Opinion ID: 6221627
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Background on the Categorical Approach

Text: Section 841 requires an increase in the mandatory minimum sentence for any defendant convicted under the statute “after a prior conviction for a serious drug felony or serious violent felony has become ﬁnal.” 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A)(viii). Section 802(44) deﬁnes “felony drug oﬀense” as “an oﬀense that is punishable by imprisonment for more than one year under any law of the United States or of a State or foreign country that prohibits or restricts conduct relating to narcotic drugs, marihuana, anabolic steroids, or depressant or stimulant substances.” We apply the Taylor categorical approach to determine whether a prior state conviction is a “felony drug oﬀense” under federal law. See United States v. Elder, 900 F.3d 491, 497– 501 (7th Cir. 2018). “Under the categorical approach, courts look solely to whether the elements of the crime of conviction match the elements of the federal recidivism statute.” United States v. Ruth, 966 F.3d 642, 646 (7th Cir. 2020) (citing Elder, 900 F.3d at 501). “If, and only if, the elements of the state law mirror or are narrower than the federal statute can the prior conviction qualify as a predicate felony drug oﬀense.” Id. (quoting United States v. De La Torre, 940 F.3d 938, 948 (7th Cir. 2019)); see also Taylor, 495 U.S. at 602. 8 No. 20-1093 In Shular v. United States, the Supreme Court clariﬁed that there are two categorical methodologies depending on the statute at issue. 140 S. Ct. 779, 783 (2020). We explained the two methodologies in Ruth: In the ﬁrst categorical methodology, some statutes require “the court to come up with a ‘generic’ ver- sion of a crime—that is, the elements of ‘the oﬀense as commonly understood.’” Id. (quoting Mathis v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2243, 2247 (2016)). We will refer to this ﬁrst method as the generic-oﬀense method. The archetypal example is Taylor itself, which confronted the Armed Career Criminal Act’s “unadorned reference to ‘burglary’” and required the Court to “identif[y] the elements of ‘generic burglary’ based on the ‘sense in which the term is now used in the criminal codes of most States.’” Id. (quoting Taylor, 495 U.S. at 598–99). The Court then matched the elements of the oﬀense of conviction against those of the generic crime. Id. The second categorical-approach method, though, concerns statutes that do not reference a certain oﬀense, but rather “some other criterion” as the measure for prior convictions. Id. The example given for this second methodology was where an immigration statute as- signed consequences for a prior conviction for an offense that “involves fraud or deceit,” and the Court simply looked to whether the prior oﬀense’s ele- ments “necessarily entail fraudulent or deceitful conduct” as the appropriate measure. Id. (quoting Kawashima v. Holder, 565 U.S. 478, 483–85 (2012)). We will call this second method the conduct-based method. Ruth, 966 F.3d at 646 (alteration in original). Accordingly, we held in Ruth that the conduct-based method applies to No. 20-1093 9 determining whether a state oﬀense is a “serious drug offense” under the Armed Career Criminal Act. Id. at 647. A state statute of conviction may, however, be divisible even if it is overbroad. Id. at 648. A statute is divisible if it “sets out one or more elements of the oﬀense in the alternative.” Descamps v. United States, 570 U.S. 254, 257 (2013). We apply the modiﬁed categorical approach if the statute is divisible, which allows a sentencing court to “consult a limited class of documents … to determine which alternative formed the basis of the defendant’s prior conviction … for the limited purpose of determining whether the elements of the crime of conviction match (or are narrower than) the elements of the generic oﬀense.” Chazen v. Marske, 938 F.3d 851, 857 (7th Cir. 2019) (quoting Van Cannon v. United States, 890 F.3d 656, 663 (7th Cir. 2018)); see also Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 26 (2005). “If the alternative means listed in an indivisible statute cover a broader swath of conduct than the generic oﬀense, then a conviction under the statute doesn’t count as a[] … predicate.” Van Cannon, 890 F.3d at 663 (citing Mathis, 136 S. Ct. at 2251).