United States v. Matthew Stewart

Matthew Stewart pled guilty to two counts of distributing a controlled substance in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841 (a)(1). Because he had two prior state felony convictions for controlled substance offenses, the district court sentenced him as a career offender. See United States Sentencing Guidelines Manual (U.S.S.G.) §§ 4B1.1, 4B1.2. Stewart appeals his sentence, arguing that the Sentencing Commission exceeded its statutory authority under 28 U.S.C. § 994 (h) by including state convictions as predicate offenses for purposes of defining a career offender. He further contends his sentence is substantively unreasonable because of the very low purity of the controlled substance he sold and the career offender guidelines’ over-representation of his criminal history. We once again hold that the Commission’s career offender guidelines are a permissible interpretation of the relevant statutes. See United States v. Rivera, 996 F.2d 993, 994-97 (9th Cir.1993). We further conclude that the district court was mistaken about the impact of the purity of the controlled substance, but that Stewart’s sentence was nonetheless reasonable under the totality of the circumstances. We therefore…