United States v. Smith, No. 13-1401 (7th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CasePolice officers stopped a car in which Smith was a passenger. Smith fled on foot. When police captured him, they found him with a plastic bag containing 9.9 grams of crack. Two weeks later, Smith sold $60 worth of crack (0.3 grams) to a confidential police informant in a hand-to-hand transaction. He pleaded guilty to distribution and possession with intent to distribute crack, 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1). Given the amount of crack, Smith’s base offense level would have been 18, and his prior convictions would have placed him in criminal history category III. However two prior convictions for aggravated fleeing from police (a felony) qualified as crimes of violence, U.S.S.G.4B1.2(a), and Smith was sentenced, as a career offender, to 151 months in prison, the bottom of the guidelines range. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting arguments that the nature of his offense and his personal characteristics made the sentence substantively unreasonable and that, because the career-offender guideline was not empirically based, but congressionally-mandated, it was not entitled to deference or a presumption of reasonableness.
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