Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-16-01636/USCOURTS-ca7-16-01636-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Christopher R. Cummings
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Argued February 16, 2017

Decided March 21, 2017

Before

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

No. 16-1636

CHRISTOPHER R. CUMMINGS,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Respondent-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Eastern District of 

Wisconsin.

No. 15-CV-1219-JPS

J.P. Stadtmueller,

Judge.

O R D E R

In 2006, Cummings pled guilty to distributing cocaine. The district court 

sentenced him as a career offender under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1. To be sentenced as a career 

offender, § 4B1.1(a) requires the defendant to have “at least two prior felony convictions 

of either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense.” Cummings previously 

had been convicted in Wisconsin for possessing cocaine with intent to distribute and for 

discharging a firearm from a vehicle. He argued that discharging a firearm from a 

vehicle was not a crime of violence and thus he could not be sentenced as a career 

offender. The district court held, however, that discharging a firearm was a crime of 

violence under the sentencing guideline’s residual clause. 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

Case: 16-1636 Document: 30 Filed: 03/21/2017 Pages: 2
No. 16-1636 Page 2

In 2015, the Supreme Court held that the residual clause in the Armed Career 

Criminal Act was unconstitutionally vague. Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551

(2015). After Johnson, Cummings filed a petition for relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. He

argues that because the language in the sentencing guideline’s residual clause is 

identical to the language in the ACCA’s residual clause, the sentencing guideline’s 

residual clause is also unconstitutionally vague. 

We had held that the sentencing guideline’s residual clause was 

unconstitutionally vague after Johnson in United States v. Hurlburt, 835 F.3d 715 (7th Cir. 

2016). But this week, the Supreme Court held that the sentencing guidelines are not 

subject to due-process vagueness challenges. Beckles v. United States, 580 U.S. ___, No. 

15-8544, slip op. at 5 (Mar. 6, 2017). Cummings’s argument is thus without merit. 

AFFIRMED.

Case: 16-1636 Document: 30 Filed: 03/21/2017 Pages: 2