Court Opinion

ID: 9368105
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-02 20:01:04.371657+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:05.643569
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 21-12995    Document: 45-1     Date Filed: 02/02/2023   Page: 1 of 7

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                          ____________________

                                No. 21-12995
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                      Plaintiff-Appellee,
       versus
       MARVAS AURELIEN,

                                                  Defendant-Appellant.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Middle District of Florida
                  D.C. Docket No. 6:19-cr-00081-GKS-DCI-1
                           ____________________
USCA11 Case: 21-12995     Document: 45-1      Date Filed: 02/02/2023    Page: 2 of 7

       2                      Opinion of the Court                21-12995

       Before LUCK, BRASHER, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
               Marvas Aurelien appeals his sixty-three-month sentence for
       possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. He argues that the dis-
       trict court erred in applying a higher base offense level for previ-
       ously having been convicted of a controlled substance offense. Au-
       relien contends that his 2017 Florida conviction for possessing ma-
       rijuana with the intent to sell was not a controlled substance of-
       fense. We disagree and affirm.
              In March 2019, local law enforcement officers in the Orlando
       area arrested Aurelien on an active warrant for aggravated assault
       with a firearm. During the arrest, officers found a loaded semi-au-
       tomatic handgun in Aurelien’s front pocket. The handgun had
       been stolen two years earlier.
              Aurelien had prior felony convictions for grand theft (five of
       them), possession of alprazolam, possession of marijuana, and pos-
       session of marijuana with the intent to sell. So the grand jury in-
       dicted him for possessing the handgun and ammunition as a con-
       victed felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. section 922(g)(1). Aurelian
       pleaded guilty without a plea agreement.
              The probation office prepared a presentence investigation
       report. The report used a base offense level of twenty because Au-
       relien possessed the firearm and ammunition “subsequent to sus-
       taining one felony conviction of either a crime of violence or a
USCA11 Case: 21-12995     Document: 45-1     Date Filed: 02/02/2023    Page: 3 of 7

       21-12995               Opinion of the Court                       3

       controlled substance office.” Aurelien, the report continued, had a
       2017 Florida conviction for possessing marijuana with the intent to
       sell, which was a controlled substance offense. The report then
       added two levels because the handgun was stolen and subtracted
       three levels because Aurelien clearly demonstrated and timely ac-
       cepted responsibility. With a total offense level of nineteen, and a
       criminal history category of VI, the report calculated Aurelien’s
       guideline range as sixty-three to seventy-eight months’ imprison-
       ment.
               Aurelien objected to the part of the presentence investiga-
       tion report setting his base offense level as twenty. He should not
       have been assigned the higher base offense level because his 2017
       Florida conviction for possessing marijuana with the intent to sell
       was not a “controlled substance offense” under the guidelines.
       Controlled substance offenses under the guidelines are “limited to
       federally controlled substances under the Controlled Substances
       Act” and his “state conviction for a hemp-based offense was not”
       for a federally controlled substance.
              At his sentencing hearing, Aurelien explained that, in 2017,
       Florida defined marijuana broadly to include hemp. So, under the
       categorial approach, the court had to presume that his conviction
       was for the “least culpable conduct”—the “possession of hemp,
       with intent to sell or deliver.” But, since 2017, Congress and Flor-
       ida have changed their controlled substance statutes to “exclude
       hemp.” “Thus,” Aurelien argued, “hemp is not a controlled sub-
       stance today in either federal or Florida courts and a hemp-based
USCA11 Case: 21-12995      Document: 45-1       Date Filed: 02/02/2023     Page: 4 of 7

       4                       Opinion of the Court                  21-12995

       offense is not a controlled substance offense under the guide-
       lines . . . .” “[A] controlled substance offense in the guidelines,” Au-
       relien concluded, “is defined by reference to the [f]ederal Con-
       trolled Substance Act schedule . . . .”
              The district court overruled Aurelien’s objection based on
       United States v. Smith, 775 F.3d 1262 (11th Cir. 2014) and United
       States v. Pridgeon, 853 F.3d 1192 (11th Cir. 2017). After consider-
       ing the 18 U.S.C. section 3553(a) factors, the district court sen-
       tenced Aurelien to the low end of his guideline range—sixty-three
       months’ imprisonment. Aurelien timely appealed.
              Typically, a defendant (like Aurelien) convicted of pos-
       sessing a handgun and ammunition as a felon would be assigned a
       base offense level of fourteen. See U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(a)(6)(A) (ex-
       plaining that the base offense level is fourteen “if the defendant . . .
       was a prohibited person at the time the defendant committed the
       instant offense”). But, if the defendant possessed the handgun and
       ammunition “subsequent to sustaining one felony conviction of ei-
       ther a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense,” the base
       offense level pops up to twenty. Id. § 2K2.1(a)(4)(A). The district
       court applied the higher base offense level to Aurelien because, it
       concluded, his 2017 Florida conviction for possessing marijuana
       with the intent to sell was a controlled substance offense.
             Aurelien argues that the district court erred in applying the
       higher base offense level. His 2017 Florida conviction, he contends,
       was not a “controlled substance offense” under the guidelines, so
USCA11 Case: 21-12995        Document: 45-1        Date Filed: 02/02/2023        Page: 5 of 7

