Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-18-01701/USCOURTS-ca7-18-01701-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Steven Dotson
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 18-1701 

STEVEN DOTSON, 

Petitioner-Appellant, 

v.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Respondent-Appellee. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division. 

No. 1:14-cv-1648 — William T. Lawrence, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED OCTOBER 3, 2019 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 3, 2020 

____________________ 

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and BARRETT and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges. 

SCUDDER, Circuit Judge. 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 

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sentencing. The district court agreed with the Probation Office and sentenced Dotson as a career offender to 188 months 

(15 years and 8 months). 

In recent years, federal courts have seen a floodtide of litigation over what qualifies as an ACCA predicate. Dotson, too, 

has watched these developments, and he reacted by pursuing 

post-conviction relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. The district 

court denied relief, determining that Dotson has four qualifying ACCA predicates—the three originally designated as 

such in the PSR and one additional for burglary under Indiana law. Since the district court’s decision, the law has continued to evolve and has since knocked out one of the three predicates the Probation Office originally determined qualified 

Dotson as an armed career criminal. The question presented 

is whether the government can save the enhanced sentence by 

substituting another of Dotson’s convictions—one listed in 

the PSR as part of Dotson’s criminal history but not designated as or found by the district court to be an ACCA predicate at sentencing. 

In the circumstances before us, the answer is yes, owing 

not only to the substituted conviction being included in the 

indictment and later the PSR, but also to Dotson himself recognizing in legal filings and apparently believing (although 

mistakenly) that his Indiana burglary conviction had served 

as an ACCA predicate at his original sentencing. So, while we 

affirm, our decision is narrow and limited. The record leaves 

us no doubt Dotson believed his Indiana burglary conviction 

could serve to support and preserve his enhanced sentence. 

 

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No. 18-1701 3

I 

In March 2011, a grand jury indicted Dotson for possessing a firearm following a prior felony conviction, a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). The indictment listed six prior felony convictions and likewise alleged that Dotson qualified for 

the minimum sentence Congress mandated in the Armed Career Criminal Act. See 18 U.S.C. § 924(e) (requiring a 15-year 

minimum sentence for anyone who violates § 922(g) and has 

three prior convictions for “a violent felony or a serious drug 

offense”). 

Following Dotson’s conviction at a bench trial, the case 

proceeded to sentencing. The PSR recommended finding that 

Dotson qualified as an armed career criminal on the basis of 

these three convictions: 

1. Armed Robbery (Indiana 1992) 

2. Dealing in Cocaine (Indiana 1993) 

3. Attempted Robbery (Indiana 2007) 

A separate portion of the PSR recounted Dotson’s full 

criminal history by listing these same three felonies and the 

three others contained in the indictment: 

4. Burglary (Indiana 1993) 

5. Possession of Marijuana (Indiana 2000) 

6. Theft and Receipt of Stolen Property (Indiana 2001) 

In the end, the PSR came to a recommended guidelines 

range of 235 to 293 months—driven largely by Dotson qualifying as an armed career criminal. See U.S.S.G. § 4B1.4. 

At sentencing neither party objected to the PSR’s account 

of Dotson’s criminal history or determination that he 

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qualified as an armed career criminal for both statutory and 

guidelines purposes. Following its application of the factors 

in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) and mindful of the 15-year mandatory 

minimum Congress prescribed in ACCA, the district court 

sentenced Dotson to 188 months. We affirmed on direct review. See United States v. Dotson, 712 F.3d 369 (7th Cir. 2013). 

In October 2014, Dotson invoked 28 U.S.C. § 2255 and 

sought a reduced sentence. Pointing to the Supreme Court’s 

decision in Descamps v. United States, 570 U.S. 254 (2013), he 

argued that his 1993 Indiana burglary conviction (#4 in our 

list above) no longer qualified as an ACCA predicate. That position reflected a misunderstanding on Dotson’s part, for the 

district court at sentencing never considered or found that the 

Indiana burglary qualified as a violent felony. In a supplemental filing, Dotson also questioned whether his Indiana 

dealing in cocaine offense (#2) was an ACCA predicate. 

