Opinion ID: 2975258
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Dotson’s Sentence

Text: The district court concluded that Dotson had three prior convictions for violent felonies, making Dotson subject to penalties under the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). Dotson contends, however, that one of these prior convictions—for burglary in the Criminal Circuit Court of Morgan County, Tennessee, on October 17, 2003—is invalid. He argues that the conviction violates double-jeopardy principles because a Tennessee judge improperly set aside Dotson’s guilty plea to reduced charges arising from the incident and bound the case over to the grand jury, resulting in Dotson’s plea to charges including burglary. Dotson concedes, however, that under Custis v. United States, 511 U.S. 485 (1994), “a defendant may not use a federal sentencing forum to review his state court convictions except a conviction in absence of counsel.” (Dotson’s Br. 36.) He does not suggest that he lacked counsel when these convictions were imposed and therefore states that he “has an illegal sentence that he can do nothing about.” (Id.) Dotson suggests that the appropriate solution is to have the district court take this situation into account and resentence him to the mandatory minimum under the ACCA of 15 years. But Dotson provides no authority that the district court need consider this argument in light of Custis. And, in any event, Dotson made this very point to the district court, (see Joint Appendix 344 (stating to the district court at sentencing that this prior conviction was unconstitutional and that if the court “remains handcuffed by Custis,” then Dotson requests that the court “use [its] newly given latitude to sentence [Dotson] to the mandatory minimum of 188 months given this issue”)), and the district court ultimately sentenced Dotson to the low end of the Guideline - 15 - No. 06-5732 United States v. Dotson range. Dotson raises no other argument to contest the reasonableness of this sentence. Accordingly, we affirm his sentence.