1 

RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION 

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b) 

File Name: 15a0195p.06 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT 

_________________ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

LEWIS POWELL, II, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

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No. 14-3932 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Northern District of Ohio at Youngstown. 

No. 4:13-cr-00189—Donald C. Nugent, District Judge. 

Argued: July 29, 2015 

Decided and Filed: August 19, 2015 

Before: GILMAN, COOK, and KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judges. 

_________________ 

COUNSEL 

ARGUED: Vicki Lynn Ward, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellant. Daniel J. Riedl, UNITED 

STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Vicki Lynn 

Ward, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellant. Daniel J. Riedl, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S 

OFFICE, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee. 

_________________ 

OPINION

_________________ 

RONALD LEE GILMAN, Circuit Judge. Lewis Powell, II pleaded guilty to numerous 

drug and weapons charges in April 2014. As part of his written plea agreement, Powell waived 

most of his post-conviction and appellate rights, but preserved the right to appeal the district 

court’s determination of his criminal-history category and any sentence imposed above his 

>
No. 14-3932 United States v. Powell Page 2 

properly calculated Sentencing Guidelines range. The district court subsequently classified 

Powell as a career offender and sentenced him to 155 months in prison, near the low end of the 

Guidelines range as determined by his career-offender status. 

Powell has appealed, arguing that the district court miscalculated his criminal-history 

category and sentenced him above the properly calculated Guidelines range by classifying him as 

a career offender. For the reasons set forth below, we VACATE the sentence imposed by the 

district court and REMAND the case for resentencing consistent with this opinion. 

I. BACKGROUND

In April 2013, Powell was one of several individuals named in a 93-count indictment 

based on a conspiracy to distribute drugs and firearms. Powell entered into a written plea 

agreement one year later, pleading guilty to only two of the multiple charges against him. The 

first was to Count 1 (conspiring to possess with the intent to distribute heroin and crack cocaine) 

and the other was to Count 8 (being an unlicensed firearm dealer). As part of Powell’s plea 

agreement, the government dismissed the remaining counts against him. In another part of the 

agreement, Powell waived his right to “appeal the conviction or sentence” with the exception of 

the following three issues: 

(a) any punishment in excess of the statutory maximum; (b) any sentence to the 

extent it exceeds the greater of any mandatory minimum sentence or the greater of 

the maximum of the sentencing imprisonment range determined under the 

advisory Sentencing Guidelines in accordance with the sentencing stipulations 

and computations in this agreement, using the Criminal History Category found 

applicable by the Court; or (c) the Court’s determination of Defendant’s Criminal 

History Category. 

The plea agreement was silent as to Powell’s criminal-history category and the 

appropriate Guidelines range, leaving those issues to be determined by the district court. At 

sentencing, the court determined that Powell was a career offender, automatically placing him in 

criminal-history category VI. The court also calculated that Powell’s base offense level was 34, 

including a one-level enhancement based on his career-offender status. A three-level reduction 

for acceptance of responsibility and a two-level reduction for substantial assistance left Powell 

with a final offense level of 29, resulting in a Guidelines range of 151 to 188 months. The 

statutory maximum sentence for the conspiracy charge was 360 months of imprisonment; the 
No. 14-3932 United States v. Powell Page 3 

maximum sentence for the unlicensed-dealer charge was 60 months. At sentencing, the court 

imposed a 155-month term of imprisonment on Count 1 and a 60-month sentence on Count 8, to 

run concurrently, plus a three-year term of supervised release. Powell has timely appealed. 

II. ANALYSIS

Powell points to six separate errors allegedly committed by the district court at 

sentencing that “substantially prejudiced him,” each of which, he argues, justifies remand and 

resentencing. Before reaching any of these issues, however, we must first determine which of 

Powell’s arguments are barred by the appellate waiver in his plea agreement with the 

government. 

