Court Opinion

ID: 9381815
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-23 21:01:18.034194+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:34.648638
License: Public Domain

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                                            UNPUBLISHED

                               UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                              No. 22-4037

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                            Plaintiff - Appellee,

                     v.

        PAUL DUDLEY, JR.,

                            Defendant - Appellant.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, at
        Greensboro. Thomas D. Schroeder, Chief District Judge. (1:20-cr-00412-TDS-1)

        Submitted: January 31, 2023                                       Decided: March 22, 2023

        Before NIEMEYER and RUSHING, Circuit Judges, and KEENAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

        Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

        ON BRIEF: Benjamin David Porter, MORROW PORTER VERMITSKY & TAYLOR
        PLLC, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for Appellant. Kenneth A. Polite, Jr., Assistant
        Attorney General, Lisa H. Miller, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Thomas E. Booth,
        Appellate Section, Criminal Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,
        Washington, D.C.; Sandra J. Hairston, United States Attorney, Angela H. Miller, Assistant
        United States Attorney, Tanner L. Kroeger, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF
        THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellee.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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        PER CURIAM:

               Paul Dudley, Jr., pled guilty to conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery, in

        violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a), and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, in

        violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The district court deemed Dudley an armed career

        criminal under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), and sentenced

        him to the statutory mandatory minimum term of 180 months’ imprisonment. On appeal,

        Dudley contends that the court erred in sentencing him as an armed career criminal because

        he did not commit the qualifying offenses on three different occasions. We affirm the

        district court’s judgment.

               We review de novo a district court’s legal determinations regarding the applicability

        of the ACCA. United States v. Hope, 28 F.4th 487, 493 (4th Cir. 2022). Under the ACCA,

        a defendant is subject to a mandatory minimum 15-year term of imprisonment if he “has

        three previous convictions . . . for a violent felony or a serious drug offense, or both,

        committed on occasions different from one another.” 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). We have

        defined occasions as “those predicate offenses that can be isolated with a beginning and an

        end—ones that constitute an occurrence unto themselves.” United States v. Thompson,

        421 F.3d 278, 285 (4th Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted). And we have

        identified several factors for district courts to consider in determining if offenses were

        committed on different occasions, including the location of the offenses, the nature,

        objectives, and victims of each offense, and “whether the defendant had the opportunity

        after committing the first-in-time offense to make a conscious and knowing decision to

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        engage in the next-in-time offense.”      United States v. Linney, 819 F.3d 747, 751

        (4th Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks omitted).

               The Supreme Court recently identified similar factors as relevant in considering

        whether offenses were committed on the same occasion:

               Offenses committed close in time, in an uninterrupted course of conduct, will
               often count as part of one occasion; not so offenses separated by substantial
               gaps in time or significant intervening events. Proximity of location is also
               important; the further away crimes take place, the less likely they are
               components of the same criminal event. And the character and relationship
               of the offenses may make a difference: The more similar or intertwined the
               conduct giving rise to the offenses—the more, for example, they share a
               common scheme or purpose—the more apt they are to compose one
               occasion.

        Wooden v. United States, 142 S. Ct. 1063, 1071 (2022). The Court noted that courts of

        appeals “have nearly always treated offenses as occurring on separate occasions if a person

        committed them a day or more apart, or at a significant distance.” Id. (internal quotation

        marks omitted).

               The district court correctly concluded that Dudley committed his offenses on three

        different occasions. Three days passed between Dudley’s first cocaine distribution offense

        and his next offenses (a second distribution and a related offense for distribution near a

        school or park), and then he committed another drug offense months later. The lack of

        temporal proximity in this case is sufficient to separate the offenses. Moreover, that

        Dudley had multiple days to reflect on his first offense conduct before selling drugs a

        second time further distinguishes those crimes.        Finally, Dudley suggests that the

        challenged series of offenses does not satisfy the spirit or intention of the ACCA because

        he committed the offenses at ages 16 and 17. However, neither this court nor the Supreme

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        Court has identified age as a factor to be considered when determining whether offenses

        occurred on the same occasion for purposes of the ACCA. See, e.g., Wooden, 142 S. Ct.

        at 1071.

               Therefore, we affirm the district court’s judgment. We dispense with oral argument

        because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this

        court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

                                                                                        AFFIRMED

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