United States v. Levi Hamilton, No. 21-2369 (8th Cir. 2022)
Annotate this Case
Defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. He appealed the district court’s application of the career-offender sentencing enhancement and the substantive reasonableness of his sentence.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed. At sentencing, the Government agreed with Defendant that assault on a police officer under Iowa Code section 708.3A(3) is indivisible. Now, Defendant and the Government agree that section 708.3A(3) is divisible. Nevertheless, the court concluded that the statute is indivisible. The court explained that here, the crime of assault against a peace officer is not divisible on the ground that assault has alternatives, some of which lack a force element. The assault alternatives in section 708.1(2) are merely different means of satisfying the assault element of section 708.3A(3). Nor is section 708.3A(3) divisible on the ground that it can be committed by causing bodily injury or mental illness.
Thus, because section 708.3A(3) is indivisible, the court applied the categorical approach. The court wrote that Defendant does not identify any Iowa cases or his own case where section 708.3A(3) was applied in a way that did not involve at least the threatened use of physical force. Thus, Defendant’s conviction of assault on a peace officer qualifies as a crime of violence under Section 4B1.2.
Further, Defendant’s sentence is not substantively unreasonable. The advisory guidelines range was 262 to 327 months imprisonment, and Defendant was sentenced to 262 months imprisonment. Therefore, the court presumed that Defendant’s sentence is substantively reasonable
Court Description: [Gruender, Author, with Benton and Grasz, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Sentencing. The district court did not err in sentencing defendant as a career offender as his two Iowa convictions for terrorism and assaulting a police officer qualified as crimes of violence under Guideline Sec. 4B1.2; defendant's within-guidelines-range sentence was substantively reasonable.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.