NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit Chicago, Illinois 60604 Argued February 27, 2019 Decided March 21, 2019 Before DIANE P. WOOD, Chief Judge WILLIAM J. BAUER, Circuit Judge ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge No. 18‐1548 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appeal from the United States District Plaintiff‐Appellee, Court for the Northern District of Indiana, South Bend Division. v. No. 3:17CR63‐001 JASON L. ANDERSON, Robert L. Miller, Jr., Defendant‐Appellant. Judge. O R D E R Jason Anderson pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm as a felon. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The district court determined that Anderson qualified as an Armed Career Criminal based on three prior cocaine‐dealing convictions, and so it imposed the minimum sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment. See id. § 924(e)(1). Anderson offers three reasons why he should not have been designated an armed career criminal. First, two of his three convictions occurred close in time and therefore (he says) they count as only one predicate offense under ACCA. Second, he postulates that the statute underlying those two convictions is broader than ACCA’s definition of a “serious drug offense,” and so neither one is a predicate offense. Third, he contends that because none of three No. 18‐1548 Page 2 convictions was proven to a jury, none may count as a predicate offense. These arguments do not persuade us, and so we affirm the district court’s judgment. I The procedural history of this case is straightforward. While Anderson, a felon, was detained on drug charges, police recovered guns at his home. He later pleaded guilty to illegal firearm possession under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The government sought an enhanced sentence under ACCA based on three previous convictions that, it argued, were “serious drug offense[s]” that Anderson committed “on occasions different from one another.” 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). One conviction was for possession with intent to deliver cocaine under Illinois law. See 720 ILCS 570/401(a)(2)(A) (2004). The second and third were for dealing more than three grams of cocaine in violation of IND. CODE § 35‐48‐4‐1(b)(1) (1998). This appeal concerns those last two convictions. Anderson conceded that his convictions were serious drug offenses under ACCA, but he contended that the two Indiana convictions were just one predicate offense because they had not necessarily occurred on separate occasions, see 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). The operative indictment stated that in 2000 Anderson committed an Indiana felony “on or about” September 22 by dealing cocaine, and that he committed another Indiana felony “on or about” September 21, also by dealing cocaine. The sales were made to the same buyer. Anderson urged that the indictment did not foreclose the possibility that the sales were made on the same occasion. (Anderson also argued that the government should have charged his previous convictions in his indictment and proven them to a jury, but he conceded that Almendarez‐Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224 (1998), forecloses this argument at our level.) ...
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