US v. Malcolm Allen

Filing

UNPUBLISHED PER CURIAM OPINION filed. Originating case number: 1:08-cr-00222-RDB-1 Copies to all parties and the district court/agency. [999320053].. [13-4470]

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UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 13-4470

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
MALCOLM ROLAND ALLEN,
Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Baltimore.
Richard D. Bennett, District Judge.
(1:08-cr-00222-RDB-1)

Submitted:

March 12, 2014

Decided:

March 21, 2014

Before WILKINSON, KEENAN, and WYNN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

David I. Schoen, DAVID I. SCHOEN, ATTORNEY AT LAW, Montgomery,
Alabama, for Appellant.
Rod J. Rosenstein, United States
Attorney,
Christopher
J.
Romano,
Assistant
United
States
Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Malcolm
possession

with

Roland

Allen

intent

to

methylenedioxy-methamphetamine

pled

guilty

distribute
(“MDMA”),

to

one

cocaine
in

count
base

violation

of

of
and
21

U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) (2006), and was sentenced to 216 months in
prison.

Allen

involuntary

asserts

because

duplicitous.

the

that

his

indictment

plea

was

against

him

unknowing
was

and

allegedly

Allen also argues that the district court erred in

imposing his sentence because:

(1) he asserts that under United

States v. Simmons, 649 F.3d 237 (4th Cir. 2011), he should not
have been sentenced as a career offender; (2) the district court
refused to apply the Fair Sentencing Act (“FSA”) and Amendment
750 at his “re-sentencing[;]” and (3) he asserts he should be
re-sentenced in light of the Supreme Court’s holding in Alleyne
v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2151 (2013).

We have considered

Allen’s arguments and find no reversible error.
For

instance,

we

reject

Allen’s

assertion

that

the

indictment against him was duplicitous because it charged in a
single count the possession with intent to distribute two types
of narcotics (i.e., cocaine base and MDMA), in violation of his
Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights.

It is well-established that a

valid guilty plea waives all non-jurisdictional defects in the
indictment, including a duplicity challenge.

See Tollett v.

Henderson, 411 U.S. 258, 267 (1973) (holding that a valid guilty
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plea

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waives

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non-jurisdictional

defects);

United

States

v.

Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 631 (2002) (defects in the indictment are
not jurisdictional); see also United States v. Moloney, 287 F.3d
236, 239 (2d Cir. 2002).

Because we find that Allen’s guilty

plea was valid, we reject his duplicity argument and affirm his
conviction.
We also affirm Allen’s sentence.
criminal

sentence,

“whether

inside,

This court reviews a
just

outside,

or

significantly outside the Guidelines range,” for reasonableness,
“under

a

deferential

abuse-of-discretion

standard.”

United

States v. King, 673 F.3d 274, 283 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, ___
U.S. ___, 133 S. Ct. 216 (2012); see Gall v. United States, 552
U.S. 38, 51 (2007).

The first step in this review requires us

to

district

ensure

that

the

procedural error.
(4th

Cir.

calculate

2008).
(or

court

committed

no

significant

United States v. Evans, 526 F.3d 155, 162
Procedural

improperly

errors

calculating)

include
the

“failing

Guidelines

to

range,

treating the Guidelines as mandatory, failing to consider the
[18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2012)] factors, selecting a sentence based
on clearly erroneous facts, or failing to adequately explain the
chosen sentence — including an explanation for any deviation
from the Guidelines range.”

Gall, 552 U.S. at 51.

“[I]f a party repeats on appeal a claim of procedural
sentencing error . . . which it has made before the district
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court,

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we

for

discretion”

review

abuse

of

and

unless we conclude “that the error was harmless.”
v. Lynn, 592 F.3d 572, 576 (4th Cir. 2010).

will

reverse

United States

For instance, if

“an aggrieved party sufficiently alerts the district court of
its responsibility to render an individualized explanation” by
drawing arguments from § 3553 “for a sentence different than the
one ultimately imposed,” the party sufficiently “preserves its
claim.”

Id.

at

578.

However,

we

review

structural sentencing errors for plain error.

unpreserved

non-

Id. at 576–77.

If, and only if, we find the sentence procedurally reasonable
can we consider the substantive reasonableness of the sentence
imposed.

