United States v. Donald M. Reynolds

── United States v. Donald M. Reynolds ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Date: April 28, 2026 Category: NEW USCA11 Case: 24-12419 Document: 43-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2026 Page: 1 of 8 NOT FOR PUBLICATION In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 24-12419 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus DONALD M. REYNOLDS, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia D.C. Docket No. 1:06-cr-00081-DHB-BKE-2 ____________________ Before LUCK, LAGOA, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Donald Reynolds, proceeding pro se, appeals the district court’s denial of his motion for a sentence reduction. He argues that the district court erred by failing to consider his eligibility for USCA11 Case: 24-12419 Document: 43-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2026 Page: 2 of 8 2 Opinion of the Court 24-12419 a sentence reduction and to properly weigh or discuss the relevant 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors. He also argues that the district court reaffirmed an impermissible upward variance. After careful review, we disagree with Reynolds and affirm the district court’s denial of his motion for a sentence reduction. I. In 2006, Reynolds was convicted in the Southern District of Georgia of armed bank robbery (Count I), discharging a firearm during a crime of violence (Count II), and possessing a firearm as a convicted felon (Count III). The district court imposed a 420- month sentence, which consisted of an upward departure to the statutory maximum term of 300 months’ imprisonment for Count I, a concurrent term of 120 months for Count III, plus a consecutive term of 120 months for Count II. In 2023, in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Re- haif v. United States, 588 U.S. 225 (2019), the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia vacated Reyn- olds’s conviction on Count III and transferred the case to the South- ern District of Georgia for further proceedings. There, Reynolds requested a de novo resentencing hearing. The district court denied Reynolds’s motion. In its order, the district court explained that the vacatur of Count III did not affect the guideline range or change the factual basis for the court’s initial upward departure to the statutory maximum term of 300 months for Count I. Specifically, the district court stated that it had de- parted upward on Count I at sentencing in accordance with USCA11 Case: 24-12419 Document: 43-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2026 Page: 3 of 8 24-12419 Opinion of the Court 3 U.S.S.G. § 5K2.6—which permitted an upward variance when weapons were used or possessed during the commission of the un- derlying offense—because Reynolds used a shotgun during the bank robbery. The court added that Reynolds’s rehabilitation did not mitigate his original sentence, given “the trial testimony of the weeping bank teller who came face to face with the shotgun and of the victim impact letters of the four bank employees, each of whom described the trauma as life-altering.” Doc. 290 at 8. The