A. Powell’s waiver of his appellate rights was valid and must be enforced according to 

its terms 

We review de novo the question of whether a defendant has waived his right to appeal his 

sentence. United States v. Smith, 344 F.3d 479, 483 (6th Cir. 2003). A valid appellate waiver 

will be enforced according its terms. United States v. Toth, 668 F.3d 374, 377-78 (6th Cir. 

2012). But for a plea agreement to be constitutionally valid, a defendant must have entered into 

the agreement knowingly and voluntarily. United States v. Fleming, 239 F.3d 761, 764 (6th Cir. 

2001). 

The change-of-plea colloquy here included all the elements needed to establish a 

voluntary and knowing plea. At the hearing, Powell told the district court that he had 

“thoroughly discussed” with his lawyer the consequences of pleading guilty; that he understood 

that by pleading guilty he would “waiv[e] or giv[e] up” the constitutional rights afforded to 

criminal defendants; and that he wished to plead guilty “knowingly, voluntarily, and of [his] own 

free will.” The government next read aloud the entire plea agreement, including the appellatewaiver provision. Powell then affirmed that there was nothing in the agreement that he did not 

understand, and he proceeded to plead guilty. 

In his reply brief, Powell argues for the first time that his plea was not made voluntarily 

or knowingly. He bases this claim on the following interaction that he had with the judge just 

after his sentence had been imposed: 
No. 14-3932 United States v. Powell Page 4 

THE DEFENDANT: Am I entitled to appeal my Career Offender [status]? 

THE COURT: Yes. Sure. Talk to Ms. Ward after this, and, you know, you can 

come up with something. Let me know, okay? But at the end of the day, Lewis, 

what I did was making a finding of a total offense level of 29. It really doesn’t in 

the big picture make any difference. 

THE DEFENDANT: Why do you say that, Your Honor? 

THE COURT: Because your original total offense level was 33 without the 

Career Offender finding, and with the Career Offender finding it was bumped up 

to 34. You got a three-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility. Then the 

recommendation of the Government for a 5K1.1 got you down to 30, and then my 

additional lowering it got you down to a 29. 

THE DEFENDANT: But I had a statutory maximum of five years, though. 

THE COURT: That’s on Count 8. That doesn’t have anything to do with the 

Career Offender statute. And I ran that concurrent with the sentence that you 

have. 

Although Powell appears to have been under a misconception as to the maximum 

sentence that he could receive as a result of pleading guilty, his confusion was not related to the 

plea agreement itself. Such confusion does not render the plea agreement involuntary or 

unknowing, and the agreement is enforceable. See Stout v. United States, 508 F.2d 951, 953 (6th 

Cir. 1975) (“A plea is not rendered involuntary merely because a prediction that a guilty plea 

will result in a light sentence does not come true.”). Furthermore, to the extent Powell argues 

that his plea was made unknowingly because he believed that he could appeal his career-offender 

status, that claim is without merit because he can challenge that designation insofar as it impacts 

his criminal-history category, which is one of the issues that he specifically preserved for appeal. 

The majority of Powell’s arguments on appeal fall outside of the three exceptions to his 

appellate waiver. In fact, the only two issues raised by Powell not barred by the appellate waiver 

are whether the district court (1) improperly determined that he was a career offender, and 

(2) miscalculated his criminal-history category. We will address both issues in turn. 

B. Powell’s career-offender status

Before reaching the merits of Powell’s contention that he should not have been 

designated a career offender, we must first tackle two threshold questions raised by the 

government. First, the government argues that Powell waived the career-offender issue as part of 
No. 14-3932 United States v. Powell Page 5 

his plea agreement; and, second, it argues that any error by the district court in designating 

Powell as a career offender was harmless because, “[e]ven without the career offender 

designation, Powell was a natural Criminal History Category VI.” (Emphasis in original.) 

