Opinion ID: 201456
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Relevant State Orders

Text: 28 In reviewing the district court's elimination of the three points based upon the state drug conviction (one point) and the fact that Mateo had committed the federal offenses while under a criminal justice sentence (two points), we need first to sort out the relevance to the federal sentence of the two different state actions: (1) the state court order allowing Mateo's motion to terminate nunc pro tunc his probation to April 11, 1997; and (2) the state court order allowing Mateo's separate motion to vacate his guilty plea to the state charge and for a new trial, followed by the filing of his case. The latter state court action was noted in the most recent presentence report, which treated Mateo as being now without any prior state conviction. This fact was the basis of the district court's elimination of the one point added because of the prior state sentence. See USSG § 4A1.1(c). The district court eliminated the other two points — awarded for commission of the instant federal offense while under a criminal justice sentence, id. § 4A1.1(d) — because of the nunc pro tunc termination of probation to April 11, 1997. 29 Whether or not eliminating the two criminal history points solely because of the state court's nunc pro tunc order was a correct interpretation of the Guidelines, eliminating those points was certainly justified by the state court's vacation of the prior state conviction. The Guidelines make it clear that [s]entences for expunged convictions, USSG § 4A1.2(j), and [s]entences resulting from convictions that (A) have been reversed or vacated because of errors of law ... or (B) have been ruled constitutionally invalid in a prior case are not to be counted [for enhancement purposes]. Id. § 4A1.2, cmt. n. 6. Accordingly, while we affirm the district court's resentencing of Mateo so as to eliminate all three criminal history points, we do so because of the vacation of the state conviction rather than because of the state court's allowance of the motion to terminate probation nunc pro tunc. See Johnson, 952 F.2d at 584; Anrig, 728 F.2d at 32. Vacation of the state conviction was an event which, under the Guidelines, called for the reduction, and we think the district court therefore acted properly in imposing the sentence it did. 30