the reduced statutory penalties for crack-cocaine offenses in the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 to mo- vants sentenced before those penalties became effective.” United States v. Russell, 994 F.3d 1230, 1234 (11th Cir. 2021) (quoting United States v. Jones, 962 F.3d 1290, 1293 (11th Cir. 2020)). On August 9, 2019, Jones moved to reduce his sentence pur- suant to the First Step Act. On April 28, 2020, Jones’s motion was granted and his sentence was reduced to time served and eight years of supervised release. A day later, Jones was released from custody and began supervised release. In March 2025, jurisdiction of Jones’s supervised release was transferred to the Northern Dis- trict of Georgia. In August 2025, the United States Probation Office submitted a second amended violation report. The report alleged three violations: that Jones possessed a firearm on August 10, 2024 (violations 1 and 2), 1 and that Jones committed new criminal con- duct (felon possessing a firearm, possessing controlled substances, and possessing methamphetamine with intent to distribute) on April 25, 2025. The District Court conducted a hearing and found 1 As described above, Jones’s supervised release conditions included both a mandatory condition that he “shall not possess a firearm” and a special condi- tion that he “shall not own, purchase, or possess a firearm[.]” USCA11 Case: 25-12883 Document: 33-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 5 of 14 25-12883 Opinion of the Court 5 Jones violated his supervised release. It revoked Jones’s supervised release and sentenced him to 48 months’ imprisonment, followed by one year of supervised release. Jones timely appealed. He is cur- rently incarcerated. II. SENTENCING A. Procedural Reasonableness The District Court did not err in its guidelines calculation. When reviewing a sentence for procedural reasonableness, we re- view legal issues de novo and factual findings for clear error. United States v. Rothenberg, 610 F.3d 621, 624 (11th Cir. 2010). Where, as here, the defendant “did not object to the procedural reasonable- ness” of his sentence “at the time of his sentencing,” we review only for plain error. United States v. Vandergrift, 754 F.3d 1303, 1307 (11th Cir. 2014). “Our case law equates manifest injustice with the plain error standard of review.” Id. To prevail on appeal, Jones must demonstrate (1) the District Court erred; (2) the error was plain; (3) the error affected his substantial rights, and (4) the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judi- cial proceedings. Id. Under the 2024 Sentencing Guidelines, in effect when Jones was sentenced in early 2025, a defendant with a criminal history category of VI who committed a Grade A violation while on super- vised release “as a result of a sentence for a Class A felony” had a guidelines range of 51 to 63 months’ imprisonment. U.S.S.G. § 7B1.4 (2024). Where, as here, the offense that resulted in USCA11 Case: 25-12883 Document: 33-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 6 of 14 6 Opinion of the Court 25-12883 the term of supervised release is a Class A felony, the maximum term of imprisonment that a court may impose upon revocation of supervised release is 5 years (or 60 months). 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3). Thus, the District Court calculated Jones’s guidelines range to be 51 to 63 months’ imprisonment, with a statutory maximum of 60 months’ imprisonment. Jones’s underlying conviction and supervised release viola- tions for distributing controlled substances are both Class A felo- nies, as they both carry maximum statutory sentences of life im- prisonment. 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(b)(1)(A)(iii), (viii). Jones was calcu- lated to have a criminal history category of VI at the time he was sentenced for his underlying conviction. Therefore, Jones’s sen- tencing range at revocation of his supervised release was 51 to 60 months’ imprisonment, based on his Grade A violation while on supervised release “as a result of a sentence for a Class A felony” and accounting for his 60-month statutory maximum sentence upon revocation. U.S.S.G. § 7B1.4 (2024); 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3). As Jones concedes, “no one—including defense counsel— expressly told the district court that the [g]uidelines should have been 33 to 41 months.” 