United States v. John Gilbert Kovac

This case presents the question, inter alia, whether a statement in a state pretrial sentence report describing a conversation between the defendant and a law enforcement officer is sufficient to designate the defendant as a career offender under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1. Under the circumstances presented by this case, we hold that it is not, and vacate the sentence imposed by the district court.

I

On October 24, 2000, John Kovac robbed a bank in Las Vegas, Nevada. Kovac pleaded guilty to bank robbery in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113 (a). The district court imposed a sentence of 170 months for the offense after determining that Kovac was a career offender under the prescriptions of U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1, based on a state presen-tence investigation report. On appeal, the government conceded that the documentation it had submitted to the district court was not sufficient to establish the conviction as a qualifying predicate offense because the presentence report did not contain a statutory reference for the crime at issue. On the government's concession, a panel of this Court vacated the sentence and remanded for re-sentencing.

On remand, the government tendered additional proof in support of…