United States v. Thomas

572 F.3d 945, 387 U.S. App. D.C. 300, 2009 WL 2152429
CourtCourt of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
DecidedJuly 21, 2009
Docket07-3080, 07-3085
StatusPublished
Cited by42 cases

This text of 572 F.3d 945 (United States v. Thomas) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the D.C. 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. Thomas, 572 F.3d 945, 387 U.S. App. D.C. 300, 2009 WL 2152429 (D.C. Cir. 2009).

Opinions

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON.

Opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG.

KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge:

Appellant and cross-appellee Anthony Thomas was convicted of one count of unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The district court sentenced Thomas to 188 months’ incarceration under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), which mandates a 15-year minimum sentence for a felon in possession with three previous convictions of qualifying offenses. In an earlier appeal, we affirmed Thomas’s conviction but remanded for resentencing in accordance with United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005). The district court resentenced Thomas to 82 months, holding the Government had not proved on remand that Thomas qualified for sentencing under the ACCA. Thomas again appeals his conviction and the Government appeals the court’s failure to sen[947]*947tence Thomas under the ACCA. We affirm Thomas’s conviction because he raises the same arguments as in his earlier appeal and our decision in the first appeal is the law of the case. We vacate the district court’s sentence on two alternative grounds. First, because Thomas could have challenged the ACCA determination in the first appeal' — but did not — the law of the case doctrine precluded the district court from revisiting its determination at resentencing. Alternatively, we conclude that the Government adequately established that Thomas committed the requisite predicate offenses under the ACCA “on occasions different from one another,” 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1), so as to subject Thomas to the ACCA’s mandatory 15-year sentence.

I.

On the morning of August 28, 2003, Deputy U.S. Marshals arrested Thomas at his apartment in the District of Columbia for violating parole. During a “protective sweep” of the apartment following the arrest, the officers recovered a semi-automatic pistol, an assault rifle, a shotgun and ammunition. Thomas was subsequently indicted on one count of felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). He moved to suppress the guns and ammunition, as well as incriminating statements he had made following his arrest, as fruits of an unlawful search. The district court denied the motion and a jury convicted Thomas. At sentencing, the court concluded that, based on the Presentence Investigation Report (PSR), Thomas was subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years under the ACCA because he had “three previous convictions ... for a violent felony or a serious drug offense, or both, committed on occasions different from one another,” 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1), namely, two convictions in D.C. Superior Court for distributing cocaine and attempted possession of cocaine with intent to distribute (PWID) and one conviction in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia for assault. Accordingly, on May 18, 2004, the court sentenced Thomas to 188 months’ imprisonment under the ACCA and the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines (Guidelines), to be followed by five years of supervised release, and imposed a $100 special assessment.

Thomas appealed the conviction, asserting the guns and ammunition should have been suppressed because the arresting officers had insufficient reason to believe he was in the apartment when they entered and because the protective sweep was unnecessary and its scope too broad. See United States v. Thomas, 429 F.3d 282, 285-88 (D.C.Cir.2005). We rejected these arguments, holding that “the officers’ entry into Thomas’ apartment was in all respects lawful” and that “the search of Thomas’ bedroom was a lawful ‘protective sweep.’ ” Id. at 286, 288. Thomas also appealed his sentence on the ground the district court improperly treated the Guidelines as mandatory rather than advisory. See id. at 288. We agreed and vacated his sentence, remanding “for re-sentencing in accordance with ... Booker.” United States v. Thomas, 179 Fed. Appx. 60, 60 (D.C.Cir.2006).

On remand, the district court rejected the Government’s assertion that the law of the case doctrine prevented it from reconsidering whether Thomas was an armed career criminal subject to the ACCA, citing two grounds. First, the court concluded that our “remand under Booker permits — indeed, requires — reconsideration” of both the court’s “reliance on the PSR alone to find ... that [Thomas] qualified as an Armed Career Criminal” and “sentencing under a mandatory Guidelines system.” Sentencing Memorandum, United States v. Thomas, Cr. No. 03-458, at 4 [948]*948(D.D.C. June 25, 2007) (Sentencing Memorandum) (Gov’t App. 63). Second, the court found that the remand fell within one of the “ ‘three narrow exceptions to the law-of-the-case doctrine,’ ” namely, when “ ‘there is an intervening change in the controlling law.’ ” Id. (quoting United States v. Patterson, 194 Fed.Appx. 687, 690 (11th Cir.2006)). In the court’s view, the United States Supreme Court had effected such a change in Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 125 S.Ct. 1254, 161 L.Ed.2d 205 (2005). Accordingly, the court revisited its sentence and determined that, contrary to its previous ruling, Thomas was not an armed career criminal because the government had not offered competent evidence to establish that the two D.C. predicate drug convictions were “committed on occasions different from one another,” as the ACCA requires, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). In particular, the court determined that under Shepard, the indictments charging the two offenses, which identified their dates as, respectively, April 17, 1991 and September 18, 1991, did “not necessarily establish that the dates were found by the jury or admitted to by Defendant.” Sentencing Memorandum at 10 (Gov’t App. 69). The court then sentenced Thomas to 82 months’ imprisonment.

Thomas appealed his conviction, again challenging the denial of his suppression motion, and the Government appealed the sentence, contesting the district court’s decision not to sentence Thomas under the ACCA.

II.

We address separately Thomas’s and the Government’s appeals.

A. Thomas’s Appeal

Thomas advances the same arguments for reversing his conviction that he did in his first appeal, again contending the district court erred in denying his suppression motion. His appeal is therefore barred by the law of the case doctrine, which holds that “ ‘[w]hen there are multiple appeals taken in the course of a single piece of litigation, ... decisions rendered on the first appeal should not be revisited on later trips to the appellate court.’ ” LaShawn A. v. Barry,

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Bluebook (online)
572 F.3d 945, 387 U.S. App. D.C. 300, 2009 WL 2152429, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-thomas-cadc-2009.