Opinion ID: 746480
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Charmin Banks

Text: 45 Banks, like the other defendants in this case, pleaded guilty to conspiracy. During sentencing, the district court determined that Banks was a career offender pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1. Banks now challenges this determination on the ground that one of the relevant convictions, obtained in 1992, was actually part of the current conspiracy and could not therefore be considered a separate and distinct offense. 46 Banks was convicted in state court in 1992 of cocaine distribution. The cocaine which led to the 1992 conviction was obtained from Larry Hayes, Gregory Hayes' uncle, and the cocaine was brought from Chicago to Milwaukee by Walter Ball. This is precisely the same type of transaction, involving the same people, as is involved in the conspiracy which we are presently considering. Banks concedes that his conduct in 1992 may be taken into account as relevant conduct, under U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3, for sentencing purposes but he strongly objects to its use for purposes of career offender status. He argues that the conduct giving rise to his 1992 conviction and the conduct giving rise to his present conviction are the same ongoing conduct ... [with] a common scheme with a common purpose, the same accomplices and the same modus operandi. Banks Br. at 6. Further, Banks argues that the government cannot attribute to him five to fifteen kilograms of cocaine if confined to the charged time period. He asserts that the government must go back into 1992 to calculate that quantity and thus, that the district court is allowing the government to use the 1992 conduct in different ways for purposes of relevant conduct and for career offender status. Banks argues that this is an improper contradiction because use as relevant conduct implies that the 1992 conduct was part of the presently charged conduct while use for career offender status means that the 1992 conduct constituted a prior and distinct offense. 47 The government did use Banks' 1992 conviction in calculating Gregory Hayes' relevant conduct, but did not in calculating Banks' relevant conduct. There may be no conflict in using the same conduct for different purposes for two different defendants. Further, unlike United States v. Garcia, 66 F.3d 851, 860 (7th Cir.1995), where uncharged acts were used to calculate relevant conduct, Banks' previous drug conviction was separated from the present offense by an arrest and conviction and the service of a sentence. In other words, the previous conduct is separated from the current conduct by a (forced) cessation of the illegal conduct. Sentencing Guideline § 4A1.2(a)(2) agrees that [p]rior sentences in unrelated cases are to be counted separately[ and p]rior sentences imposed in related cases are to be treated as one sentence. But note 3 clarifies thus: [p]rior sentences are not considered related if they were 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.). U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2(a)(2), commentary n. 3. 48 We have addressed a similar issue before, in United States v. Springs, 17 F.3d 192 (7th Cir.1994). In Springs we noted that the significance of an intervening arrest may be that 'an offender who has been arrested between his first and second offenses has perhaps demonstrated, more than one who has no intervening arrest, that he is unlikely to mend his ways.'  Springs, 17 F.3d at 195 (quoting United States v. Butler, 970 F.2d 1017, 1025 (2d Cir.1992)). The district court held that 49 it seems rather contrary to common sense that if a defendant is convicted of a drug offense and then after his release from prison goes back into a drug conspiracy, absent some proof that he conducted it while he was in prison or engaged in activities that supervised or directed or in some other way furthered the conspiracy during that period, then it seems to this court that once he was convicted then he was out of the conspiracy, and if he went back into it then he was involved in a new conspiracy at least so far as this defendant is concerned. 6 50 Banks Sentencing Transcript at 16. We find no error with the district court's conclusion and affirm Banks' sentence.