Opinion ID: 4543684
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Hollie’s Sentence

Text: Hollie next challenges his ACCA-enhanced sentence. ACCA subjects a defendant convicted under § 922(g) to a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment if he has three prior convictions for a violent felony or serious drug offense, or both, “committed on occasions different from one another.” 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). Section 924(e) requires that the occasions arise out of separate and 10 Case: 18-13060 Date Filed: 06/24/2020 Page: 11 of 14 distinct criminal episodes that are temporally distinct. United States v. McCloud, 818 F.3d 591, 595 (11th Cir. 2016). The burden is on the government to prove that the prior convictions “arose out of a separate and distinct criminal episode.” United States v. Sneed, 600 F.3d 1326, 1329 (11th Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). Hollie argues, for the first time on appeal, that the government failed to meet this burden. He contends that the district court erred in looking to facts in the PSR, including dates of his state-court convictions, to determine that the three delivery of cocaine convictions arose out of separate and distinct criminal episodes. In support, he cites Descamps v. United States, 570 U.S. 254 (2013), and Mathis v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2243 (2016), in which the Supreme Court held that a district court must look to the elements of an offense to determine whether it qualifies as an ACCA predicate. Hollie’s argument is the sum of two parts. First, he argues that “[n]o district court may rely on non-elemental facts to determine whether a prior conviction is an ACCA predicate.” Appellant’s Br. at 10. Second, he argues that the only permissible evidence a court may rely on are judicial records of conviction—socalled “Shepard” documents5—and not facts from a PSR. We have rejected the 5 See Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 16 (2005) (explaining that, when determining the nature of a prior conviction, a court “is generally limited to examining the statutory definition [of the offense from the prior conviction], charging document, written plea 11 Case: 18-13060 Date Filed: 06/24/2020 Page: 12 of 14 first part of Hollie’s argument. See United States v. Weeks, 711 F.3d 1255, 1259 (11th Cir. 2013) (“[D]istrict courts may determine both the existence of prior convictions and the factual nature of those convictions, including whether they were committed on different occasions, so long as they limit themselves to Shepard-approved documents.”), abrogated on other grounds by Descamps, 570 U.S. at 257-58. We reaffirmed this rule from Weeks after Descamps issued. See United States v. Longoria, 874 F.3d 1278, 1283 (11th Cir. 2017) (concluding that a defendant’s argument “that the [d]istrict [c]ourt should not have looked at ‘nonelemental facts,’ the dates of his prior convictions, in Shepard-approved documents when deciding whether his predicate offenses were committed on different occasions” was “directly foreclosed by” Weeks). Hollie acknowledges Longoria but “submits that Descamps, and Mathis, and [our decision in United States v.] Sneed control.” Appellant’s Br. at 14. We disagree. In Sneed, we held that a court cannot consider police reports and other evidence outside a judicial record of conviction to determine whether offenses were committed on distinct occasions. 600 F.3d at 1332. This decision is consistent with Longoria and Weeks. Longoria was decided after Descamps; thus, Descamps could not have abrogated or overruled it. And Mathis is not clearly on agreement, transcript of plea colloquy, and any explicit factual finding by the trial judge to which the defendant assented”). 12 Case: 18-13060 Date Filed: 06/24/2020 Page: 13 of 14 point; thus, it cannot overrule or undermine to the point of abrogation our rule in Weeks, relied upon in Longoria.6 Archer, 531 F.3d at 1352. The second part of Hollie’s argument also fails under a plain error standard of review. This Court has consistently held that the district court may rely on undisputed statements in the PSR to make findings of fact, including when determining the nature of a prior conviction. McCloud, 818 F.3d at 595; see United States v. Bennett, 472 F.3d 825, 832 (11th Cir. 2006) (“A sentencing court’s findings of fact may be based on undisputed statements in the [PSR].”). And “the district court ha[s] the authority to apply the ACCA enhancement based on its own factual findings.” Weeks, 711 F.3d at 1260. These cases suggest—if they do not confirm—that a district court may rely on undisputed statements in a PSR to determine whether offenses were committed on distinct occasions such that they can be separate ACCA predicate offenses. 6 In Descamps, the Supreme Court held that in determining whether a particular conviction qualifies as a predicate offense under ACCA, federal courts use two different approaches depending on the statutory scheme. 570 U.S. at 257. If a statute contains a single, indivisible set of elements, courts must use the categorical approach, which looks only to the elements of the offense to determine the qualification of a prior conviction. Id. at 257-58. If, however, the statute contains alternative sets of elements, such that it is divisible, courts may use the modified categorical approach. Id. at 257. That approach allows for a limited inquiry in Shepard documents for determining under what set of elements the defendant had been previously convicted. Id. at 257, 263. In Mathis the Court clarified that courts may not use the modified categorical approach where a statute lays out alternative means of committing a single element, rather than alternative elements. 136 S. Ct. at 2253-55. 13 Case: 18-13060 Date Filed: 06/24/2020 Page: 14 of 14