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Parties Involved:
Timothy Smith
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 13-15683

Non-Argument Calendar

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 1:13-cr-20383-KMW-1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff-Appellee,

 versus

TIMOTHY SMITH, 

 Defendant-Appellant.

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

________________________

(January 5, 2015)

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, JORDAN and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

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Timothy Smith appeals his sentence of 180 months of imprisonment 

following his plea of guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and 

ammunition. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Smith challenges the enhancement of his 

sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act. See id. § 924(e)(1). We affirm.

Smith argues that his prior conviction in a Florida court for possessing with 

intent to deliver cocaine does not qualify as a “serious drug offense” under the Act, 

but we disagree. The Act defines a “serious drug offense” broadly as “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.” Id. § 924(e)(2)(A)(ii); see

United States v. James, 430 F.3d 1150, 1155 (11th Cir. 2005). Smith’s prior 

conviction falls squarely within that definition. Smith violated a Florida law that 

makes it unlawful “to sell, manufacture, or deliver, or possess with intent to sell, 

manufacture, or deliver, a controlled substance,” Fla. Stat. §§ 893.13(1)(a)1., 

893.03(2)(a)4., and for which he faced a maximum sentence of 15 years of 

imprisonment, id. § 775.082(3)(d). Smith contends that his prior conviction does 

not qualify as a predicate offense because it does not require proof that an offender 

know of the illicit nature of the substance in his possession, but proof of that 

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knowledge is not required for a drug offense under state law to qualify as a 

“serious drug offense.”

Smith argues that the district court was required to compare his state offense

to a generic offense under the categorical approach that we applied in Donawa v. 

United States Attorney General, 735 F.3d 1275 (11th Cir. 2013), but we disagree. 

In Donawa, we held that an alien’s conviction for possessing with intent to deliver 

marijuana, see Fla. Stat. § 893.13(1)(a)2., failed to qualify as an “aggravated 

felony” under the Immigration and Nationality Act – that is, the state offense did 

not fit the definition of a “drug trafficking crime,” see 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(2). 

Donawa, 735 F.3d at 1280–81. We concluded that the Florida statute did not

“categorically fit[] within the generic federal definition of a corresponding 

aggravated felony” because the federal analogue to the Florida statute, 21 U.S.C. 

§ 841(a)(1), required proof that the defendant had knowledge of the nature of the 

substance in his possession, but the Florida statute did not. Id. Unlike the defendant

in Donawa, Smith was sentenced under the Armed Career Act, which includes as a

“serious drug offense” a prior state conviction for possessing with intent to 

distribute a controlled drug. See 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(A)(ii). The Armed Career 

Act does not require the district court to compare an offense under state law to a 

generic offense.

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Smith, for the first time on appeal, argues that Staples v. United States, 511 

U.S. 600, 114 S. Ct. 1793 (1994), required the district court to presume that his 

drug offense required proof that he knew of the illicit nature of the substance in his 

possession, but the district court did not plainly err. In Staples, the Supreme Court 

held that there is a scienter requirement implicit in the offense of possessing an 

unregistered automatic firearm, see 18 U.S.C. § 5861(d). Staples, 511 U.S. at 618–

19, 114 S. Ct. at 1803–04. “An error is ‘plain’ [only] if controlling precedent from 

the Supreme Court or the Eleventh Circuit establishes that an error has occurred.”

United States v. Ramirez–Flores, 743 F.3d 816, 822 (11th Cir. 2014). The district 

court did not plainly err in failing to apply Staples, which did not address the 

Armed Career Act. In Staples, the Supreme Court also “emphasize[d] that [its] 

holding [was] a narrow one.” 511 U.S. at 619, 114 S. Ct. at 1804. Staples does not 

establish that an error occurred in sentencing Smith.

Smith also argues that the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Alleyne v. 

United States, 570 U.S. ___, 133 S. Ct. 2151(2013), requires that the government 

prove his prior convictions to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, but we disagree. 

The Supreme Court in Alleyne refused to revisit its holding in Almendarez–Torres 

v. United States, 523 U.S. 224, 118 S. Ct. 1219 (1998), that the fact of a prior 

conviction is not an element of an offense that needs to be proven beyond a 

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reasonable doubt, id. at 239–47, 118 S. Ct. at 1228–32. Alleyne, 133 S. Ct. at 2160 

n.1.

We AFFIRM Smith’s sentence.

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