Opinion ID: 3217298
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Predicate Offenses and ACCA Conviction

Text: The origins of this case date back to December 26, 1990, when CortesMorales was arrested in Brooklyn, New York for the sale of heroin and 2 Case: 13-13659 Date Filed: 06/27/2016 Page: 3 of 15 subsequently charged with criminal sale of a controlled substance. Cortes-Morales pled guilty to attempted criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree under N.Y. Penal Law §§ 110.00, 220.39, a class C felony. At the time of his guilty plea, the maximum sentence in New York for a class C felony was fifteen years. The plea agreement provided for one day in jail and five years of probation. On May 21, 1991, Cortes-Morales was again arrested in Brooklyn for selling drugs and pled guilty to criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree under N.Y. Penal Law § 220.39, a class B felony. At the time of his guilty plea, the maximum sentence in New York for a class B felony was twenty-five years. The court sentenced Cortes-Morales to concurrent sentences of one-and-a-half to three years for both the 1990 class C felony and the 1991 class B felony. He was subsequently resentenced for the 1990 class C felony to a concurrent sentence of one to three years. Cortes-Morales completed those sentences in May 1994. In 1997, Cortes-Morales was arrested in Puerto Rico for unlawful possession and use of a firearm, and he pled guilty to a state charge of aggravated assault. Cortes-Morales was ultimately sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, though he was released before completing his sentence. In September 2005, Puerto Rican authorities executed a search warrant of Cortes-Morales’s home and discovered firearms and drugs. Federal authorities subsequently charged him with being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation 3 Case: 13-13659 Date Filed: 06/27/2016 Page: 4 of 15 of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), as enhanced by the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). The ACCA provides a mandatory statutory minimum of fifteen years for any individual who violates 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) and has three predicate convictions “for a violent felony or a serious drug offense, or both.” Id. § 924(e)(1). A “serious drug offense” is one punishable by a “maximum term of imprisonment of at least ten years.” Id. § 924(e)(2)(A)(ii). Absent the mandatory ACCA enhancement, Cortes-Morales’s maximum sentence would have been ten years. Id. § 924(a). Because there was no dispute that he was an armed career criminal, CortesMorales pled guilty to the charge, agreed to a prison term of 240 months, and waived his right to file a direct appeal. The district court in Puerto Rico sentenced him to 210 months’ imprisonment. In 2007, Cortes-Morales filed a § 2255 habeas petition pro se, claiming that his plea was involuntary, the conviction violated double jeopardy, and he had received ineffective assistance of counsel. The district court partially granted the petition, ordering that Cortes-Morales’s federal prison term should run concurrently with a sentence he received on similar charges in Puerto Rico, but denied the petition in all other respects. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed. 4 Case: 13-13659 Date Filed: 06/27/2016 Page: 5 of 15