1. Powell preserved his right to dispute his career-offender designation 

Powell’s plea agreement preserved only three issues for appeal, none of which explicitly 

encompasses the question of whether the district court properly designated Powell as a career 

offender. According to the government, this bars Powell from raising any challenge to his 

career-offender status because, “[w]hile Powell reserved the right to challenge the district court’s 

determination of his Criminal History Category, he did not reserve the right to challenge his 

career offender designation.” 

The government’s narrow interpretation of the exception to the waiver is not entirely 

without support. In United States v. Grundy, 580 F. App’x 400 (6th Cir. 2014), this court barred 

a criminal defendant from challenging his career-offender designation due to an identical 

appellate-waiver provision in his plea agreement. But Grundy has little bearing on the case 

before us because Powell and Grundy pursued different arguments with regard to this issue. 

Unlike Powell, Grundy challenged his career-offender status solely under the equivalent of 

subsection (b) of the appellate waiver in question here. Id. at 401. The Grundy court thus 

determined that “subsection (b) preserves Grundy’s right to appeal only to the extent his sentence 

exceeds the maximum of the guidelines imprisonment range or the statutory minimum, 

whichever is greater. . . . Grundy’s 151-month sentence nonetheless falls within the sentencing 

range for the stipulated offense . . . . Grundy therefore cannot appeal under subsection (b).” Id. 

(footnote and citation omitted). 

Powell’s appeal is not similarly limited because the plea agreement in the present case 

preserves his right to appeal “the Court’s determination of [his] Criminal History Category.” 

Based on this exception, Powell argues that he did not waive his right to appeal the district 

court’s career-offender determination because that designation directly impacts his criminalhistory category. Despite the link between Powell’s criminal-history category and his careeroffender status, the government argues that the two are independent for the purposes of Powell’s 
No. 14-3932 United States v. Powell Page 6 

waiver. The government, in other words, argues that if Powell had wished to reserve the right to 

challenge his career-offender status, he could have explicitly done so. 

But the government’s interpretation goes too far. If, as the government argues, Powell’s 

waiver prohibits him from challenging the findings underlying the court’s criminal-history 

calculation, what exactly did he reserve under subsection (c) of the exceptions to his appellate 

waiver? The more reasonable reading of the appellate waiver here would allow Powell to 

challenge the findings on which the district court’s criminal-history calculation relies, including 

his career-offender status. 

This result is all the more justified by the fact that “any ambiguities in a plea agreement 

must be construed against the government.” United States v. McIntosh, 484 F.3d 832, 836 (6th 

Cir. 2007). At the very least, Powell’s waiver is ambiguous as to his right to appeal his status as 

a career offender because the district court’s career-offender determination necessarily implicates 

Powell’s criminal-history category. Thus, “[d]espite knowingly and voluntarily entering the plea 

agreement, [Powell] reasonably could have believed that he retained his right to appeal his 

sentence to the extent that the district court determined he was a career offender.” See United 

States v. Charles, 581 F.3d 927, 932 (9th Cir. 2009) (finding that an appellate waiver that 

preserved the defendant’s right to challenge his criminal-history category also preserved his 

ability to appeal the district court’s career-offender determination). 

2. The error by the district court regarding Powell’s criminal-history category 

was not rendered harmless by his criminal-history points 

But even if Powell preserved this aspect of his appeal in the plea agreement, the 

government argues that any error by the district court in designating Powell a career offender 

was harmless because he would still fall under criminal-history category VI by virtue of his 

20 criminal-history points. True enough, there are two ways that a defendant can end up in 

criminal-history category VI under the Guidelines: (1) as a career offender, U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1(b); 

or (2) by having 13 or more criminal-history points, id. § 5A (Sentencing Table). The 

Presentence Report (PSR) prepared by the Pretrial Services and Probation Office identified a 

total of 20 points in Powell’s criminal history. This has caused the government to argue that 

Powell’s designation as a career offender, even if erroneous, was harmless and does not warrant 
No. 14-3932 United States v. Powell Page 7 

remand. See United States v. Anderson, 187 F. App’x 517, 523 (6th Cir. 2006) (finding that 

because the district court’s error would not change the defendant’s criminal-history category, the 

appeals court did not need to resolve the mistake); United States v. Hazelwood, 398 F.3d 792, 

801 (6th Cir. 2005) (noting that harmless errors at sentencing do not justify remand). 

