United States v. Dwight Cooke

853 F.3d 464
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedApril 5, 2017
Docket16-1381, 16-1738
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 853 F.3d 464 (United States v. Dwight Cooke) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Dwight Cooke, 853 F.3d 464 (8th Cir. 2017).

Opinion

BEAM, Circuit Judge.

Dwight Cooke and Maria Elena Cantu were convicted of conspiring to distribute methamphetamine in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(C), and 846. Then-convictions arose out of the same investigation and their cases have been consolidated on appeal. They each challenge as-, pects of their pretrial detention, conviction, and sentencing, and we now affirm the district court. 1

I. BACKGROUND

State and local law enforcement officers investigated a drug-trafficking ring in Davenport, Iowa, in November and December of 2014. The investigation involved several controlled buys and revealed a chain of distribution with Cantu at the top, supplying methamphetamine and other narcotics, and Cooke at the bottom, selling to users. State search warrants were issued in December 2014, authorizing searches of the residences of the ring members. On Janu *468 ary 16, 2015, a federal complaint was filed before a federal magistrate judge charging Cooke, .Cantu, and two others with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. The magistrate judge issued federal arrest warrants for the conspirators in that case, case 3:15-mj-6. Because Cooke’s and Cantu’s claims are distinct and pertain to their respective circumstances, we outline the facts of their cases separately.

A. Cooke

On January 23, 2015, Cooke called the Davenport Police Department and stated he would turn himself in at'7:30 p.m. that evening. He then called his girlfriend and requested that he see his son because he was going to jail later that day. When he met his girlfriend, his son was not with her. The couple argued, and Cooke then assaulted his girlfriend with a scalpel, attempting to cut her throat. He missed, instead cutting her from the corner of her mouth to her cheek. He then stole her vehicle and fled, and failing to turn himself in that evening, remained at large. On February 4, 2015, the Iowa District Court for Scott County issued an arrest warrant for Cooke for a charge of “Willful Injury — • Causing Bodily Injury” for the assault on his girlfriend. On February 18, 2015, a state bench warrant was issued for Cooke’s having violated a protective order prohibiting him from contacting his girlfriend. That same day, Cooke was arrested by Davenport police officers and U.S. Marshals. The arresting state officer read all three warrants — the state arrest and bench warrants and the federal 3:15-mj-6 warrant — to Cooke. Also on February 18, a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Iowa indicted Cooke, Cantu, and the other conspirators on federal conspiracy charges. The indictment was filed in case 3:15-cr-15, and a federal arrest warrant for Cooke in that case was issued that day, but not executed. Cooke was held in Scott County Jail, and the U.S. Marshals Service issued a writ of detainer against him. On April 24, 2015, Cooke was transferred to federal custody, a U.S. Marshal executed the 3:15-cr-15 warrant, and Cooke appeared before a federal magistrate judge for the Southern District of Iowa. Cooke filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the amount of time between his February 18 arrest and his April 24 appearance violated both Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5(a)(1)(A) and the Sixth Amendment. The district court dismissed the motion.

Cooke’s trial date was initially set for June 8, 2015, but the district court continued trial to August 17, noting, “There is voluminous discovery and a failure to grant continuance will deny reasonable time necessary for adequate preparation for trial even with the exercise of due diligence by the parties.” Trial was continued again, over Cooke’s objection, to August 24 due to the district court’s trial schedule. On August 13, the district court granted another sixty-day continuance in order for Cooke’s new counsel to prepare for trial, now set for October 26. On October 16, Cooke pléd guilty to the federal conspiracy charge.

At the sentencing hearing, there was discussion about whether Cooke’s assault on his girlfriend was relevant conduct. See U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 1B1.3 (hereinafter U.S.S.G. or Guidelines). At this time Cooke had been convicted in state court on charges arising from the assault on his girlfriend, but he had not yet been sentenced. Although the district court believed the assault was relevant, it granted the parties’ request that it be treated as nonrelevant. As a consequence, Cooke was safety-valve eligible, but the assault added a point to his criminal history and his federal sentence would be eligible to run consecutively with the *469 anticipated sentence on the state charges. U.S.S.G. §§ 4Al.l(c), 4A1.2(a)(4), 5C1.2, 5G1.3(c). After establishing a criminal-history category of I and a Guidelines advisory range of 46 to 57 months, the district court departed upward to an advisory range of 57 to 71 months on the basis of an underrepresented criminal history. Id. § 4A1.3. The district court was concerned with two convictions too old to be counted in calculating Cooke’s criminal-history category under Guidelines § 4A1.2(e)(l). The first was a conviction for assaulting his girlfriend and the mother of his children. Cooke used a twisted T-shirt to repeatedly choke her and punched her in the face. The presentence investigation report (PSIR) also noted that Cooke subsequently violated a no-contact order by visiting the woman’s apartment. The second was a conviction for burglary, in which Cooke kicked in another woman’s door, threatened to kill her, and fled from police officers. In addition, the district court was concerned with Cooke’s conviction for the January 2015 assault described above. That conviction garnered only one point because Cooke had not yet been sentenced, id. § 4A1.2(a)(4), but the district court considered it a “horrific” incident and “by far the most serious offense.” This, combined with the fact that officers had to tase Cooke during his February 18, 2015, arrest, led the district court to conclude that a criminal-history category of III was more appropriate.

The district court then varied upward to 96 months on the basis of the 2015 assault. Although it had accepted the parties’ suggestion to treat the 2015 assault as nonre-levant conduct for purposes of determining the applicable Guidelines range, it noted that it was “firmly convinced” that the assault was, in fact, relevant. The district court stated that “if it were relevant conduct, we would have had a very different calculation.” It considered the assault for purposes of its analysis under 18 U.S.C. § 3553

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Bluebook (online)
853 F.3d 464, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-dwight-cooke-ca8-2017.