The petitioner in this case made two one gram purchases of cocaine from a drug dealer whose phones were being wiretapped. Under 21 U.S.C. 844, these crimes would ordinarily be charged as misdemeanors, but a clever prosecutor tried to charge the petitioner under a felony for using a “communication facility” to facilitate a felony. The Fourth Circuit upheld the petitioner’s conviction stating that the term should be “given its ordinary” meaning. The Court per Justice Souter reversed finding that the term facilitate was necessarily very broad and that the statute should be narrowly construed in relation to the entire scheme. Abuelwaha v. United States, Supreme Court No. 08-192.

In this consolidated appeal, Gary Moore, Ralph Edward Wester, Theodora Lawton, Clarence Collins, and Keith Maurice McFadden (“defendants”) appeal separate district court decisions denying their motions for reduced sentences under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2). The defendants’ motions were all based on Amendment 706 to the Sentencing Guidelines, which, together with Amendment 713, retroactively reduced the base offense levels applicable to crack cocaine offenses.  The district courts denied their motions on the ground that, because the defendants were sentenced as career offenders under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1, Amendment 706 did not have the effect of lowering their applicable guideline ranges. We affirm.