U.S. v. Marks

Federal 7th Circuit Court
Criminal Court
Sentencing
Citation
Case Number: 
No. 15-2862
Decision Date: 
July 24, 2017
Federal District: 
N.D. Ill., E. Div.
Holding: 
Vacated and remanded

Dist. Ct. erred in sentencing defendant to 108-month term of incarceration on drug conspiracy charge, after Dist. Ct. determined that defendant qualified for negative treatment as career offender under section 4B1.1 based on at least two of his four prior drug-related convictions. While defendant’s 2000 conviction qualified, record failed to show that his 1994, 1995 or 1996 convictions qualified for said treatment, since: (1) govt. was required to show that defendant was still serving sentence on one of said convictions within 15 years of October 2013 commencement of charged offense; and (2) while prison records indicated that defendant was incarcerated in 2000 (for 2000 conviction), said records had failed to indicate that defendant had ever been incarcerated with respect to his 1994, 1995 or 1996 convictions by October of 1998 or that his parole as to any of these convictions had ever been revoked, so as to establish that he was incarcerated for any of these offenses by October of 1998. As such, since Dist. Ct. did not indicate whether it would have given same sentence with or without career offender finding, defendant was entitled to new sentencing hearing to allow Dist. Ct. to consider defendant’s sentence under correct guideline range without career offender finding.