But the government has misapprehended the implications of Powell’s challenge. 

Although the PSR calculated Powell’s “natural” criminal-history points as 20, that math relied on 

the very error that Powell alleges was committed by the district court; i.e., improperly counting 

prior offenses separately. Furthermore, as the government conceded at oral argument, Powell’s 

career-offender status also substantially enhanced his offense level under the Guidelines. The 

issue of Powell’s career-offender status is thus relevant regardless of whether it changed his final 

criminal-history category. 

3. The district court incorrectly classified Powell as a career offender 

We now turn to the merits of Powell’s challenge to his career-offender designation. 

Powell contends that the district court erroneously classified him as a career offender by 

improperly counting two of his prior convictions separately. Questions involving the 

interpretation of the Guidelines are legal issues that we review de novo. United States v. 

Partington, 21 F.3d 714, 717 (6th Cir. 1994). 

The Sentencing Guidelines define a career offender as follows: 

A defendant is a career offender if (1) the defendant was at least eighteen years 

old at the time the defendant committed the instant offense of conviction; (2) the 

instant offense of conviction is a felony that is either a crime of violence or a 

controlled substance offense; and (3) the defendant has at least two prior felony 

convictions of either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense. 

U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1(a). In determining whether a defendant’s previous convictions count 

separately for the purposes of determining career-offender status and criminal-history points, the 

Guidelines clarify that 

[p]rior sentences always are counted separately if the sentences were imposed for 

offenses that were separated by an intervening arrest (i.e., the defendant is 

arrested for the first offense prior to committing the second offense). If there is 

no intervening arrest, prior sentences are counted separately unless (A) the 
No. 14-3932 United States v. Powell Page 8 

sentences resulted from offenses contained in the same charging instrument; or 

(B) the sentences were imposed on the same day. Count any prior sentence 

covered by (A) or (B) as a single sentence. 

Id. § 4A1.2(a)(2). 

The only two crimes of violence from Powell’s past are a pair of assault convictions from 

2001. In February of that year, while in court on an unrelated charge, Powell was served with a 

summons and given notice of an aggravated-assault charge against him. Approximately two 

months later, Powell was arrested for a second felony—assault on a police officer. He was 

subsequently sentenced for both crimes on the same day. The district court concluded that the 

service of a summons regarding the first offense prior to the commission of the second offense 

was sufficient to treat the offenses separately for sentencing purposes. But Powell argues that an 

intervening summons is not the equivalent of an intervening arrest for purposes of U.S.S.G. 

§ 4A1.2(a)(2). And if these two sentences must be counted together as one for sentencing 

purposes, then Powell was improperly designated as a career offender. 

Powell is not alone in his interpretation of the relevant Guidelines provision. Several 

circuits, in dicta, have suggested without deciding that an intervening summons or citation is not 

the same as an intervening arrest for purposes of § 4A1.2(a)(2). See United States v. Hopson, 

412 F. App’x 532, 536 (3d Cir. 2011) (affirming a sentence in which the district court “pointed 

out that had Hopson been arrested rather than showing up on his own pursuant to a summons, he 

would have qualified as a career offender”); United States v. Matos, 611 F.3d 31, 39 n.11 (1st 

Cir. 2010) (“We have previously noted, without deciding the issue, that treating an intervening 

summons as the functional equivalent of an intervening arrest for the purposes of U.S.S.G. 