2 On appeal, Jones argues he was not on 2 In the sentencing memorandum that he filed before his revocation hearing, Jones “agree[d] that the [g]uidelines range [was] 51-60 months (for Grade A violations) because [his] underlying conviction [was] technically a Class A fel- ony,” but he argued that an appropriate sentencing range was 33-41 months’ imprisonment in order “to avoid unwarranted disparities under Section 3553, and because the same jury conviction from a quarter-century ago would only USCA11 Case: 25-12883 Document: 33-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 7 of 14 25-12883 Opinion of the Court 7 supervised release “as a result of a sentence for a Class A felony” because the Central District of Illinois’s reduction of his sentence under the First Step Act created a “new 8-year term” of supervised release in place of the original “10-year term.” He goes on, “[i]n other words, the 8-year term of supervised release was ‘as a result of’ an intervening event: the sentence reduction imposed on April 28, 2020, not the original old sentence imposed back in 2001.” 3 Jones further argues he was not “on supervised release as a result of a sentence for a Class A felony” because the underlying offense would be a Class B felony today, pursuant to the First Step Act. We find Jones’s arguments unconvincing. First, under bind- ing Eleventh Circuit precedent, it’s unclear whether Jones would have qualified for First Step relief at all, had his motion been filed in our Circuit. At his original sentencing, Jones was held responsi- ble for at least 90 kilograms of crack cocaine. That figure clearly exceeds the modern 280 gram threshold under 21 U.S.C. § be a Class B felony today” following the First Step Act’s passage. At his revo- cation hearing, when the District Court asked if the parties “agree[d] with . . . th[e] calculation of the guidelines,” Jones responded, “Correct, with it ending at 60.” 3 Jones concedes “[he] could not find a single decision in this circuit that applies [§ 3583(e)(3)] to a situation where the underlying offense was originally one class, but the sentence was later reduced pursuant to the First Step Act because the offense is now at a lower class,” but argues the District Court nonetheless erred in calculating the guidelines because “the terms of the statute are straightforward, at least as applied to this case.” USCA11 Case: 25-12883 Document: 33-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 8 of 14 8 Opinion of the Court 25-12883 841(b)(1)(A). Under binding Eleventh Circuit precedent, the district court considering Jones’s motion for a reduced sentence would have been bound by the sentencing judge’s earlier drug-quantity finding of 90 kilograms of crack cocaine. See United States v. Jackson, 58 F.4th 1331, 1335 (11th Cir. 2023) (holding “the district court is bound by a previous finding of drug quantity that could have been used to determine the movant’s statutory penalty at the time of sentencing”). Here, as in Jackson, Jones “cannot use a motion for a reduced sentence to relitigate an earlier drug-quantity finding.” Id. at 1338. It follows that the Central District of Illinois’s reduction of Jones’s sentence did not reclassify Jones’s underlying offense to a Class B felony, nor did Jones’s sentence reduction under the First Step Act create a requirement that Jones’s penalty for violating su- pervised release be modified “as if” Jones had been sentenced for a Class B felony in the first instance. Indeed, as the First Step Act plainly indicates, “[n]othing in this section shall be construed to re- quire a court to reduce any sentence pursuant to this section.” First Step Act § 404(c). Next, despite Jones’s position that his reduced term of super- vised release constituted a “new” term of supervised release, post- revocation penalties relate to the original offense. Johnson v. United States, 529 U.S. 694, 701, 120 S. Ct. 1795, 1801 (2000). Accordingly, we reject Jones’s attempt to characterize a sentence reduction as a new sentence. USCA11 Case: 25-12883 Document: 33-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 9 of 14 25-12883 Opinion of the Court 9 To iterate our explanation above, Jones’s arguments operate under the mistaken assumption that the First Step Act (or his sub- sequent sentence reduction under the Act) transformed his under- lying offense from a Class A felony to a Class B felony. That is not so. Nothing in the First Step Act empowers a district court to alter the underlying offense or conviction. Instead, “[a]s its statutory text indicates . . . § 404(b) of the First Step Act authorizes district courts to reduce the sentences of defendants with covered offenses but does not require them to do so.” United States v. Gonzalez, 71 F.4th 881, 885 (11th Cir. 2023). A district court may find a lower drug quantity applied (i.e., one that would have subjected the defendant to a Class B felony rather than a Class A felony) and thereby reduce the defendant’s sentence as a result of the First Step Act. It is not, however, required to do so: the decision remains within the district court’s discretion. See United States v. Alexander, No. 25-10914, 2026 WL 295467, at *3 (11th Cir. Feb. 4, 2026) (“Alexander is incorrect that the district court was ‘required’ to reclassify his original offense of conviction as a class B felony.”) (citing Gonzalez, 71 F.4th at 885). The District Court did not err, much less plainly err, in its guide- lines calculation. B. Substantive Reasonableness After ensuring a defendant’s sentence is procedurally sound, we evaluate the sentence’s substantive reasonableness by consider- ing the totality of the circumstances under a deferential abuse-of- discretion standard. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51, 128 S. Ct. 586, 597 (2007). USCA11 Case: 25-12883 Document: 33-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 10 of 14 10 Opinion of the Court 25-12883 A district court abuses its discretion when it “(1) fails to af- ford consideration to relevant factors that were due significant weight, (2) gives significant weight to an improper or irrelevant fac- tor, or (3) commits a clear error of judgment in considering the proper factors.” United States v. Irey, 612 F.3d 1160, 1189 (11th Cir. 2010) (en banc) (internal quotation marks omitted). We have pre- viously emphasized we must give “due deference” to the district court in its consideration of the sentencing factors. United States v. Shabazz, 887 F.3d 1204, 1224 (11th Cir. 2018). The District Court did not abuse its discretion in imposing a 48-month sentence. On appeal, Jones argues his sentence is sub- stantively unreasonable because the District Court gave insuffi- cient weight to the congressional intent underlying the First Step Act when it evaluated the § 3553(a) factors. Jones argues “ignoring the First Step Act’s changes with respect to the Guidelines—and then putting great weight on the Guidelines—also resulted in un- warranted sentencing disparities by perpetuating the very disparity that Congress has tried to dismantle.” However, as the Govern- ment argued at the sentencing hearing, the facts reflected in the PSR bear out that Jones would face the same sentence if he were convicted today. Ninety kilograms clearly exceeds the current 280- gram Class A threshold under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A). After con- sidering Jones’s argument regarding congressional intent, the Dis- trict Court went on to properly consider the remaining 3553(a) fac- tors. It did not abuse its discretion in imposing a 48-month sen- tence. USCA11 Case: 25-12883 Document: 33-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 11 of 14 25-12883 Opinion of the Court 11 III. FACTUAL FINDINGS Next, Jones argues that the District Court clearly erred when it found that the government proved his drug-distribution super- vised release violation by a preponderance of the evidence.4 We review a district court’s determination that a defendant violated the terms of his supervised release for an abuse of discre- tion. United States v. Copeland, 20 F.3d 412, 413 (11th Cir. 1994). A district court’s findings of fact at a revocation hearing are reviewed for clear error. United States v. Almand, 992 F.2d 316, 318 (11th Cir. 1993). Clear error is present only when we are “left with a def- inite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” United States v. Crawford, 407 F.3d 1174, 1177 (11th Cir. 2005). A district court may revoke a defendant’s term of supervised release if it finds by a preponderance of the evidence that he vio- lated a condition of supervised release. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3); United States v. Cunningham, 607 F.3d 1264, 1266 (11th Cir. 2010). Here, the district did not abuse its discretion when it re- voked Jones’s supervised release after it properly found he pos- sessed drugs with the intent to distribute them. Officer Day testi- fied at Jones’s revocation hearing that officers seized from Jones’s 4 As Jones notes: “[T]his matters because only the drug distribution violation qualified as a Grade A violation under the Guidelines[,] [and] [w]ithout it, the remaining violations are Grade B, and [the] Guidelines range would have dropped to only 21 to 27 months.” USCA11 Case: 25-12883 Document: 33-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 12 of 14 12 Opinion of the Court 25-12883 person “a large white pill bottle,” “two clear plastic