In United States v. Havis, the en banc Sixth Circuit held, unanimously, that a Tennessee state offense criminalizing the attempted delivery of a controlled substance was not a “controlled substance offense,” for purposes of U.S.S.G. §§ 2K2.1 and 4B1.2. ___ F.3d ___, 2019 WL 2376070 (6th Cir. June 6, 2019) (en banc). Overruling prior Circuit precedent, the Court explained that attempts appear only in Application Note 1 to § 4B1.2(b), not in the text of the Guideline itself. Consequently, the inclusion of attempts was not an interpretation of § 4B1.2(b)’s text, to which deference would be owed under Stinson v. United States, 508 U.S. 36 (1993), but rather an addition to § 4B1.2(b)’s text, due no deference at all:

To make attempt crimes a part of § 4B1.2(b), the Commission did not interpret a term in the guideline itself—no term in § 4B1.2(b) would bear that …

The Circuit today affirmed the defendant’s conviction in United States v. Michael O’Brien, which principally rejects, on fact-specific credibility grounds, his 4th and 5th Amendment arguments concerning Miranda and an alleged consent to search. Judge Kearse’s typically thorough opinion lays out the details; no legal ground is broken.

The only issue of note is the Court’s rejection of O’Brien’s additional claim that the substance he was accused of distributing — methylone (a.k.a. Molly) — was improperly placed on the federal list of controlled substances. O’Brien argues that Congress unconstitutionally delegated its legislative power by authorizing the Attorney General (who in turn re- or sub-delegated that authority to the D.E.A.) to determine whether a substance belongs on the federal schedule of controlled substances.

Judge Kearse rejected this argument on procedural and substantive grounds. First, it was untimely because he did not make this argument until after he was convicted. …