§ 4A1.2 seems problematic. United States v. Correa, 114 F.3d 314, 316 n.3 (1st Cir. 1997). We 

acknowledge the same concern here but, again, do not reach the issue.”); United States v. Pyne, 

151 F. App’x 901, 907-08 (11th Cir. 2005) (vacating and remanding on other grounds where “the 

district court found that the disorderly conduct citation did not constitute ‘an intervening arrest,’ 

and that the two attempted home invasions were therefore related”); but cf. United States v. 

Armstrong, 782 F.3d 1028, 1037 (8th Cir. 2015) (holding that the service of a bench warrant to a 

defendant already in custody is the functional equivalent an “intervening arrest”). 
No. 14-3932 United States v. Powell Page 9 

Two circuits, however, have squarely addressed this issue—and they reached opposite 

conclusions. Compare United States v. Morgan, 354 F.3d 621 (7th Cir. 2003), with United 

States v. Leal-Felix, 665 F.3d 1037 (9th Cir. 2011) (en banc). The facts of these cases are 

slightly different than Powell’s, but the logic behind them is fully applicable. For instance, both 

of the relevant cases involved traffic citations rather than summonses, but that distinction is 

immaterial. See Martinez v. Carr, 479 F.3d 1292, 1298 n.6 (10th Cir. 2007) (treating the 

issuance of a summons as “the functional equivalent of [a] citation”). Although both cases 

involved the application of U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2(a)(2) in the context of calculating criminal-history 

points rather than determining career-offender status, the same standard applies to both issues 

under the Guidelines. See U.S.S.G. §§ 4A1.2(a)(2) (“If the defendant has multiple prior 

sentences, determine whether [the] sentences are counted separately or as a single sentence.”); 

4B1.2(c) (“The term ‘two prior felony convictions’ means [that] . . . the sentences for at least two 

of the aforementioned felony convictions are counted separately . . . .”). 

The first case on point comes from the Seventh Circuit. In Morgan, the district court 

counted two of the defendant’s prior traffic convictions separately for purposes of calculating his 

criminal-history points. The defendant appealed his sentence, arguing that the two convictions 

were “related” and thus should have been counted only once. Id. at 623. Although the version 

of § 4A1.2(a)(2) that was in effect at the time used the word “related” to describe sentences that 

should be counted together, its substance was the same as the contemporary rule. See United 

States v. Davis, 720 F.3d 215, 219 (4th Cir. 2013) (“[T]here is no substantive difference between 

the old rule and the new rule, which provides that two prior sentences count separately if the 

offenses were separated by an intervening arrest.”). 

In sum, Morgan’s two prior violations were separated by an intervening citation but not 

an intervening arrest. He therefore argued that the offenses, for which he was sentenced the 

same day, should not have been counted separately. The Seventh Circuit disagreed. In a twopage opinion, the court held that a traffic citation was no different than an arrest for purposes of 

the Guidelines: 

The idea behind [§ 4A1.2(a)(2)] is that a single criminal episode may give rise to 

multiple convictions . . . and should count only once no matter how the prosecutor 

drafts the charges; but a defendant who commits a crime, is arrested for that 
No. 14-3932 United States v. Powell Page 10 

offense, and then commits another crime is a recidivist whose criminal record 

should be tallied in full. 

. . . No matter what word is used, Morgan was caught red handed, driving after his 

license’s revocation. He went right on committing that offense. Clever charging 

practices did not multiply his convictions; his failure to adhere to the law 

following his initial apprehension is the root cause. Calling the traffic stop an 

“arrest” implements the Sentencing Commission’s goal. 

Id. at 623 (citation omitted). The court further justified its position by pointing out that 

[a] traffic stop is an “arrest” in federal parlance. Morgan was halted and 

prevented from leaving until the officer released him. . . . That a simple arrest did 

not become a full custodial arrest does not matter for the Guidelines’ 

purpose . . . because it is the apprehension followed by a new offense that 

identifies the recidivist. 

Id. at 624 (citations omitted). 

