United States v. Harris, No. 17-3341 (8th Cir. 2018)
Annotate this CaseThe Eighth Circuit vacated defendant's 175 month sentence for conspiracy to distribute heroin. The court held that the district court clearly erred in including 17.5 grams of cocaine base in determining his base offense level, and committed plain error in assigning a criminal history point for an offense committed while he was a minor. The court held that the plain error placed defendant in the wrong criminal history category and affected his substantial rights. The court remanded for resentencing.
Court Description: Loken, Author, with Benton and Shepherd, Circuit Judges] Criminal Case - sentencing. Because the government failed to prove a meaningful relationship between discreet transactions of different drugs and there was no direct evidence Harris distributed cocaine base, the district court clearly erred in including as part of the relevant drug quantity 17.5 grams of cocaine base, thus reducing the base offense level to 22. In addition, the district court plainly erred in assigning a criminal history point to a juvenile sentence imposed more than five years before the commencement of the instant offense. The error placed Harris in a wrong criminal history category and affected his substantial rights because the district court did not expressly state that it would have imposed the same sentence even if a lower guidelines range applied. Accordingly, the sentence is vacated and remanded for resentencing. [ November 16, 2018
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