Court Opinion

ID: 9931386
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-08 21:01:23.523489+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:17:32.533851
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 23-10973    Document: 29-1     Date Filed: 02/08/2024   Page: 1 of 9

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                   In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 23-10973
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                      Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
       versus
       JAMOL MARQUISE CUYLER,

                                                  Defendant-Appellant.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                    for the Southern District of Georgia
                  D.C. Docket No. 1:20-cr-00036-JRH-BKE-1
                          ____________________
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       2                      Opinion of the Court                23-10973

       Before JORDAN, LAGOA, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
               Jamol Cuyler appeals his 180-month imprisonment sentence
       for possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, arguing that the dis-
       trict court erred in determining that he was subject to the Armed
       Career Criminal Act’s enhanced statutory penalty. See 18 U.S.C.
       § 924(e). A defendant convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) is subject
       to a minimum 15-year sentence of imprisonment if he has at least
       three prior convictions “for a violent felony or a serious drug of-
       fense, or both, committed on occasions different from one an-
       other.” 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). Cuyler argues that the district court
       applied the wrong analysis to his prior Georgia terroristic threats
       convictions and that those convictions do not qualify as violent fel-
       onies under the ACCA in light of the Supreme Court’s plurality
       opinion in Borden v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 1817 (2021). We need
       not address Cuyler’s arguments about Georgia’s terroristic threats
       statute because the PSI, adopted without change by the district
       court, concluded that three other convictions constituted violent
       felonies under the ACCA. And because Cuyler failed to object to
       the inclusion of those three felonies, we conclude under plain error
       review that the district court’s determination of his armed career
       criminal status should be affirmed.
                                      I.

             Normally, we review de novo whether a conviction qualifies
       as a serious drug offense or violent felony for purposes of the
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       23-10973                Opinion of the Court                          3

       ACCA. See United States v. Seabrooks, 839 F.3d 1326, 1338 (11th Cir.
       2016). But to preserve objections to sentencing determinations, a
       defendant must clearly raise the objection in simple language such
       that the trial court could not misunderstand it. See United States v.
       Brown, 934 F.3d 1278, 1306 (11th Cir. 2019). Defendants must make
       all their objections to the “manner in which the sentence was im-
       posed at the initial sentencing hearing.” United States v. Canty, 570
       F.3d 1251, 1256 (11th Cir. 2009). We have also stated that a defend-
       ant fails to preserve a legal objection for appeal “if the factual pred-
       icates of an objection are included in the sentencing record but
       were presented to the district court under a different legal theory.”
       United States v. Massey, 443 F.3d 814, 819 (11th Cir. 2006). That is,
       when a defendant’s objections at sentencing were “substantively
       different” from the arguments raised on appeal, we review for plain
       error. United States v. Ramirez-Flores, 743 F.3d 816, 821 (11th Cir.
       2014). Under plain error, we will only reverse if an error was plain,
       affected the substantial rights of the defendant, and seriously af-
       fected the fairness of judicial proceedings. Id. at 822. And errors are
       not plain if no controlling Supreme Court or Eleventh Circuit prec-
       edent establishes that an error occurred. Id.
              At sentencing, Cuyler objected to the PSI’s inclusion of his
       two convictions for terroristic threats in the ACCA enhancement
       analysis. But in concluding that Cuyler “is considered to be an
       armed career criminal,” the PSI identified three additional convic-
       tions—burglary, armed robbery, and possession of a firearm during
       the commission of a crime. Now on appeal—and only in the reply
       brief—Cuyler argues that his conviction for possessing a firearm
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       4                       Opinion of the Court                  23-10973

       during the commission of a crime is not a predicate offense under
       the ACCA. True, Cuyler objected to his armed career criminal sta-
       tus at sentencing. But that objection concerned separate convic-
       tions under a “substantively different” legal theory from the argu-
       ments raised in the reply brief. We therefore review for plain error.
       Ramirez-Flores, 743 F.3d at 821.
                                       II.

               A defendant convicted of a crime under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) is
       subject to an enhanced sentence under the ACCA if he has at least
       three previous convictions for violent felonies or serious drug of-
       fenses. See 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). A violent felony includes any crime
       punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year that has
       an element of the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical
       force against the person of another. Id. § 924(e)(2)(B). When a de-
       fendant has three or more predicate offenses, the district court
       must impose a mandatory minimum imprisonment sentence of at
       least fifteen years. See United States v. Symington, 781 F.3d 1308, 1313
       (11th Cir. 2015).
              In his reply brief, Cuyler presents three arguments for why
       his conviction for possessing a firearm during the commission of a
       crime is not a predicate offense. First, he argues that the district
       court did not consider the conviction when determining his armed
       career criminal status. Second, he contends that the government
       did not address the conviction at sentencing, leaving Cuyler with-
       out notice that it qualified as a predicate offense. And third, he ar-
       gues that the government cannot now rely on the conviction
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       23-10973                 Opinion of the Court                            5

       because it has not explained how the crime qualifies as a predicate
       offense under the elements clause of the ACCA. We will address
       each argument in turn.
                                        III.

