Court Opinion

ID: 9948294
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-06 20:01:00.167769+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:29:29.204996
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 23-10212    Document: 42-1     Date Filed: 03/06/2024   Page: 1 of 2

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                          ____________________

                                No. 23-10212
                          ____________________

       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                      Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
       versus
       CAST LUCAS,

                                                  Defendant-Appellant.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Southern District of Florida
                   D.C. Docket No. 0:22-cr-60195-WPD-1
                          ____________________
USCA11 Case: 23-10212      Document: 42-1      Date Filed: 03/06/2024     Page: 2 of 2

       2                      Opinion of the Court                  23-10212

       Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and JILL PRYOR and MARCUS,
       Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Cast Lucas challenges his 2022 sentence for possessing with
       intent to distribute fentanyl on the ground that his 2009 and 2015
       Florida convictions for possessing with intent to deliver or sell co-
       caine are not “controlled substance offense[s]” under the Sentenc-
       ing Guidelines. See U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(b). He argues that, in deter-
       mining whether his prior state convictions are controlled substance
       offenses, the district court should have consulted “the drug sched-
       ules in effect at the time of federal sentencing,” not those in effect
       at the time of the prior state convictions. We affirm.
              Intervening precedent forecloses Lucas’s argument. In
       United States v. Dubois, this Court adopted “a time-of-state-convic-
       tion rule” for prior state convictions. No. 22-10829, at *25 (11th Cir.
       Mar. 5, 2024). We held that “a ‘controlled substance’ under sec-
       tion 4B1.2(b)’s definition of ‘controlled substance offense’ is, for
       prior state offenses, a drug regulated by state law at the time of the
       conviction, . . . even if it is no longer regulated by the state at the
       time of federal sentencing.” Id. at *29. So the district court properly
       consulted the drug schedules in effect at the time of Lucas’s Florida
       drug convictions when it determined that those convictions are
       controlled substance offenses.
            After briefing and with the benefit of oral argument, we
       AFFIRM Lucas’s sentence.