United States v. Witherspoon, No. 19-3094 (8th Cir. 2020)
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The Eighth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence as an armed career criminal after he pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The court held that the district court was entitled to treat the fact that defendant was convicted of the 1997 robbery offense as established where the government failed to produce the charging document. In this case, defendant did not object to the PSR's recitation that he was, in fact, convicted of the 1997 robbery offense.
The court has held that a charging document can provide sufficient evidence to support a finding that the defendant was necessarily convicted of a violent felony offense, but no case has held that the government must produce the charging document to establish the fact of conviction. The court also held that precedent establishes that defendant's 1997 Missouri first degree robbery conviction categorically qualified as a violent felony under the Armed Career Criminal Act's elements clause. Therefore, the district court did not err in sentencing defendant as an armed career criminal.
Court Description: [Per Curiam - Before Loken, Gruender and Kelly, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Criminal law. Anders case. The government did not breach the plea agreement by objecting to the drug-quantity calculation in the PSR as the plea agreement did not prohibit either party from making such an objection; the appeal waiver is valid, enforceable and applicable to the other issues raised, and the appeal is dismissed.
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