The district court responded to Dotson’s motion by appointing counsel. Dotson’s counsel then repeated the same 

mistake in an amended § 2255 motion, arguing that neither 

the 1993 Indiana burglary conviction (#4) nor the 2007 Indiana 

attempted robbery conviction (#3) qualified as violent felony 

predicates. Nobody caught that the 1993 Indiana burglary 

conviction (#4) was not part of the basis on which the sentencing judge found Dotson to be an armed career criminal. 

For its part, the district court likewise committed the same 

mistake, denying Dotson’s § 2255 motion because, even if the 

1993 Indiana dealing in cocaine conviction (#2) somehow did 

not constitute a serious drug offense within the meaning of 

§ 924(e), his 1992 Indiana armed robbery (#1), 2007 Indiana attempted robbery (#3), and 1993 Indiana burglary (#4) convictions remained ACCA predicates. Put another way, in ruling 

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on Dotson’s § 2255 motion, the district court started from the 

express (but mistaken) premise that it previously “found” at 

sentencing that Dotson “had three or more prior convictions 

that qualified as ‘violent felonies’ [or serious drug offenses],” 

including offenses #1 (armed robbery), #2 (dealing in cocaine), 

#3 (attempted robbery), and #4 (burglary). Nobody caught the 

mistake. 

After the district court’s denial of Dotson’s § 2255 motion 

and request for a certificate of appealability, this court held 

that an Indiana conviction for attempted robbery is not a 

“crime of violence” within the meaning of ACCA. 

See United States v. D.D.B., 903 F.3d 684, 692–93 (7th Cir. 

2018). Dotson then sought, and we granted, a certificate of appealability in light of D.D.B. 

II 

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. 

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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. 

Augustus Light had at least four adult felony convictions, 

three of which the PSR identified as ACCA predicates. See id.

at 811. At sentencing, and without expressly stating which 

convictions qualified as ACCA predicates, the district court 

followed the Probation Office’s recommendation and sentenced Light as a career offender. The Supreme Court then decided several cases addressing what did and did not qualify 

as ACCA predicates. The Court’s decision in Begay v. United 

States, 553 U.S. 137 (2008), had the effect of showing that 

Light’s prior conviction for criminal vehicular operation under Minnesota law was not a qualifying violent felony under 

ACCA. But three years later came Sykes v. United States, 564 

U.S. 1 (2011), which had the opposite effect for Light. Sykes

made clear that Light’s conviction under Minnesota law for 

fleeing in a car from a police officer—an offense that was not 

an ACCA predicate under the law in place at the time of 

Light’s sentencing—did constitute a violent felony within the 

meaning of § 924(e). Light, 761 F.3d at 814. 

The “net change” of these legal developments, we determined, was “zero.” Id. This meant Light remained an armed 

career criminal: “Through intervening changes in the law, one 

of his prior predicate offenses for the ACCA enhancement no 

longer qualifies, but one that was not previously a qualifying 

predicate offense has become eligible.” Id. More to it, we 

failed to “see why Light is entitled to a one-way ratchet, subject only to changes in law that benefit him but immune from 

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changes in law that are not helpful.” Id. at 817. Nor were we 

persuaded by Light’s contention of unfair notice—that the 

substituted offense (the fleeing-in-a-vehicle offense) was not 

an ACCA predicate at the time of sentencing. Given “the numerous recent cases elaborating on the scope of the ACCA’s 

residual clause,” we explained, Light could not claim any 

“undue surprise” that the changes in law could work in both 

directions to leave his sentence undisturbed. Id.

At the very least, Light counsels that our analysis here 

should ask whether fundamental unfairness arising from a 

lack of notice would befall Dotson by allowing his 1993 Indiana burglary conviction (#4) to sustain his sentence as an 

armed career criminal. On the record before us, we cannot answer the question in Dotson’s favor. 