The Ninth Circuit came to the opposite conclusion seven years later on facts materially 

indistinguishable from those in Morgan. As in Morgan, the defendant in Leal-Felix challenged 

his criminal-history points. The district court had calculated the points by counting two prior 

offenses separated by an intervening citation (but not an arrest) as separate offenses despite the 

fact that the sentences were imposed on the same day. Vacating an earlier, divided panel 

opinion, the Ninth Circuit split with the Seventh in a 10 to 1 en banc decision. The majority 

interpreted the term “intervening arrest” to include only “formal” arrests, which it defined as 

“informing the suspect that he is under arrest, transporting the suspect to the police station, 

and/or booking the suspect into jail.” Leal-Felix, 665 F.3d. at 1041 (footnotes omitted). 

“Limiting ‘arrest’ to a formal arrest (rather than a mere citation),” the court explained, “is 

consistent with common usage, case law, and the context and purposes of the Sentencing 

Guidelines.” Id. (footnote omitted). 

The heart of the Leal-Felix court’s disagreement with Morgan was based on the rationale 

that 

an arrest has a stronger deterrent effect than a citation. Thus, one who is 

subjected only to a momentary detention and later reoffends is less culpable than 

the defendant who is subjected to the greater deterrence of an arrest, yet still 

reoffends. Imposing a higher sentence on the defendant who was arrested, rather 
No. 14-3932 United States v. Powell Page 11 

than merely cited, is therefore consistent with the Sentencing Guidelines’ goal of 

imposing a just punishment. 

Id. at 1042-43 (citation and footnote omitted). 

The Leal-Felix majority also relied on the rule of lenity. Finding the term “arrest” to be 

at the very least ambiguous, id. at 1044, the majority held that “[i]f, after applying the normal 

rules of statutory interpretation, the Sentencing Guideline is still ambiguous, the rule of lenity 

requires us to interpret the Guideline in favor of [the defendant].” Id. at 1040. 

But some might find the most compelling argument in Leal-Felix to come from the 

concurring opinion. Writing separately, Judge M. Margaret McKeown suggested that “common 

understanding” is the most important reason to conclude that a traffic citation is not an arrest for 

purposes of the Guidelines. Id. at 1044 (McKeown, J., concurring). She reasoned that 

the common understanding of the term arrest does not include being pulled over 

and ticketed for a traffic violation. It is a bedrock principle of statutory 

construction that “unless otherwise defined, words will be interpreted as taking 

their ordinary, contemporary, common meaning.” I am confident that an average 

citizen—with or without a law degree—would not believe he had been arrested if 

pulled over, briefly detained and issued a traffic ticket. . . . [T]reating an ordinary 

traffic ticket as an arrest defies our common experience . . . . 

Id. at 1044-45 (quoting Perrin v. United States, 444 U.S. 37, 42 (1979)). 

In support of this conclusion, Judge McKeown cited to numerous application forms for 

jobs and schools that requested information about the applicant’s arrest history but not his or her 

citation history. Id. at 1045 nn.1-6. “It seems unlikely,” she wrote, “that police departments, 

prisons, colleges, government agencies and adoption organizations mean—or are even concerned 

about—speeding tickets when they ask if applicants have ever been arrested.” Id. at 1045. 

The Seventh Circuit’s interpretation also runs afoul of the dictionary definition of the 

term. Black’s Law Dictionary defines the term “arrest” as “(1) A seizure or forcible restraint [or] 

(2) [t]he taking or keeping of a person in custody by legal authority, esp. in response to a 

criminal charge.” Black’s Law Dictionary at 130 (10th ed. 2014). 

Both the Seventh and the Ninth Circuits claim that their respective holdings support the 

purpose of the Guidelines, yet they reach opposite conclusions. Although reasonable jurists can 
No. 14-3932 United States v. Powell Page 12 

(and have) differed on this issue, we find the reasoning of the Ninth Circuit more persuasive. 

