Case: 19-12841 Date Filed: 07/15/2020 Page: 1 of 9 [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ________________________ No. 19-12841 Non-Argument Calendar ________________________ D.C. Docket No. 0:18-cr-60266-FAM-1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus ERNEST RAY SIMMONS, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida ________________________ (July 15, 2020) Before JORDAN, NEWSOM, and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges. Case: 19-12841 Date Filed: 07/15/2020 Page: 2 of 9 PER CURIAM: Ernest Simmons appeals his 180-month sentence, imposed after he pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(2). Simmons argues that the district court erred in enhancing his sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e) (“ACCA”). No reversible error has been shown; we affirm. Before sentencing, the probation officer prepared a presentence investigation report (“PSI”). In pertinent part, the probation officer determined that Simmons qualified as an armed career criminal based on Simmons’s three prior Florida convictions for the sale of cocaine, in violation of Fla. Stat. § 893.13. The PSI included details about Simmons’s three sale-of-cocaine convictions, including that the convictions stemmed from drug sales that occurred on 7 October 1993, 21 January 1994, and 25 January 1994. Simmons objected to the PSI’s determination that he qualified for an ACCA- enhanced sentence. Simmons first argued that -- although the two January 1994 drug sales happened on separate dates -- they were part of the same “episode” because the sales involved the same undercover officer, location, amount of drugs, 2 Case: 19-12841 Date Filed: 07/15/2020 Page: 3 of 9 and price. Based on the Supreme Court’s decision in Shepard,1 Simmons asserted that the sentencing court was not permitted to use police reports to determine the nature of his prior convictions. Simmons contended that no Shepard-approved document demonstrated that his Florida convictions constituted “serious drug offenses.” At the sentencing hearing, Simmons presented two arguments challenging his classification as an armed career criminal: (1) that the Shepard-approved documents failed to show which subsection of Fla. Stat. § 893.13 formed the basis of Simmons’s prior convictions and (2) that the two January 1994 drug sales constituted a single criminal episode. The district court overruled Simmons’s objections to his ACCA classification. The district court then sentenced Simmons to the statutory mandatory minimum sentence of 180 months’ imprisonment. I. On appeal, Simmons first challenges the district court’s determination that his Florida convictions under Fla. Stat. § 893.13 constituted “serious drug offenses” for purposes of the ACCA. 1 Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13 (2005). 3 Case: 19-12841 Date Filed: 07/15/2020 Page: 4 of 9 We review de novo whether a prior conviction qualifies as a “serious drug offense” under the ACCA. United States v. Longoria, 874 F.3d 1278, 1281 (11th Cir. 2017). The ACCA provides that a defendant who violates 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) and who has 3 prior convictions for a violent felony or a serious drug offense “committed on ...
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