First, recall that the indictment listed the burglary conviction among other prior felonies as part of charging a violation 

of § 922(g) and § 924(e)—the latter being an express reference 

to ACCA. The indictment, in short, informed Dotson the government may rely on his burglary conviction (#4) to show he 

had three qualifying ACCA predicates and thus would face 

an enhanced sentence upon a conviction. 

Second, and more importantly, Dotson himself submitted 

at least four filings reflecting the belief, albeit a mistaken one, 

that the district court had counted the 1993 burglary conviction (#4) as a qualifying ACCA predicate at the original sentencing. He then saw his appointed counsel make the same 

mistake. 

The punchline, then, is that these circumstances are far 

afield from a scenario where a defendant may be able to make 

a credible showing of undue surprise from allowing the 

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substitution of a particular felony conviction not relied upon 

at sentencing to save an ACCA sentence otherwise called into 

question by subsequent developments in the law. Dotson 

more than knew of this possibility: he and his counsel represented it as reality in several legal filings in the course of these 

§ 2255 proceedings. In these circumstances, we see no unfairness in leaving intact Dotson’s sentence as an armed career 

criminal. 

We prefer this narrower reasoning to the broader strokes 

the Eleventh Circuit painted with in deciding the same question in Tribue v. United States, 929 F.3d 1326 (11th Cir. 2019). 

The court there held that, in opposing a § 2255 motion, the 

government may rely on a conviction to serve as an ACCA 

predicate even if the conviction was not among those listed in 

the PSR as, or determined at sentencing to be, a predicate. See 

id. at 1332 (observing that the defendant “raised no objection 

to his ACCA enhancement” and emphasizing that “the government did not waive reliance on other convictions in the 

[PSR] as ACCA predicates simply by not objecting to the 

[PSR] on the grounds that Tribue had more qualifying convictions than the three that the probation officer had identified 

as supporting the ACCA enhancement”). The Tenth Circuit 

seems to have reached a similar conclusion. See United States 

v. Garcia, 877 F.3d 944, 956 (10th Cir. 2017) (allowing, without 

express consideration of the issue, the post-sentencing substitution of a prior conviction not designated in the PSR as a violent felony predicate to save an ACCA sentence), abrog’d on 

other grounds by United States v. Ash, 917 F.3d 1238 (10th Cir. 

2019). 

By contrast, the Fourth Circuit has held that the government could not support an ACCA enhancement with a 

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conviction listed in the PSR but not previously designated at 

sentencing as a predicate. See United States v. Hodge, 902 F.3d 

420, 427 (4th Cir. 2018). The court rooted its holding in the unfairness of the defendant having no notice—no reason at sentencing—to believe the court or government may react to a 

change in the law favorable to the defendant by relying on 

another of his prior convictions to preserve the ACCA sentence. The court put its holding this way: “when the Government or the sentencing court chooses to specify which of the 

convictions listed in the PSR it is using to support an ACCA 

enhancement, it thereby narrows the defendant’s notice of potential ACCA predicates from all convictions listed in the PSR 

to those convictions specifically identified as such.” Id. at 428. 

While not siding with the Fourth Circuit’s broader holding, we agree with its concerns about notice to defendants. 

Fair notice underpins due process precisely because it prevents surprise and affords opportunities to respond. Those 

principles are not offended here: Dotson himself believed and 

represented in multiple legal submissions that the district 

court counted his 1993 Indiana burglary conviction (#4) as an 

ACCA predicate at his original sentencing. While his view 

was mistaken, allowing the burglary conviction to sustain his 

sentence does not in our view offend principles of fair notice 

on these unusual facts. 

So, too, do 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, 

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and extraordinarily difficult exercises over questions where 

the answers may never matter. Judicial resources warrant better investment. 

For these reasons, we AFFIRM. 

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