Burgess v. United States

The Supreme Court has agreed to review Burgess v. United States, No. 06-11529, a drug sentencing sentencing case brought pro se by a South Carolina prisoner.

Keith Burgess, who wrote and filed his own petition for certiorari, has asked the Court to appoint an attorney to represent him at oral argument. The United States initially waived its right to respond to Burgess's seven-page cert petition, but the Court requested a response.

In 2003, Burgess pleaded guilty to a drug distribution charge. The government asked the court to enhance Burgess's statutory mandatory minimum sentence from 10 years to 20 years. The government relied on 21 U.S.C. Sec. 841(b)(1)(A), which requires a sentencing hike if the defendant has a prior conviction for a felony drug offense.

The statute defines "felony drug offense" as any felony under any provision of the statute or any other federal law. Burgess argued at the sentencing phase, on appeal, and in his petition for certiorari that another federal law, 21 U.S.C. Sec. 802, provided conflicting definitions that barred his enhancement.

Section 802(13) provides that a felony is any federal or state offense classified by the applicable federal or state law as a felony, while subsection 44 of that law indicated that a felony drug offense was any offense punishable by imprisonment for more than a year under any law of the United States or any state dealing with narcotics. The two provisions, read together, barred the government from seeking an enhancement unless the defendant's previous conviction was both classified as a felony and punishable by more than a year in prison, Burgess argued.

The Fourth Circuit rejected Burgess's view, but in 2004, the D.C. Circuit had reached the opposite result in U.S. v. West, 393 F.3d 1302 (D.C. Cir. 2005).statutory interpretation, rule of lenity, felony drug offense, felony, controlled substances, drugs, narcotics, sentencing

In this enhanced sentencing case, the Supreme Court held that a state drug offense punishable by more than one year in prison counts as a felony drug offense under the Controlled Substances Act.

Keith Burgess, a South Carolina prisoner who wrote and filed his own petition for certiorari, has asked the Court to appoint an attorney to represent him at oral argument. The United States initially waived its right to respond to Burgess's seven-page cert petition, but the Court requested a response.

In 2003, Burgess pleaded guilty to a drug distribution charge. The government asked the court to enhance Burgess's statutory mandatory minimum sentence from 10 years to 20 years. The government relied on 21 U.S.C. Sec. 841(b)(1)(A), which requires a sentencing hike if the defendant has a prior conviction for a felony drug offense.

The statute defines "felony drug offense" as any felony under any provision of the statute or any other federal law. Burgess argued at the sentencing phase, on appeal, and in his petition for certiorari that another federal law, 21 U.S.C. Sec. 802, provided conflicting definitions that barred his enhancement.

Section 802(13) provides that a felony is any federal or state offense classified by the applicable federal or state law as a felony, while subsection 44 of that law indicated that a felony drug offense was any offense punishable by imprisonment for more than a year under any law of the United States or any state dealing with narcotics. The two provisions, read together, barred the government from seeking an enhancement unless the defendant's previous conviction was both classified as a felony and punishable by more than a year in prison, Burgess argued.

The Fourth Circuit rejected Burgess's view, but in 2004, the D.C. Circuit had reached the opposite result in U.S. v. West, 393 F.3d 1302 (D.C. Cir. 2005).

On April 16, a unanimous Supreme Court upheld the Fourth Circuit's decision.

"Two statutory definitions figure in our decision," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the court. "Section 802(13) defines the unadorned term 'felony' to mean any 'offense classified by applicable Federal or State law as a felony.' Section 802(44) defines the compound term 'felony drug offense' to mean an offense involving specified drugs that is 'punishable by imprisonment for more than one year under any law of the United States or of a State or foreign country.'"

She added: "The term 'felony drug offense' contained in §841(b)(1)(A)'s provision for a 20-year minimum sentence, we hold, is defined exclusively by §802(44) and does not incorporate §802(13)'s definition of 'felony.' A state drug offense punishable by more than one year therefore qualifies as a 'felony drug offense,' even if state law classifies the offense as a misdemeanor."