The Sentencing Commission did not define the word “arrest,” and we agree with Judge 

McKeown and her colleagues that interpreting it to include a citation (or summons) flies in the 

face of common understanding and stretches the word’s meaning too far. Indeed, in other 

contexts, such as Fourth Amendment seizures, courts distinguish summonses from arrests. 

Although arrests constitute seizures, summonses—according to every circuit court that has 

considered the issue—do not. See Burg v. Gosselin, 591 F.3d 94, 99-101 (2d Cir. 2010) 

(collecting cases). 

If the Sentencing Commission had intended for the words “intervening arrest” to 

encompass other intervening events such as summonses and citations, it could easily have used a 

different, broader term. At best, the word “arrest” is ambiguous in this context, and the rule of 

lenity requires that we resolve that ambiguity in favor of Powell. 

C. Criminal-history-category calculation

Because of our conclusion that the district court’s interpretation of U.S.S.G. 

§ 4A1.2(a)(2) was erroneous, we must now recalculate Powell’s criminal-history category. The 

district court’s error impacted not only its treatment of Powell’s assault convictions, but also two 

of his traffic offenses from 2009. According to the PSR, which used the same erroneous 

understanding of the Guidelines as the district court, Powell had 20 criminal-history points. Our 

recalculation starts there. 

1. Powell’s criminal-history category does not change despite the district 

court’s error

The PSR assigned three criminal-history points to each of Powell’s 2001 assault 

convictions. Counting those sentences together would therefore reduce Powell’s criminalhistory points from 20 to 17. 

The above analysis applies with equal force to Powell’s traffic offenses from 2009. As 

with his assault offenses, his traffic violations were not separated by an intervening arrest 

(Powell was cited but not arrested for the first offense). The PSR added two points to Powell’s 

criminal history for each traffic offense despite the fact that the sentences were imposed on the 
No. 14-3932 United States v. Powell Page 13 

same day. Removing one of those brings the point total for Powell’s criminal history down to 

15. 

But a score of 15 is still more than enough to place Powell in criminal-history category 

VI, which includes all criminal-history totals above 12. U.S.S.G. § 5A (Sentencing Table). 

Although Powell seeks further reductions that would bring him below the Category VI threshold, 

we find those arguments unpersuasive. First, Powell argues that his sentences for the 2009 

traffic violations should not contribute to his criminal history at all because they are only 

misdemeanor offenses. Such offenses are, in some circumstances, indeed excluded from 

criminal-history calculations. But these exclusions do not apply to either of Powell’s traffic 

violations. To the contrary, the Guidelines actually require that his sentence for driving under 

the influence be counted. See U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2 cmt. n.5 (“Convictions for driving while 

intoxicated or under the influence (and similar offenses by whatever name they are known) are 

always counted, without regard to how the offense is classified.”). 

And his sentence for driving with a suspended driver’s license (driving under suspension) 

also counts. Section 4A1.2(c) of the Guidelines states that 

[s]entences for misdemeanor and petty offenses are counted except . . . 

[s]entences for the following prior offenses . . . , [including driving under 

suspension], are counted only if (A) the sentence was a term of probation of more 

than one year or a term of imprisonment of at least thirty days, or (B) the prior 

offense was similar to an instant offense. 

Powell’s sentence for driving under suspension—180 days in custody (155 suspended), a fine of 

$1,500 ($750 suspended), and five years’ probation—exceeds one or more of the minimums 

listed in § 4A1.2(c)(1). So although the traffic-related sentences should not be counted 

separately for purposes of Powell’s criminal-history category, they should be counted. 

