United States v. Rollins, No. 13-1731 (7th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseRollins pleaded guilty to selling crack cocaine and was sentenced to 84 months in prison. In his second appeal, he challenged the application of the career-offender guideline, which assigns a higher offense level if the defendant has two prior convictions for a “crime of violence,” U.S.S.G. 4B1.1(a), including “any offense … that … otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another” (residual clause). The district judge classified Rollins as a career offender based in part on a prior conviction for possession of a sawed-off shotgun, a crime that would qualify only under the residual clause of this definition. The Supreme Court’s “Johnson” decision invalidated the identically phrased residual clause in the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e), residual clause as unconstitutionally vague. In light of the government’s concession that Johnson’s constitutional holding applies to the residual clause in section 4B1.2(a)(2), the Seventh Circuit granted rehearing and held that under Johnson, the residual clause in the career-offender guideline is unconstitutionally vague and vacated Rollins’s sentence.
This opinion or order relates to an opinion or order originally issued on September 1, 2015.
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