United States v. Anthony Myers, No. 21-3443 (8th Cir. 2022)
Annotate this Case
Defendant was convicted by a jury of one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm. According to the presentence report, Defendant was subject to the ACCA’s mandatory minimum sentence because he had two prior convictions for violent felonies and one prior conviction for a serious drug offense. Defendant objected, arguing that his 2003 conviction for the sale of cocaine under Missouri Revised Statute Section 195.211 (2000) does not qualify as a serious drug offense under the ACCA because that Missouri statute criminalized conduct that does not violate federal law. The district court sustained Defendant’s objection. The government appealed the district court’s ruling.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that Defendant’s prior Missouri conviction involved cocaine. The court compared the definition of cocaine under Missouri law at the time of Defendant’s Missouri conviction with the definition of cocaine under federal law at the time of Defendant’s instant federal offense. The Missouri schedule did not define isomer. The federal definition, however, criminalizes only optical and geometric isomers—but not positional isomers. Given the unambiguous breadth of Missouri’s definition of cocaine, the court agreed with the district court that Defendant’s prior Missouri conviction for the sale of cocaine was not a predicate offense for purposes of the ACCA.
Court Description: [Kelly, Author, with Loken, Circuit Judge, and Menendez, District Judge] Criminal case - Criminal law. Defendant's prior cocaine conviction under Mo. Rev. Stat. Sec. 195.211 was not a serious drug offense for purposes of imposing a sentencing enhancement under the Armed Career Criminal Act because the version of the Missouri statute in place at the time of defendant's conviction included certain isomers of cocaine not present in the federal definition of cocaine, making Missouri's statute broader that the federal definition of cocaine contained in 21 U.S.C. Sec. 812(c). Judge Loken, dissenting. [ December 28, 2022 ]
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.