ACCA Violation

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Steven Dotson v. United States of America

Case No.: 18-1701

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and BARRETT and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.

Focus: ACCA Violation

The Presentence Investigation Report on Steven Dotson listed six prior felony convictions, three of which the Probation Office identified as qualifying him for the enhanced mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment under the Armed Career Criminal Act. The PSR was silent on whether any of Dotson’s other three convictions so qualified, and nobody raised the question at sentencing. The district court agreed with the Probation Office and sentenced Dotson as a career offender to 188 months (15 years and 8 months).

What happened during Dotson’s present appeal frames the issue now before us. Our decision in D.D.B. meant that Dotson’s 2007 Indiana attempted robbery conviction (#3) no longer qualifies as an ACCA predicate. From there, however, the government points to our decision in United States v. Perry, 862 F.3d 620 (7th Cir. 2017), where we held that Indiana burglary qualifies as a violent felony under ACCA, and urges us to rely upon—or, more accurately, to substitute—Dotson’s 1993 Indiana burglary conviction (#4) to sustain his sentence as an armed career criminal. The government’s requests and reasoning are straightforward: with the Indiana attempted robbery conviction (#3) out because of D.D.B. but the burglary conviction (#4) remaining a violent felony, Dotson still has three qualifying predicates (#1, #2, and #4) and remains an armed career criminal.

Not before now have we considered whether the government can substitute ACCA predicates after sentencing to save an enhanced sentence. We came the closest to the issue in Light v. Caraway, 761 F.3d 809 (7th Cir. 2014), and take some direction from our approach there.

We worry about the consequences of a holding that, as a practical matter, risks producing expansive litigation at sentencing over whether each and every prior felony in a defendant’s criminal history constitutes a qualifying ACCA predicate. The law in this area, at the risk of great understatement, is dizzyingly complex. The last outcome we want to risk is sentencing hearings turning into full-blown, prolonged, and extraordinarily difficult exercises over questions where the answers may never matter. Judicial resources warrant better investment.

Affirmed

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Derek A Hawkins is trademark corporate counsel for Harley-Davidson. Hawkins oversees the prosecution and maintenance of the Harley-Davidson’s international trademark portfolio in emerging markets.