Background
Rudolph pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine hydrochloride and cocaine base. His advisory Guidelines range originally included a career-offender enhancement based on Louisiana cocaine-trafficking convictions from 1996 and 2004. In an earlier appeal, the Fifth Circuit agreed that the government had not shown Rudolph served part of the sentence on the 1996 conviction within fifteen years of the 2018 federal offense, so it vacated and remanded for resentencing with review of any supplemental evidence on that issue. On remand, the district court held an evidentiary hearing, again found the enhancement applicable, and imposed 186 months of imprisonment followed by five years of supervised release.
The court’s reasoning
The court said Rudolph was largely wrong to claim the government relied on the same proof as before. At the remand hearing, the government offered some prior documentation, some new documentation, and testimony. The panel held that this evidence showed by a preponderance of the evidence that Rudolph received a five-year prison sentence in the 1996 drug case and served some portion of that sentence within the fifteen years preceding the federal offense. The court rejected Rudolph’s argument that the evidence was unreliable. It therefore held that the district court did not err in assigning criminal history points to the 1996 conviction and applying the career-offender enhancement. The panel also held that Rudolph’s renewed argument that Louisiana’s definition of cocaine was broader than the federal definition was outside the scope of the prior remand because he had not raised it in the original appeal.
The district court on remand held an evidentiary hearing at which the Government presented some previously presented documentation, some new documentation, and testimony showing by a preponderance of the evidence
Slip op. at 2
What it means going forward
Rudolph’s 186-month sentence and five-year term of supervised release remain in place, and the Fifth Circuit confirmed that the remand allowed the district court to consider supplemental evidence on the timing of service for the 1996 conviction but not a new overbreadth challenge to the predicate offense.