               Cuyler’s first argument fails because the PSI included
       Cuyler’s conviction for possessing a firearm during the commission
       of a crime as an ACCA predicate offense in its advisory guideline
       calculation, and the district court adopted the PSI’s calculations and
       factual statements “without change.” The PSI concluded that
       Cuyler “is considered to be an armed career criminal based on the
       convictions [of] . . . two counts of terroristic threats and possession
       of a firearm during the commission of a crime . . . bur-
       glary . . . [and] armed robbery.” Accordingly, the PSI assigned an
       offense level of 33. At sentencing, the district court overruled
       Cuyler’s objection to the inclusion of the two terroristic threat con-
       victions as predicate offenses because our holding in United States
       v. Oliver, 962 F.3d 1311 (11th Cir. 2020) (“Oliver III”) precluded that
       argument. When discussing the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors later
       during the hearing, the district court also mentioned Cuyler’s con-
       victions for burglary and armed robbery.
               Cuyler asserts that the district court’s failure to explicitly dis-
       cuss the conviction for possession of a firearm during the commis-
       sion of a crime during the sentencing hearing is somehow fatal to
       its inclusion as a predicate offense. But Cuyler cites no authority
       that requires the district court to affirmatively list every predicate
       offense on the record after the court adopted the PSI’s guideline
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       6                      Opinion of the Court                23-10973

       calculation that lists those predicate offenses. Because the PSI
       clearly includes the prior conviction in its calculation and ACCA
       analysis, and the district court adopted that calculation without
       change, we conclude that the district court’s failure to explicitly
       mention the conviction during the hearing is not fatal to its inclu-
       sion as a predicate offense.
              Cuyler’s second argument also fails because the PSI’s guide-
       line calculation put Cuyler on notice that the firearm possession
       conviction was included as an ACCA predicate offense, and the
       government was not required to affirmatively address each predi-
       cate offense at sentencing. Our holding in Tribue v. United States is
       instructive. 929 F.3d 1326 (11th Cir. 2019). The defendant in that
       case also argued “that the government effectively waived reliance
       on the use of any other prior convictions listed in the PSI.” Id. at
       1330. Unlike Cuyler’s situation, however, the additional conviction
       in Tribue was not included in the PSI’s ACCA analysis and calcula-
       tion. Id. Nevertheless, we held that the government had not
       waived reliance on the use of other convictions outside the three
       identified as ACCA predicates in the PSI. Id. at 1332. We based our
       holding on three grounds, all of which apply here. First, the defend-
       ant never disputed the factual existence of the additional convic-
       tion. Id. Second, although Cuyler objected to his ACCA status, he
       did so on separate grounds unrelated to the additional conviction.
       Id. And third, the government need not “prospectively address
       whether each and every conviction listed in the criminal history
       section of a PSI is an ACCA predicate in order to guard against po-
       tential future changes in the law and avoid later claims that it has
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       23-10973                Opinion of the Court                           7

       waived use of those convictions as qualifying ACCA predicates.”
       Id.
               Cuyler objected only to the inclusion of two of the five iden-
       tified predicate offense convictions, leaving three qualifying con-
       victions for the ACCA enhancement unchallenged. The govern-
       ment did not waive reliance on those three remaining convictions
       by not arguing, in response to Cuyler’s objections to the convic-
       tions for terroristic threats, that he “had more qualifying convic-
       tions” that the district court could consider instead. Id. At sentenc-
       ing, the government had no way of predicting that our holding in
       Oliver III could be affected by the Supreme Court’s later decision in
       Borden, as Cuyler now argues. Indeed, during sentencing, Cuyler
       admitted that his objection to the inclusion of his convictions for
       terroristic threats was foreclosed by Oliver III.
              In previous cases, we have concluded that the government
       waived reliance on prior convictions to support an enhanced
       ACCA sentence. But in those cases, the government relied on a
       separate offense for the first time on appeal that was not included
       as one of the PSI’s three predicate offenses in its ACCA calculation.
       See, e.g., Bryant v. Warden, FCC Coleman-Medium, 738 F.3d 1253,
       1258 (11th Cir. 2013), overruled on other grounds by McCarthan v. Dir.
       of Goodwill Indus. Suncoast, Inc., 851 F.3d 1076 (11th Cir. 2017) (en
       banc); United States v. Petite, 703 F.3d 1290, 1292 n.2 (11th Cir. 2013).
       That is not this case. The PSI listed five predicate offenses, one of
       which was the possession of a firearm during the commission of a
       crime conviction. The government was not required to shore up
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       8                       Opinion of the Court                  23-10973

       the district court’s determination of Cuyler’s ACCA status by af-
       firmatively reiterating the PSI’s guideline calculation. That is, the
       government was not required to argue at sentencing that the three
       remaining convictions constituted ACCA predicate offenses when
       the PSI concluded they did, Cuyler did not object to that conclu-
       sion, and the district court adopted the PSI’s calculation without
       change.
               Cuyler’s third and final argument—that the government
       failed to explain how his conviction for possessing a firearm during
       the commission of a crime qualifies as as a predicate offense—is
       also unavailing. Because Cuyler failed to object to the PSI’s inclu-
       sion of the conviction and the district court’s subsequent adoption
       of the PSI, we review the ACCA determination for plain error. Un-
       der that standard of review, “where the explicit language of a stat-
       ute or rule does not specifically resolve an issue, there can be no
       plain error where there is no precedent from the Supreme Court
       or this Court directly resolving it.” United States v. Lejarde-Rada, 319
       F.3d 1288, 1291 (11th Cir. 2003). Although he contends that his con-
       viction for possessing a firearm during the commission of a crime
       does not constitute a predicate offense, Cuyler has cited no Su-
       preme Court or Eleventh Circuit precedent holding that his con-
       viction does not qualify as an ACCA predicate offense, nor are we
       aware of any decisions. See United States v. Carter, 704 F. App’x 808
       (11th Cir. 2017) (citing Lejarde-Rada, 319 F.3d at 1291). Cuyler
       therefore fails to establish that the district court committed plain
       error.
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       23-10973             Opinion of the Court                     9

                                   IV.

             Accordingly, the district court is AFFIRMED.