baggies of co- caine,” “another clear plastic baggy containing blue circular-shaped pills with a 30 imprint on the side of them,” and a DEA analysis showed that plastic baggies found in the pill bottle contained co- caine. He testified that officers seized marijuana from Jones’s vehi- cle. He further testified that officers found “three various types of drugs”: “a baggie that ha[d] what look[ed] like a mix of white and blue pills,” “two baggies of sort of beige-colored pills,” and “small baggies with blue round pills,”—along with “a debit credit card with the name Rodriguez Jones on the front of it” in a red box found in Jones’s bedroom. DEA analyses reflected that the beige and mixed-color pills tested positive for methamphetamine, and the blue round pills tested positive for fentanyl. Officer Day further testified that officers seized marijuana and a scale with marijuana residue from Jones’s residence. In total, Officer Day testified, offic- ers seized “several hundred” pills. Officer Day testified that officers seized from Jones’s vehicle “drug packaging materials,” like “empty wrappers,” that had mari- juana residue. He further testified that several of the blue pills seized from Jones’s person field-tested positive for methampheta- mine, and one officer, “[b]ased on prior arrests,” thought that they “could also be fentanyl” because they “matched the same size, color, characteristics of a previous arrest he had made.” Jones’s wife consented to the officer’s search of the residence, and she sug- gested to Officer Day that Jones possessed and distributed the drugs in their home. Finally, Officer Day testified that the pills that offic- ers found “were consistent with being used with a pill press.” With USCA11 Case: 25-12883 Document: 33-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 13 of 14 25-12883 Opinion of the Court 13 this evidence before it, the Court did not err by finding Jones pos- sessed drugs with the intent to distribute them, nor did it abuse its discretion by revoking his supervised release on that basis. Jones’s arguments to the contrary are unavailing. First, Jones’s wife did not testify, so the District Court did not make cred- ibility determinations with respect to her; instead, it merely found that Jones’s argument that his wife lied to officers while acting as a confidential informant was “not very compelling.” Second, there was ample evidence to connect Jones to the drugs that officers seized, so the District Court did not clearly err by rejecting Jones’s argument that his wife planted that evidence. Third, the district court did not clearly err when it found that the blue pills found in Jones’s residence were “similar” to those found on his person, as that finding was supported by Officer Day’s testimony that the pills found in both locations matched. Fourth, the scale with marijuana residue found in Jones’s residence, and “drug packaging materials,” like “empty wrappers,” with marijuana residue that was found in Jones’s vehicle were sufficient to support a finding he was distrib- uting the drugs found in both locations. Finally, the District Court’s credibility determinations about witnesses’ testimony about the debit card are entitled to deference, and, in any event, the debit card bore Jones’s name, so the District Court could determine— without clear error—that the debit card belonged to him. We af- firm. USCA11 Case: 25-12883 Document: 33-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 14 of 14 14 Opinion of the Court 25-12883 IV. SECOND AMENDMENT Finally, Jones argues we should vacate the District Court’s judgment with respect to its finding he violated the term of his su- pervised release by possessing a firearm. According to Jones, “the Second Amendment does not permit the government to forever ban all felons from possessing firearms.” Jones acknowledges “cir- cuit precedent currently forecloses this argument, including even [his] as-applied argument.” United States v. Dubois, 139 F.4th 887 (11th Cir. 2025). Notwithstanding, Jones preserved the argument that Dubois was wrongly decided for purposes of en banc or Su- preme Court review. Jones was correct in identifying Dubois as binding precedent in our Circuit, and it remains so in the light of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in United States v. Hemani, 608 U.S. 772, 146 S. Ct. 1677 (2026). V. CONCLUSION Jones’s sentence is procedurally and substantively reasona- ble. His Second Amendment challenge is foreclosed by binding Eleventh Circuit precedent. Accordingly, we affirm.5 AFFIRMED. 5 Jones’s Amended Motion to Supplement the Record is denied.