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Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Thurman M. Wyatt
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted May 21, 2010*

Decided May 25, 2010

Before

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge

RICHARD A. POSNER, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

No. 10-1069

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

THURMAN M. WYATT,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United 

States District Court for the 

Western District of Wisconsin.

No. 09-CR-125-C-01

Barbara B. Crabb, Judge.

Order

Thurman Wyatt has been convicted of possessing a firearm despite his prior 

felony convictions. He was sentenced to 188 months’ imprisonment as an armed career 

criminal. 18 U.S.C. §924(e)(1).

His principal argument on appeal is that the Constitution entitled him to a jury 

trial on the existence and nature of his prior convictions. That contention was rejected in 

 

* After examining the briefs and the record, we have concluded that oral argument is unnecessary. 

See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a); Cir. R. 34(f).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with 

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

Case: 10-1069 Document: 12 Filed: 05/25/2010 Pages: 2
No. 10-1069 Page 2

Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224 (1998). Although Wyatt contends that

Almendarez-Torres does not apply to characterizations of prior convictions (here, 

whether Wyatt’s three drug convictions are “serious” and his conviction for fleeing to 

avoid arrest is a “violent felony”), we held otherwise. United States v. Spells, 537 F.3d 

743, 753 n.4 (7th Cir. 2008); United States v. Hendrix, 509 F.3d 362, 375–76 (7th Cir. 2007); 

United States v. Peters, 462 F.3d 716, 718 (7th Cir. 2006); United States v. Lewis, 405 F.3d 

511, 513 (7th Cir. 2005). Wyatt contends that only a jury may find facts in a criminal 

prosecution, but the classification of a prior conviction does not depend on any facts 

found by a judge. To the contrary, classification depends on the crime of which the 

defendant has been convicted, not what he did in fact, and the judge is forbidden to 

look behind the conviction to contestable factual materials. See Taylor v. United States, 

495 U.S. 575 (1990); Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13 (2005). The district court 

followed Taylor and Shepard, relying on the records of Wyatt’s convictions rather than 

making any findings of fact.

Wyatt’s other argument is that the district court erred by directing that his federal 

sentence run consecutively to a state sentence that had yet to be pronounced. The 

prosecutor concedes that the judge erred. See Romandine v. United States, 206 F.3d 731 

(7th Cir. 2000). But the prosecutor adds, and we agree, that the error was harmless. The 

day after the federal sentence, the state judge sentenced Wyatt to time served on the 

state charges. The choice between consecutive and concurrent sentences—and whether 

the state judge was entitled to make that election—therefore did not make a difference.

AFFIRMED

Case: 10-1069 Document: 12 Filed: 05/25/2010 Pages: 2