United States v. Christopher Perez, No. 21-2130 (8th Cir. 2022)
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Defendant appealed the denial of his motion to suppress, having preserved the right to do so pursuant to his conditional plea of guilty. He also appeals his sentence, challenging his classification as an armed career criminal pursuant to the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e), and in the alternative, the calculation of his Guidelines range on other grounds.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed the denial of the motion to suppress. The court vacated his sentence and remand for resentencing, however, because Defendant does not have three prior qualifying convictions under the ACCA. The court explained that was reasonable for the officers to rely on our then-applicable precedent that dog sniffs at an interior apartment door are permissible.
Moreover, the court wrote that to be subject to higher statutory penalties under the ACCA, an individual who violates 18 U.S.C. 922(g) must have three or more prior convictions for offenses -6- that are “violent felon[ies]” or “serious drug offense[s].” 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(1). As relevant here, a serious drug offense is defined as: “an offense under State law, involving manufacturing, distributing, or possessing with intent to manufacture or distribute, a controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802)), for which a maximum term of imprisonment of ten years or more is prescribed by law. Accordingly, the court found that Defendant’s prior offenses are not serious drug offenses under the ACCA, and the district court erred by sentencing Defendant as an armed career criminal.
Court Description: [Kelly, Author, with Smith, Chief Judge, and Benton, Circuit Judge] Criminal case - Criminal law and Sentencing. Even if the drug dog sniff of his apartment was an illegal search, the district court properly denied defendant's motion to dismiss under the Leon good faith exception as it was reasonable for the officers, at the time of the search, to rely on this court's then-existing precedent that dog sniffs at an interior apartment door were permissible; in determining whether defendant's three Iowa convictions for delivery of a controlled substance in violation of Iowa Code Sec. 124.401(1)(c)(2) were serious drug offenses for purposes of sentencing under the Armed Career Criminal Act, the federal law in effect at the time of the federal offense is the relevant definition for ACCA purposes; comparing the state statute in effect at the time of defendant's conviction to the federal statute at the time of defendant's current federal offense, the Iowa drug statute included the drug Iofulpane, which was not on the federal schedule, and the Iowa statute is overbroad on its face; the district court plainly erred in applying the 15-year mandatory minimum sentence, and the matter is remanded for resentencing without the mandatory minimum; defendant's prior cocaine convictions are controlled substance offenses for purposes of calculating his advisory Guidelines range; the district court did not err in applying one criminal history point to defendant's conviction for fleeing a peace officer under Illinois law. Judge Kelly, concurring.
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