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Affirming Judge Koeltl, the Second Circuit has ruled in U.S. v. Minter that selling cocaine, in violation of N.Y. Penal Law § 220.39(1), is not a “serious drug offense” under the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e).

Why not?  Because “New York’s definition of cocaine is categorically broader than its federal counterpart.”  Slip Op. at 3.  Specifically, federal law “prohibits possession of only optical and geometric isomers of cocaine, while New York’s statute prohibits possession of all cocaine isomers.”  Slip Op. at 5 (emphasis in original).

The government argued Minter should have to pass the “realisitic probability” test by poining to a New York case in which the defendant was convicted for selling something other than an optical or geometric isomer of cocaine.  But the Court said no: “the New York statute applies on its face to all cocaine isomers; [federal law] does not.  ‘When the state law …

The Supreme Court has granted certiorari in another pair of ACCA cases. Under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), a defendant who possesses a gun faces a minimum 15-year sentence if he has three prior state or federal convictions that qualify as “violent” felonies or “serious drug offenses.” We have talked a lot recently about what qualifies as a “violent” felony. Now it is time to consider “serious drug offenses.”

Under § 924(e)(2)(A), a “serious drug offense” includes offenses “under State law, involving manufacturing, distributing, or possessing with intent to manufacture or distribute, a controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802)), for which a maximum term of imprisonment of ten years or more is prescribed by law.”

Courts use the categorical approach to decide if a prior state conviction involves a “controlled substance,” comparing the elements of that …

Earlier this week the Supreme Court granted cert. in Wooden v. United States, SCOTUS No. 20-5279, which concerns the interpretation of the ACCA’s requirement that each of the three required prior convictions arise from offenses “committed on occasions different from one another . . . .” 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). The Court will likely resolve a Circuit split on whether mere temporal distinctness between two offenses suffices to satisfy the requirement of separateness, or whether a broader inquiry is necessary.¹

In Mr. Wooden’s case, the Sixth Circuit ruled that his burgling of 10 different units at the same Georgia mini-storage facility, one after another, which resulted in a guilty plea to 10 counts of burglary more than twenty years ago, constituted 10 separate burglaries for purposes of the ACCA, even though everything occurred at the same location over a short period of time. Several Circuits agree with the …