Opinion ID: 1363132
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Second Contested PSR Recommendation

Text: The PSR also recommended that the district court sentence Fink to a statutory mandatory minimum of ten years to a maximum of life, pursuant to 21 U.S.C. ß 841(b)(1)(B), the statute governing the sentencing of Fink's conviction under 21 U.S.C. ß 846. While ß 841(b)(1)'s standard mandatory minimum is five years, this figure doubles when a defendant has a prior felony drug offense. [2] The PSR identified Fink as having committed a prior felony drug offense in 2002, when he was convicted of cocaine possession in Rhode Island. [3] Fink did not contest the existence of the 2002 conviction, but argued that the underlying conduct had been in furtherance of, and therefore could not be considered as having occurred prior to, the drug conspiracy for which he was about to be sentenced. Fink reminded the court that Congress' intent in passing ß 841(b)(1)(B)'s sentence enhancement was to prevent criminal recidivism and argued that he was not a recidivist; he argued, in essence, that the district court could not truthfully say that he had gone back to selling drugs for the simple reason that he had never stopped. Fink also argued that the district court could not constitutionally invoke the 2002 conviction to enhance his drug conspiracy sentence because the cocaine possession offense would not be a felony and trigger the statute if it had occurred in Massachusetts instead of Rhode Island. According to Fink, allowing such geographic mischance to inflict a greater sentence upon him than upon a similarly-situated defendant would violate his constitutional right to equal protection. The district court rejected Fink's arguments, and ruled that the 2002 conviction constituted a prior felony drug offense for the purposes of the ß 841(b)(1)(B) sentencing enhancement.