 Finally, Powell contends that his 2009 sentence for aggravated trespass and his 

2010 sentence for criminal damaging/endangering should not be counted because they were 

violations of Warren, Ohio’s local ordinances, and local-ordinance violations are generally 

excluded from criminal-history calculations under U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2(c)(2). But this argument is 

a misreading of the Guidelines. Section 4A1.2(c)(2) states that local-ordinance violations are 

“never counted . . . except those violations that are also violations under state criminal law.” 
No. 14-3932 United States v. Powell Page 14 

Both of the crimes in question are violations of the Warren City Code and the Ohio Revised 

Code. In fact, the city of Warren appears to have copied and pasted its definitions of aggravated 

trespass (compare Warren City Code § 541.051 with ORC § 2911.211) and criminal damaging or 

endangering (compare Warren City Code § 541.03 with ORC § 2909.06) directly from the Ohio 

Revised Code. These sentences were thus properly counted toward Powell’s criminal-history 

category. 

 The result of all this math is that Powell’s corrected criminal history adds up to 15 points, 

which still lands him in criminal-history category VI. If this were the end of the matter, the 

district court’s error would be harmless. But our analysis in fact does not end here. 

D. Offense-level calculation

A career-offender designation not only modifies a defendant’s criminal-history category, 

but also enhances the other axis of the sentencing table: his offense level. U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1(b). 

In Powell’s case, his career-offender status increased his offense level by one—from 33 to 34, 

which the district court reduced to 29 after applying two downward departures. 

This one-level increase in and of itself might not have changed Powell’s sentence 

because, without the career-offender enhancement, Powell’s Guidelines range would have been 

reduced only slightly from 151-188 months to 140-175 months (based on a criminal history 

category of VI and an offense level of 28). His actual sentence of 155 months was thus still 

within the lower half of this putative Guidelines range. But a review of the sentencing transcript 

reveals yet another influence of Powell’s undeserved career-offender status on his sentence. 

Just before court adjourned at the close of Powell’s sentencing hearing, 

Powell’s attorney asked about “the two-level reduction that the Justice Department had 

indicated for drug cases.” The government responded that “[i]t doesn’t apply to 

Career Offenders. That policy does not apply to Career Offenders, and so would not apply 

to Mr. Powell.” The policy to which the government referred is the Department of Justice’s 

“Drugs Minus Two” sentencing policy adopted under then-Attorney General Eric Holder 

and codified in the Guidelines through Amendment 782, effective November 1, 2014. 

See U.S.S.G. Supp. App. C. Pursuant to that policy, the base offense level of many, but not 
No. 14-3932 United States v. Powell Page 15 

all, drug crimes was retroactively reduced by two. See Amendment to the Sentencing Guidelines 

(July 18, 2014), http://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/amendment-process/reader-friendlyamendments/20140718_RF_Amendment782.pdf (“The Commission has determined that 

Amendment 782 . . . should be applied retroactively.”). 

As the government made clear at the sentencing hearing (and again conceded at oral 

argument), Powell would have been eligible for this two-level reduction but for his careeroffender status. Recalculating Powell’s offense level as a noncareer offender thus requires a 

reduction of not one but three levels, for a final offense level of 26. The advisory Guidelines 

range for an offense level of 26 and a criminal-history category of VI is 120 to 150 months of 

imprisonment. U.S.S.G. § 5A. This is a significant reduction from the range calculated by the 

district court at sentencing (151 to 188 months), and the difference is enough to place Powell’s 

155-month sentence outside the properly calculated Guidelines range. 

Powell’s above-range sentence is also one of the grounds excepted from his appellatewaiver agreement. Accordingly, a remand is necessary to allow the district court to resentence 

Powell according to the proper Guidelines calculations. Cf. United States v. Hazelwood, 

398 F.3d 792, 801 (6th Cir. 2005) (holding that a remand is unnecessary if this court is “certain 

that . . . any such error ‘did not affect the district court’s selection of the sentence imposed’” 

(quoting Williams v. United States, 503 U.S. 193, 203 (1992))). We have no such certainty here. 

III. CONCLUSION

For all of the reasons set forth above, we VACATE the sentence imposed by the district 

court and REMAND the case for resentencing consistent with this opinion.