       21-12995                  Opinion of the Court                              5

       he should have had a lower base offense level, a lower guideline
       range, and lower sentence.1
              But, twice, we’ve held that Florida convictions for pos-
       sessing marijuana with the intent to sell are controlled substance
       offenses under the guidelines. In Smith, as here, the defendants
       had prior Florida convictions for “possession of marijuana with in-
       tent to sell within 1,000 feet of a school or church” and “possession
       of marijuana with the intent to sell.” 775 F.3d at 1264–65. They
       argued, as Aurelien does, “that their prior convictions for Florida
       drug crimes d[id] not qualify as . . . ‘controlled substance of-
       fense[s].’” Id. at 1265 (second alteration in original) (citation omit-
       ted). We held that the Florida drug crime statute—the same one
       Aurelien violated—was “a ‘controlled substance offense’” under
       the guidelines. Id. at 1268 (quotation omitted).
              The defendant in Pridgeon also made the same argument.
       There, as in Smith, the defendant had a prior Florida conviction for
       “possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell.” 853 F.3d
       at 1196. The defendant “argued,” as the Smith defendants did,
       “that his 2006 drug convictions did not qualify as predicate ‘con-
       trolled substance offenses.’” Id.; see also id. (the defendant “reiter-
       ated his objections . . . arguing that his Florida drug convictions do
       not qualify as predicate offenses”). Following Smith, we

       1
        We review de novo whether a previous conviction qualifies as a controlled
       substance offense under the sentencing guidelines. United States v. Bates, 960
       F.3d 1278, 1293 (11th Cir. 2020).
USCA11 Case: 21-12995     Document: 45-1      Date Filed: 02/02/2023    Page: 6 of 7

       6                      Opinion of the Court                21-12995

       “conclude[d] that” the defendant’s Florida drug convictions
       “qualif[ied] as predicate ‘controlled substance offenses’” under the
       guidelines. Id. at 1198.
              Normally, that would be the end of it. Smith and Pridgeon
       hold that Aurelien’s prior conviction for possessing marijuana with
       the intent to sell is a controlled substance offense under the guide-
       lines. So, the district court didn’t err in applying the higher base
       offense level.
              But, Aurelien argues, that’s not the end of it because the law
       has changed since Smith and Pridgeon. Congress has amended the
       Controlled Substances Act to exclude hemp. And, under the cate-
       gorical approach, we must assume that Aurelien’s prior conviction
       was for the least culpable conduct—that he possessed hemp with
       the intent to sell—because the Florida drug statute included hemp
       in 2017. Comparing Aurelien’s 2017 hemp conviction to the cur-
       rent version of the federal Controlled Substances Act, Aurelien’s
       conviction is overbroad and, thus, is not categorically a controlled
       substance offense under the guideline. Compare 21 U.S.C.
       §§ 802(16)(B)(i)–(ii) (excluding hemp and “mature stalks” from the
       federal definition of marijuana), with Fla. Stat. §§ 891.13(1)(a)2,
       891.02(3) (2017) (criminalizing possession with intent to distribute
       any part of the marijuana plant).
               There’s a problem, though, with Aurelien’s argument: it as-
       sumes that we determine whether a prior state drug conviction is
       a “controlled substance offense” under the guidelines by compar-
       ing it to the federal analogue. But we rejected that argument in
USCA11 Case: 21-12995        Document: 45-1      Date Filed: 02/02/2023   Page: 7 of 7

       21-12995                  Opinion of the Court                      7

       Smith and Pridgeon. “In Smith,” we explained in Pridgeon, “we
       properly declined to look to statutory federal analogues in consid-
       ering [Florida’s drug statute] because we found that the sentencing
       guideline did not define ‘controlled substance offense’ by reference
       to those analogues and the sentencing guidelines definition was un-
       ambiguous.” Pridgeon, 853 F.3d at 1198 (citing Smith, 775 F.3d at
       1268).
              Nothing has changed since we decided Smith and Pridgeon
       that would undermine our precedent to the point of abrogation.
       Because nothing has changed, we are bound by those decisions.
       And we are bound by those decisions to affirm the district court’s
       application of the higher base offense level and the sixty-three-
       month prison sentence.

                AFFIRMED. 2

       2
           The government’s motion to supplement the record is DENIED.