United States v. Carter, 564 F.3d 325, 328 (4th Cir.

2009).
Although

Allen

challenges

his

career

offender

classification on several grounds, we reject his argument that
he

was

improperly

classified

as

a

career

offender.

For

instance, we reject Allen’s argument that his prior narcotics
conviction was not a proper career offender predicate because it
was

allegedly

exceeding

one

conviction,

not
year”

rather

“punishable
under
than

by

Simmons.
being

imprisonment
Allen’s

based

on

for

prior
North

a

term

narcotics
Carolina’s

statutory sentencing scheme as was the conviction at issue in
Simmons, was a violation of Maryland law, for which the maximum
penalty was five years.

The fact that Allen served less than a
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year in jail is not dispositive of the issue.
v.

Kerr,

737

F.3d

33,

38

(4th

Cir.

Cf. United States

2013)

(“Following

our

decision in Simmons, we have rejected defendants’ arguments that
they lack the requisite predicate felonies because the actual
sentence they received under North Carolina law was less than a
year of imprisonment.”), pet. for cert. filed, Feb. 25, 2014
(No. 13-8839).

We have considered Allen’s arguments pertaining

to his career offender classification and discern no reversible
error in the district court’s classification.
We
failure

to

also

discern

apply

the

Allen’s sentence.

no

FSA

error

and

in

the

Amendment

district

750

in

court’s

determining

It is well-established that the FSA does not

apply retroactively to defendants, like Allen, whose criminal
conduct

and

sentence

United

States,

United

States

___
v.

pre-dated

U.S.

Allen,

___,
716

the
132

F.3d

denied, 133 S. Ct. 2819 (2013).

statute. 1
S.
98,

Ct.

See

2321,

107

(4th

Dorsey

2331

v.

(2012);

Cir.),

cert.

Although the district court

entered an amended criminal judgment after the FSA’s effective
date

to

allow

Allen

to

file

a

direct

appeal,

the

amended

judgment was a remedy in Allen’s habeas proceeding and did not

1

Although Amendment 750 was made retroactive, Allen’s
career offender status requires that his offense level remain as
calculated at his original sentencing.
See U.S. Sentencing
Guidelines Manual (“USSG”) § 4B1.1(b) (2012).

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follow a full re-sentencing.

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See United States v. Hadden, 475

F.3d 652, 661 & n.9 (4th Cir. 2007) (recognizing that when a
district court enters an amended judgment at the end of a habeas
proceeding as a way to remedy counsel’s ineffective assistance,
this action only “corrects” the defect in the prior proceedings
and does not necessarily amount to a full re-sentencing).
Moreover, because Allen was sentenced to a term well
above the post-FSA mandatory minimum applicable to his crime,
and since a review of the transcript from Allen’s sentencing
hearing establishes that the then-applicable ten-year statutory
mandatory

minimum

had

no

influence

on

the

district

court’s

ultimate sentencing determination, we find that any error in the
district court’s failure to apply the FSA at re-sentencing would
be harmless.

See United States v. Montes-Flores, 736 F.3d 357,

369-71 (4th Cir. 2013) (reiterating that procedural sentencing
errors are subject to harmlessness review and explaining that an
error is harmless if the Court can determine that “the district
court would have reached the same result even if it had decided
the . . . issue the other way” and that the resulting “sentence
would be reasonable even if the . . . issue had been decided in
the defendant’s favor”) (internal quotation marks and citations
omitted).

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We have considered the parties’ arguments and find no
reversible error by the district court. 2

Accordingly, we affirm

the district court’s amended judgment.

We dispense with oral

argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately
presented in the materials before this court and argument would
not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED

2

We reject Allen’s argument that his sentence violates
Alleyne. Allen’s argument to the contrary, his career offender
status as found by the district court did not increase the
statutory mandatory minimum sentence applicable to his crime.
See USSG § 4B1.1 (2012). Thus, the facts found by the district
court that allowed Allen to be designated a career offender were
not required to be included in the indictment against him and
proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
See Alleyne, 133 S. Ct. at
2155, 2163-64 (holding that any fact that increases a statutory
mandatory minimum is an element of the offense and must be
submitted to the jury and found beyond a reasonable doubt).

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