6th Extends Section 404 Reduction to Sentence Packages – Update for October 21, 2025

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A “PACKAGE” DEAL

“Best Friends” sounds like a warm and cuddly name for a gang, more like a gaggle of 6-year-old girls back in the 1980s swapping Cabbage Patch Kids. But the 1980s and 1990s Motor City’s “Best Friends” gang was a little more into drug distribution, for-hire murders and drive-by shootings than ugly-faced little dolls with birth certificates.

In 1995, four of the principals were convicted of conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine, possession of crack, and several counts of intentional killing in furtherance of a continuing criminal enterprise in violation of 21 USC § 848(e)(1)(A), with a few 18 USC § 924(c) use-of-gun counts tossed in for good measure. The four besties were all convicted and received life sentences.

After the First Step Act was passed, the four filed for sentence reductions under Section 404, which allowed for retroactive application of the Fair Sentencing Act’s reduction in statutory punishments for crack cocaine offenses. After a tortuous trek through the district court to the court of appeals and back again, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan deemed the four amigos eligible for a Section 404 reduction. After a 2022 hearing, the district court reduced their sentences for the drug conspiracy and homicide convictions from life imprisonment to various terms of years.

The government appealed, and last week, the 6^th Circuit reversed and remanded.The Circuit rejected the District Court’s interpretation of Section 404 that would allow unlimited resentencing authority for any offense if a covered offense happened to also present. The 6th concluded that such a reading of the section did not align with the First Step Act’s purpose of resentencing “as if sections 2 and 3 of the Fair Sentencing Act were in effect.”

After all, the 6^th reasoned, even if the Fair Sentencing Act had been in force when the four best friends were sentenced in 1998, the homicide life sentences under § 848(e) would still have been permitted independent of the crack possession and conspiracy convictions.

The “sentencing package doctrine” recognizes that sentencing multiple counts is an inherently interrelated, interconnected, and holistic process, and that when an appellate court vacates a sentence and remands for resentencing, the sentence becomes void in its entirety and the district court is free to revisit any rulings it made at the initial sentencing. In this case, the 6th held that when sentences are interdependent or form a ‘package,’ modifying one sentence may require reconsideration of the entire sentencing scheme to maintain the court’s original sentencing intent. Finding that the ‘sentencing package‘ doctrine is consistent with First Step Section 404’s text and context, the Circuit vacated everyone’s resentencings and remanded for the District Court to determine whether each defendant’s homicide sentence was part of a ‘sentencing package’ with the covered crack drug offense.

The holding aligns with decisions by the 4^th and 7^th Circuits.

United States v. Dale, Case No. 23-1050, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 26682 (6th Cir. October 14, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root