United States of America v. Quame Serzion Bennett

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 21-2304
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United States of America
Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
Quame Serzion Bennett
Defendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the Southern District of Iowa - Eastern
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Submitted: October 17, 2022
Filed: February 8, 2023
[Unpublished]
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Before COLLOTON, KELLY, and KOBES, Circuit Judges.
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PER CURIAM.
Quame Bennett was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, 18
U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(2); possession with intent to distribute a controlled
substance, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(D); and possession of a firearm in
furtherance of a drug trafficking offense, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i). At
sentencing, Bennett was designated a career offender due to two prior state law drug

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convictions. The district court1 sentenced him to 180 months in prison. Bennett
appeals, arguing that he is not a career offender because his state convictions do not
count as predicate offenses. We affirm.
To be a career offender, a defendant must have “at least two prior felony
convictions of . . . a controlled substance offense.” U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1. We review
de novo whether a prior conviction qualifies as a controlled substance offense.
United States v. Williams, 926 F.3d 966, 969 (8th Cir. 2019). A prior state
conviction does not qualify as a controlled substance offense if the conviction was
secured under a state law that “criminalize[s] more than the guidelines definition of
controlled substance offense.” United States v. Castellanos Muratella, 956 F.3d 541,
543 (8th Cir. 2020) (cleaned up).
In 2017, Bennett was twice convicted under Iowa Code § 124.401 for
possession of marijuana with intent to deliver. At the time, federal law and the Iowa
Code included hemp in their definitions of marijuana. See 21 U.S.C. § 802(16)
(2016); Iowa Code § 124.101(19) (2016). By the time Bennett was sentenced, both
federal and Iowa law excluded hemp from their definitions of marijuana. Bennett
says that his 2017 state convictions are not predicate offenses because the Iowa Code
penalized more conduct than what federal law and the Guidelines now capture.
Our precedent squarely forecloses Bennett’s argument. In United States v.
Jackson,2 we suggested “that the ordinary meaning of controlled substance is any
type of drug whose manufacture, possession, and use is regulated by law.” No. 20-
3684, 2022 WL 303231, at *1 (8th Cir. Feb. 2, 2022) (per curiam) (cleaned up)
1 The Honorable John A. Jarvey, then Chief Judge, United States District Court
for the Southern District of Iowa, now retired.
2 Although Jackson is unpublished, we applied Jackson in United States v.
Bailey, 37 F.4th 467 (8th Cir. 2022) (per curiam), petition for cert. filed sub nom.,
Altman v. United States (U.S. Oct. 20, 2022) (No. 22-5877),
https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/pub
lic/22-5877.html.

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(quoting United States v. Henderson, 11 F.4th 713, 718 (8th Cir. 2021)). Just like
Bennett, the defendant in Jackson was previously convicted under a hemp-inclusive
version of the Iowa Code, yet Congress and Iowa had removed hemp from their
definitions of marijuana by the time of the defendant’s federal conviction. We found
the changes immaterial, explaining that a substance controlled under state law need
not be controlled under federal law. Id. at *1−2. The same is true here.
Bennett’s marijuana convictions under the hemp-inclusive version of the Iowa
Code “categorically qualified as controlled substance offenses for the career
offender enhancement.” Id. at *2. The district court did not err, and we affirm.
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