United States v. Voltz
| Citation | 579 F.Supp.3d 1298 |
| Decision Date | 06 January 2022 |
| Docket Number | Case No.: 4:21-cr-11-CLM-JHE |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, v. Donald Conelius VOLTZ, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Alabama |
US Probation, United States Probation Office, USM, United States Marshal, US Attorney Prim F. Escalona, US Attorney's Office, Kristy Peoples, US Department of Justice, Birmingham, AL, for United States of America.
For the reasons below, the court overrules Voltz's objections to paragraphs 22, 25, 33, 76, 77, and 81 of his presentence investigation report (PSR), which means that the PSR correctly states that Voltz's base offense level is 24 and that the court must apply the enhanced sentencing provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 924(e).
Voltz presents two questions that seem to be unanswered in this Circuit:
Thankfully, the parties agree on the following facts and points of law that make this case a clean vehicle to answer both questions:
Based on these facts and legal points, the parties agree that, if the court looks at the CSA definition of a controlled substance in 2001, then Voltz's 2001 UPOM1 conviction counts under the ACCA and the sentencing guidelines because the CSA criminalized hemp possession in 2001. But if the court instead looks at the current CSA definition of a controlled substance, then Voltz's 2001 UPOM1 conviction cannot be used under the ACCA or sentencing guidelines because there is a realistic probability that Alabama would have applied its UPOM1 statute to conduct that is not criminal under today's version of the CSA (i.e. , hemp possession). This leads us back to the questions the court started with: do courts look to the past or present when applying the categorical approach to 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(ii) and § 2.K2.1 of the sentencing guidelines?
The court starts with the ACCA, because if the court finds that Voltz's 2001 UPOM1 conviction counts toward armed career criminal status, then the statutory minimum sentence of 15 years renders the sentencing guideline question academic.
The ACCA requires the court to sentence Voltz to at least 15 years if Voltz has "three previous convictions ... for a violent felony or a serious drug offense." 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). Section 924(e)(2)(A)(ii) determines whether Voltz's 2001 UPOM1 conviction counts as one of the three necessary convictions. It provides:
As used in this subsection, the term "serious drug offense" means 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[.]
18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(A)(ii). Read plainly, this section requires three things from Voltz's UPOM1 conviction before it can be used under the ACCA:
As outlined in the Background section, the parties only disagree about the second requirement: Must this court look to the current definition a controlled substance or the definition that existed when Voltz committed the charged conduct?
Voltz argues that courts must look to the current definition because Congress wrote the phrase "a controlled substance (as defined in Section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act ( 21 U.S.C. 802 ))" in the present tense. But Congress also wrote the very next phrase—i.e. , "for which a maximum term of imprisonment of ten years or more is prescribed by law"—in the present tense. And when asked to determine whether the phrase "is prescribed by law" requires district courts to look to the past or present, the Supreme Court unanimously held that "[t]he plain text of the ACCA requires a federal sentencing court to consult the maximum sentence applicable to a defendant's previous drug offense at the time of his conviction for that offense ." McNeill v. United States , 563 U.S. 816, 817-18, 131 S.Ct. 2218, 180 L.Ed.2d 35 (2011) (emphasis added).
To arrive at that conclusion, the Court interpreted the entire subsection at issue here, giving us a strong hint at how the Court would answer the current question:
Use of the present tense in the definition of "serious drug offense" does not suggest otherwise. McNeill argues that the present-tense verb in the phrase "is prescribed by law" requires federal courts to determine the maximum sentence for a potential predicate offense by looking to the state law in effect at the time of the federal sentencing, as if the state offense were committed on the day of federal sentencing. That argument overlooks the fact that ACCA is concerned with convictions that have already occurred. Whether the prior conviction was for an offense "involving manufacturing, distributing, or possessing with intent to manufacture or distribute, a controlled substance" can only be answered by reference to the law under which the defendant was convicted. Likewise, the maximum sentence that "is prescribed by law" for that offense must also be determined according to the law applicable at that time.
Id. at 820, 131 S.Ct. 2218. While it's on point, much of this paragraph is dicta. So this court must analyze the text and reach its own conclusion. That said, McNeill is no ordinary dicta; it's unanimous Supreme Court dicta, so McNeill's influence is inescapable.
Thanks in large part to McNeill , Voltz asks this court to limit its review to a single phrase within § 924(e)(2)(A)(ii) —i.e. , "a controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act ( 21 U.S.C. 802 ))[.]" But courts must "consider the entire text, in view of its structure and of the physical and logical relation of its many parts." Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts § 24, at 167 (2012);see also McNeill , 563 U.S. at 819, 131 S.Ct. 2218 ().
So the court broadens its review to all of Section 924(e). Placing the disputed phrase in bold , the entire section provides:
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