Opinion ID: 2772746
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Legality of Chambers’s Sentence

Text: Chambers challenges the application of the Armed Career Criminal Act enhancement in his case, which resulted in a 15-year mandatory minimum term of imprisonment. He advances three arguments: (1) he did not have three prior “serious” 7 drug convictions; (2) the predicate offenses included offenses more than 15 years old; and (3) the facts giving rise to the Armed Career Criminal Act enhancement should have been submitted to a jury. All three are meritless. “The Armed Career Criminal Act ... provides that a defendant convicted of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, in violation of [18 U.S.C.] § 922(g), is subject to a mandatory sentence of 15 years of imprisonment if the defendant has three prior convictions ‘for a violent felony or a serious drug offense.’” James v. United States, 550 U.S. 192, 195 (2007) (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1)). The Act defines a serious drug offense as “an offense under State law, involving manufacturing, distributing, or possessing with intent to manufacture or distribute, a controlled substance ... for which a maximum term of imprisonment of ten years or more is prescribed by law.” 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(A)(ii); accord United States v. Gibbs, 656 F.3d 180, 182 (3d Cir. 2011). Here, the District Court determined that Chambers had three serious drug convictions, namely two prior convictions for possession with the intent to deliver crack cocaine in 1998 and one conviction for the unlawful delivery of crack cocaine in 1999. Under Pennsylvania law, possession with the intent to deliver crack cocaine and unlawful delivery of crack cocaine are punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of ten years. 35 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 780-113(f)(1.1). Those convictions are thus “serious” drug offenses under 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). Chambers argues that because the convictions involved small drug quantities and because he received relatively short sentences, they do not meet the “common sense understanding” of “serious.” That argument is foreclosed 8 by the unambiguous text of the statute, which provides the definition we must apply. United States v. Pawlowski, 682 F.3d 205, 211 (3d Cir. 2012) (“Where the language is plain and unambiguous, ‘the sole function of the court is to enforce it according to its terms.’” (quoting United States v. Sherman, 150 F.3d 306, 313 (3d Cir. 1998))). Accordingly, the District Court properly concluded that the Armed Career Criminal Act enhancement applies. Chambers also argues that two of his convictions are outside the 15-year lookback period for criminal history and thus should not have been used to calculate his criminal history category score. He was released from the initial prison term on each of those offenses more than 15 years ago, but because parole was revoked on both offenses, his re-incarceration extended into the 15-year look-back period. U.S.S.G. § 4A1.1, App. Note 1; U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2(e). Finally, Chambers’s argument that the jury, rather than the District Court, should have found facts relating to his prior convictions for sentencing purposes is undermined by controlling precedent. In Apprendi v. New Jersey, the Supreme Court held that “[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” 530 U.S. 466, 490 (2000) (emphasis added); see also Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224, 246-47 (1998) (prior conviction that increases maximum penalty need not be treated as element of offense and proven to a jury); United States v. Blair, 734 F.3d 218, 227 (3d Cir. 2013) (“Alleyne do[es] nothing to 9 restrict the established exception under Almendarez-Torres that allows judges to consider prior convictions.”). The Court was thus fully empowered to make the findings it did.